Long story short - found a brass Samhongsa Pennsy GP 9 like this one at a garage sale for almost nothing, and would like to make it my “project” loco in terms of upgrading it to DCC, new lighting, etc. but first things first: it’s gears are complely shredded, rotten to the core. A cursory look online has shown that this is a notorious problem – I’d dig for more info about how to replace this mess but don’t really even know where to begin. Any suggestions would be most appreciated!
Northwest Short Line may be one place to go … I’ll e-mail them my question.
I got my two Samhongsa U25B’s running again with replacement gears from NWSL. I only had to do the top ones in each gear tower. On my particular model, the part number was 1060-6. Important in picking the right gears was the existing gear OD and ID (shaft size) and tooth count and what type of angle the teeth were cut at (straight cut, RH, or LH). You might also want to pick up some thrust washers for shimming the various shafts.
Ed