I am thinking of upgrading some of my Intermountain F7 drives with Athearn sound/DCC drives. Will the Intermountain shells fit without modification?
Thanks in advance,
Jerry Zeman
The Intermountain shell may fit fine, since most high quality F-unit chassis and mounting designs are similar. The Athearn drive uses MRC DCC and sound, which I’ve heard is poor, but the actual chassis is good. Stewart now has their chassis available I think with Lok-Sound, and the Stewart drive is considered to be the best ever made for F-units. You may want to look into that one instead if you’re at all picky about sound quality and performance.
PROBLEM - even if shell dimensions fit - is each manufacturer has different ‘attaching’ methods. Athearn BB had holes in shell to fit over ‘nipples’ on chassis’. Stewart uses window ‘portholes’ to hook onto chassis. Model power used machine screws from roof, etc.
Even GENESIS F-7 shells dont readily attach to ATHEARN F-7 chassis’.
ANSWER is probably not. Every time I PICK UP my customized SD-60 with “matching” Cannon chassis, the chassis falls out, severing the attached headlight wires.
The IM chassis’ - with or without sound - are more dependable than Athearn’s, anyways. It’s a H.D. copy of Stewart’s. i’ve replaced two Genesis motors already.
Do you mean Athearn Genesis? Can you even get Athearn sound/DCC drives? Then my next question is why would you want to? The electronics in these units are probably the least reliable, poorest performing, and worst sounding in the entire world of DCC/sound.
“Without modification”, I would say almost certainly not but do not know for certain. All my Genesis have come with the Highliner shells so there is no way I would want to swap them out for Intermountain Shells. I cannot even recall the method Intermountain uses to connect the shell to the chassis.
well if you still decide to go this route, I will gladly take those Highliner shells off your hands. The Highliner shell is the best, Stewart and especially Stewart/ kato is the best drive. I would be looking to do that combination. 86 that crappy MRC.
I would agree that chosing the Stewart and install the sound. I believe that you can modify or fabricate styrene latches to hook the Stewart frame.
So the opinion here is that Stewart F units drive is as good as Intermountain or Athearn, am I understanding that correctly? I haven’t seen a Stewart F unit in years, since they were powered by Kato… Are their paint applications on parr with Intermountain and Genesis. Thanks
Well, I’m certainly glad I asked for some advice.
Right now, I have my Intermountain bodies on Stewart drives. The drives are excellent, the GN and NP Intermountain shells I am very happy with, even though they have the larger handrails.
I have a set of Athearn Genesis F units, have not had any problems with them to date, but they were not sound or decoder equipped. I added NCE decoders.
Thanks for the feedback guys.
Regards,
Jerry Zeman
The Intermountain “F” shells were made at first to fit on the Athearn BB drives and the Stewart drives. Later, IM decided to make thier own drives. After that , they sent them all to China to be assembled, hence the IM units you see today. Frank, the CEO and President of IM, hates the term “Ready to Run”, although now I see they are using it.
Dick
Texas Chief
you can buy Genesis F-unit drives without shells in both A and B versions,(not interchangeable)
with or without sound, in silver or black.
Item # G33003 is Black A-unit mechanism with sound.
full list
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=mechanism+ATHG&CatID=THLD
standard BB shells will NOT fit on the Genesis Drives.
A Stewart Shell will fit if you trim off the locator guides on the inside of the shell that are right under the windshield frame running to about 3/4 of the way down the shell.
I would assume an Intermtn shell would also fit, with possible minor modifications.