Model Railroading > Cracked Athearn axle gears?

Speaking of cracked axle gears, I recently found some Athearn axle gears that were split just like the Proto axles. I was working on an older Stewart AS616 (pre bowser) installing a decoder and doing general maintenance. Attempting to regage the wheels I found that all the wheels were loose on the axle gears. These early AS616s used athearn gear train parts and axles. Never have found another Athearn diesel with this problem, yet. Guess I'll have to check the rest of my Athearn units..Just thought I would let everyone know.
Charlie

Quite a few of my Athearn Ready-to-run axles have split. Not expensive or hard to replace. I just dropped Athearn a note and they replaced them. Bowser has been accomodating on other parts issues.

Thanks for the report.  I have about a half-dozen of those models and will check them out.

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

I too have found original Athearn BB/RTR gears cracked. It's the same issue as when when the knock-off Proto2000 line was developed. My take is that it was an Athearn design defect that was copied over to the Proto2000 line. Both used the same plastic for the gear housing. If you have some surviving gear housing that are intact I suggest drilling out the bore in them to a slightly larger size. I did that with mine and not had a problem. I'd give the re-bore size but I can't seem to find where I stored it right now. If you'd rather just replace then both the Athearn and Walthers replacement sets should work, hopefully with a revised design.

best regards,
Mark G.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/20 23:06 by MarkG.

http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH60024

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL