Secondhandmodeler
All new now!
Jeffrey, you're 6 posts away from 10000! Holy cow, you should pay rent here!
RENT! I'm already part of the woodwork.Jeffrey, you're 6 posts away from 10000! Holy cow, you should pay rent here!
I had a couple of GP38's like that. Somebody figured a lube job was a bath! They were sold as RTR and they had great looking detail but the great things stopped at the shell. On both the mechanism was standard blue box. Those two locos started me on a slippery slope that turned into a land slide of bad motors, bad light boards, faulty trucks, etc. I stopped buying Athearn RTR locos over three years ago. All I buy now is blue box. I had bought I guess seven RTR locos from Athearn and over half of them ran like 80's era Bachmann diesels IF they ran at all. One caught fire on it's break-in run. I don't mean smoking, I mean burning! I have only one Athearn loco that's all Athearn, an SW1500. All my others are Frankenstein rebuilds using parts from Stewart, Bowser, Kato, Atlas, Life-Like and others. You name the company and one of them likely has a part from them. I have eleven locos on my layout right now. Of those only one is recognizable as an Athearn. A GP35. Look closer and you'll see Proto 2000 AAR trucks. The motor is from a Proto 2000 loco. Most of what's on the layout right now is Atlas and a lot of them are rebuilds. In fact, the only two locos on the layout that are NOT rebuilds are a pair of Bachmann GP7's. Apart from some cosmetic changes they're the same as they when they left the factory. How's that for a turnabout? Bachmann diesels used to be something well worth avoiding. And now these two are among the best running locos I have. They run like a couple of top end Rolex watches and even put the best of my Atlas locos to shame.Good luck with the Doc tomorrow, Jeffrey.
I spent the better part of today, rebuilding a never run Athearn RTR GP35. Typical of contemporary Athearn, there was oil over everything when I opened the packaging. When I removed the body to install the decoder there was more oil about.
I ended up disassembling the whole thing cleaning and re-lubing the trucks and gear tower, and replacing the brush springs on the motor. I ran the motor at top speed without it being connected to the gear assembly and what ever was causing the noise either seated itself or wore itself down.
I had a couple of GP38's like that. Somebody figured a lube job was a bath! They were sold as RTR and they had great looking detail but the great things stopped at the shell. On both the mechanism was standard blue box. Those two locos started me on a slippery slope that turned into a land slide of bad motors, bad light boards, faulty trucks, etc. I stopped buying Athearn RTR locos over three years ago. All I buy now is blue box. I had bought I guess seven RTR locos from Athearn and over half of them ran like 80's era Bachmann diesels IF they ran at all. One caught fire on it's break-in run. I don't mean smoking, I mean burning! I have only one Athearn loco that's all Athearn, an SW1500. All my others are Frankenstein rebuilds using parts from Stewart, Bowser, Kato, Atlas, Life-Like and others. You name the company and one of them likely has a part from them. I have eleven locos on my layout right now. Of those only one is recognizable as an Athearn. A GP35. Look closer and you'll see Proto 2000 AAR trucks. The motor is from a Proto 2000 loco. Most of what's on the layout right now is Atlas and a lot of them are rebuilds. In fact, the only two locos on the layout that are NOT rebuilds are a pair of Bachmann GP7's. Apart from some cosmetic changes they're the same as they when they left the factory. How's that for a turnabout? Bachmann diesels used to be something well worth avoiding. And now these two are among the best running locos I have. They run like a couple of top end Rolex watches and even put the best of my Atlas locos to shame.
Yeah. I've seen quite a bit of that. Some to the point that the paint was peeling off. No choice on them but to either send them back or pull the shells and give them a good bath in alcohol to finish stripping the paint. Ever pull one from the packaging and have part of the paint job stay in the packaging? Or have the entire length of long hood handrail peel off because it was stuck to the package? Those are just a few of the reasons I stopped buying the new Athearn locos. The biggest reason was because the motors were disasters. I can't see paying $100+ for a brand new loco and have it be dead as a brick right out of the box! Give me a break. Even the worst of the old Tyco's I had ran a few yards before they died. Looks like when Uncle Irv died his concept of quality died with him. Has it occurred to anybody at Athearn that people might want a good looking loco that runs as good as it looks?Funny part of yesterday's project was that I broke the bottom retainer/cover of the GP35's rear truck. I went over to my cache of unbuilt BB kits, found an undecorated BB GP35 wide body, opened up the box, and lo and behold, the domestically produced partially assembled (as BB loco kits were produced), model was swimming in lubricating oil.
I just read the rest of the forecast. Thunder snow with 30mph gusts! At least our weather isn't boring.
Yeah? Well, so was Social Security with the "Gov" and you know about that!No worries, totally separate budget from my mrr account
Rex, believe me I know how that sometimes works out - that's exactly why whenever a larger-than-usual amount of mrr money falls into my hands, I spend it as quickly as possible! The use-it-or-lose-it principle definitely applies here, to hell with "saving for a rainy day"; If I fail to act quickly, the "rain" comes and washes me clean.Yeah? Well, so was Social Security with the "Gov" and you know about that!