The Athearn sets that I have bought are always in the form of a 6 pack.You buy two packs and you can do 3 four axle locos.If you do it the way I do you can do 3 six axle units by only replacing two wheel sets and leaving the sintered set (I leave the center set) to help with pulling power.These wheel sets and gears will work in any Athearn clone chassis.
Then all the Proto engines would have those cheap bulbs ! [swg]
Mark.
My understanding is only the 4 axle gp units split. Has that changed to include the sd units?
All of the GP and SD locos had the cracked gear problem. I replaced gears on the SD7 and SD9.
Rich
How about the sd 50/60s?
I’ve got several of those. The post I asked about mentioned geared axles with nickel silver wheels. I have not seen those on Ebay, the Athearn site, or anywhere else.
We are starting to see the cracked gear issue on some older blue box Athearns, GP38-2’s and SD9’s that run at the local club. Most of the SD’s have high milage on them and its only the plastic side frame units doing it. The older diecast side frame units havent had any issues and they are even higher milage than the newer plastic side frame engines. We havent seen any issues with P2K E units or SD50/60 units, of which there are several on the layout. Just seen the issue on SD7/9’s and the GP’s. Parts are cheap and easy to come by, so its just a minor inconveince when one goes down for an axle gear issue. Just gets “shopped” on the next work night. Mike
NO.
I have a 2004 or so DCC E-6 (LifeLike P2K) that I acquired that had cracked gears. The Walthers tech fellow told me it was not a problem with the 6-axle diesels but it was with this one. I found the Athearn gears (different number of teeth) would not work right and NWSL did not have the right one. The solution was to buy two new front trucks to get the gears. I recently got another DC E6 that I think was an earlier run and I’ve converted it to DCC and it runs fine. I don’t know if it’s a different gear ratio (didn’t check that out when it was open).
Yes, no one has those. That was what Life Like, and then Walters, was giving as replacements for cracked gears. There was a thought that the axles were too big, or the gears too small, and that caused the cracking - but the original wheels in the Athearn gears are just fine. Before Walthers, all you had to do was call Life Liek and say you had cracked gears, they’d send you 4 sets of wheels and gears. Since they are Athearn clones, you could take the wheels and use them to replace the inferior sintered iron wheels on BB locos. Unless the posts were deleted, they might still be here - many years ago, I recall people posting, more or less boasting about how they got free wheels for Athearn locos. Any wonder Walthers started asking for proof of purchase? NWSL probably sells compatible gears, and I know they have the wheels, I used them on my old BB locos. Already assembled together? I doubt anyone has that. NWSL probbaly has gears with the proper number of teeth for the other drive ratios like the E units, as well. NWSL has like everything driveline related.
–Randy
Never understood why LL and later Walters serviced this issue as a wheel set and not just the gears. Obviously, modelers are able to change the gears as many are simply buying the Athearn axle gears.
They could have included a go/no go gage if getting the correct width was a concern. Would have been cheaper and eliminated a lot of fraud. [:(]
With the trend to RTR, ask yourself that question again. It’s too much like ‘work’ to actually pull the wheels out of the gear axles and put them on a new one.
The attitudes of most people who post here with respect to kits and actually working on models is skewed from the general population - if this site were an accurate survey of hobby attitudes, then kit sales would be rising. Simpler to just sned the complete assebly and drop it in (and hope it didn’t get bumped in shipping to change the gauge). Had they shipped just repalcement gears liek the Athearn part, indeed it would have eliminated the fraud, but I can see a whole lot of complaints - “look at this lousy customer service, they expect me to do WHAT?” Would have been a fine solution for me, you, and any number of other people who post here, but Joe down the street who only buys RTR equipment and is a table thumper of the first class because the prefab track on his 5x10 layout wher ehe can;t reach the middle has exactly one feeder because ho only ever bought one terminal track section is not going to want to and may not even know how to change out just the gear. He might muddle through taking the whole assembly out and dropping another one in.
And now I have figured out where the extra set of wheels I have came from - the first GP7 that I had with cracked gears was still when LL owned themselves and I got the replacements through them. I was surprised actually when the replacements had the wheels and gears. Of course I saved the old wheels - who wouldn’t? I was always windering where they came from, I know I had bought NWSL wheels for a BB loco, but they were on the loco I bought them for.
–Randy
Life-Like did have a mess of gear ratios in their Protos. My SD60 has an 18:1 gear ratio using a reduction gear (which by the way, is an AMAZING runner), while my E7A has something closer to 10:1 I think? If you take a bunch of different Proto models and disassemble them, you’ll find that practically every truck has its own unique gear system.
But you still need a certain level of skill to remove the bottom gear box cover, without braking the tabs. Then get the bearings back in the side frames straight and button it back up. The push / pull / twist part of the repair is actually the easy part.
You’re being entirely too easy on LL. They sold a defective product. There would have been no fraud if they had recalled the defective product and repaired them themselves. Why should the consumer have to provide the labor to fix LL’s mistake? They probably gave some pencil pusher a bonus for finding those lousy gears for a nickel less per thousand than what good ones would have cost.
Including the cost of the fraud, they got of cheaper than they would have if they had fixed it right.
Imagine this fix from Star-Kist instead of a proper recall:
“We’re very sorry about the metal shavings in your canned tuna, to correct the problem, we’ll be sending you a magnet at no charge”.
The gear issue was an unfortunate one and could have been avoided. I think, though, that you’re on dangerous ground labelling it as fraud.
However, how many modellers would be capable of re-packing their loco(s) (the original packaging likely tossed immediately upon acquisition) in a manner that would survive the trip back to LL and then possibly back to China? And how many would be willing to pay the cost of postage? What about those who added details or decoders to their locos, or those who stripped and re-painted them for another road?
Walthers at least provided replacement parts for free, and that for a product for which they were not even responsible.
Anybody experiencing gear issues with these locos so long after the fact either hasn’t used them for years or has just bought them (likely at bargain prices) even though they knew that the locos might have split gears. Sorry, but save the tears for a real issue - this one’s history, as is the original LifeLike’s connection to model railroading.
If I were modelling the diesel era and could find the 18 locos LifeLike made for my hometown railroad, I would gladly buy them and the gears to repair them.
EDIT: Oh, and to answer the original question, I don’t know. Or was it a rhetorical one? [swg]
Wayne
I’d bet a beer it’s because the factory in China was popping out wheelsets and they just had the factory ship them a bunch, and that it was easier to dip into the production line at the point where the wheelsets were assembled rather than just the gears.
I am not labeling anything. I was referring to the fraud that was alleged to have been perpetrated against LL several posts back.
Sorry Carl, I misunderstood your comment. [:$] Of course you’re correct about the people who got replacement parts under false pretenses.
As for Walthers replacement programme, it was probably the most expedient way to deal with the issue, and it’s too bad that they got taken. In light of that, it’s not surprising that their largesse ended.
Wayne