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I bought a life-like geep second hand and its since took a dump on me. It pushes but won't pull. I assume its gearing. Anyway...The guy at hobbytown said I could send it to Walthers and they would fix or replace the guts. Is there any truth to this or does anyone have any experience with this?
TIA
-Steve
Give them a call first. They do have parts, and do some service. I'm not sure that they will still have any GP-18 parts after all these years. Repairs also may not be free.
It sounds to me like your GP18 got a classic case of the "cracked gear" syndrome, where the gear on the axle cracks after a certain amount of time, due to the center hole being a teensy bit too narrow. The problem affected all the early Proto2000 diesels, from the BL2 thru the GP30. [After the GP30 they had identified and corrected the problem.] You could either request a replacement gear from Walthers, while some people have used gears from an Athearn BB drive. The same gear is used in the GP18, GP9 and GP7.
Ken is correct. Life-Like, which is now owned by Walthers, has been replacing the gears for free although I've heard some reports they are starting to charge for them. Assuming this is a Proto 2000 GP-18, call the Walthers service line and plead your case. Even if you have to buy the gears, they are not expensive and the GP-18 is a nice model.
I just replaced a couple of axles in my P2K FA unit. If yours is cracked, you should be able to hear a clunking sound or at least feel it when you hold the loco while on the track with power applied.
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