does anyone know where to buy a correct motor for athearns older models ? mainly to replace open frame ones . i bouight one only to find it to wide,
Are you talking about the really old silver motors (http://hoseeker.net/assemblyexplosionAthearn/athearnhustler1964.jpg and http://hoseeker.net/assemblyexplosionAthearn/athearngp9dualgeared1957pg1.jpg)? Or are you talking about the Jet 400 motor from the 70s (http://hoseeker.net/assemblyexplosionAthearn/athearnmotors8400085000.jpg)?
The Jet 400 motor can be replaced easily by Athearn’s current gold motor. They have the same mounts and shaft size, and even the same electrical system.
For the older motors, you’ll just have to get whatever motor you want and find a way to mount it. There are currently no drop-in replacements for the old motors.
With out know which motor you have and if you are DC or DCC we cannot help a lot. When I was DC I used stock RTR gold motors in the old rocket motor engines with good results.
If you are wanting to go DCC, I would look at this company. Lower power draw than the Gold Motors.
http://www.alliancelink.com/alp/
They offer some drop in motors, and some that need a little work to fit. I have yet to hear anything bad about them.
Cuda Ken
this is what i have done cleaned all trucks untill they all spin freely .made sure no binding or anything else would happen.i have eight athearn loco"s all made in the late sixties &seventies as for the motors i"am lost about the gold motors . all i know is that they are open frame motors. also all have dcc five have tsc m2 and and the others are digitrax 123.all runs great untill the three swichers started to move slowly even the throttle turn up .cv 2 are set as hi as they can go. so with this in mind i just decided to remotor the switcthers
I have seen some quality control issues with newer helix humper motors, the older ones were awsome. That being said, if you properly go thru the trucks and debur them, do the toothpaste/wear in the gear mod, then properly clean and relube them then the newer gold motors are well under the 1.5amp to 1amp draw of most sound decoders. only time I can push my blue box athearns to a 1amp solid draw is at full stall when ice cold from being in the car for an hour or so prior to train club operation. After they warm up, they are fine and how often to you take a model engine to full stall conditions? If the engine is still noisy, I remove the motor and flywheels from the chassis and run it while holding it to check to see if the flywheels are out of ballance. Several times I have found the motor to run whisper quiet with no flywheels on it, and sound like a hornets nest with the flywheels do to the flywheels being miss drilled or out of balance. A new set of flywheels from Athearn or NWSL/Timewell solves that issue. I also put brass or nylon thrust washers on the worm shaft to take up any and alll slop in that shaft. This smooths out operation down steep grades and removes binding from when the worm shaft runs in and out with the factory slop in the drive. Most times a normal Athearn blue box engine with the gold motor, can be made to run as smooth and quiet as a much newer Atlas/Proto 2K or Athearn Genesis engine. Just takes some time on the bench tuning the chassis. After they are tuned, just normal maintance is all thats needed just like any other model. Long live the blue box Athearns! Mike