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I have some 20 year old Athearn BB Locos and dummies that I am refurbishing and running on top of my ping pong table for the Holidays. I have two dummy locos: GE U30B and a GP38-2. As a kid with no money the idea of buying dummy locos seemed like a brilliant idea. Today I have realised that the cheap plastic wheel sets on these cause a terrible drag on the powered locos.
Athearn uses a regular powered truck assembly without gears and a plastic wheels set with no real bearing which casues the terrible drag. Since I had all my locos apart for axle gear replacements, I dropped in my F7 metal wheels into the GE 30B trucks. This made the GE 30B dummy run real smooth on the tracks, but I got a nasty suprise when I tried to power the layout with a dead short. It seems that Athearn made Dummies with two front trucks instead of one front and one rear. This worked fine as long as you used plastic wheels but will not work with real metal wheels as both inner ond outer wheels are now grounding to the frame..
I was planning on getting some NWSL nickel silver wheels for my GP50 and using the original Athearn wheels in the dummy with some old plastic axle gears to connect the two wheel halves, but now I would need some rear trucks.
I don't think it's cost effective to buy new Athearn replacement trucks or even to try and convert them to powered units unless I find a deal on ebay for old Athearn frames and parts.
If anybody has any thoughts on putting better wheels on Athearn dummy units let me know.
Could it be the trucks on your model got mixed up? I still have several original Athearn SD40-2 dummies new in the box and the trucks are different, just checked to be sure. I added metal powered wheels to dummy trucks many years ago without any problem.
I would suggest you examine the trucks and make sure that the metal clips on top are pointing in the same direction, if they aren't then theres your culprit. You may have accidently mixed up the trucks and you have two locos with identical trucks in them now and both of them will short out, common mistake.
I've stripped them down before and put them back together and realised the trucks were in 180 degrees off and it ran opposite of what it was supposed to, but that can be fixed easily with dcc.
Well the plastic wheels always seemed to have a lot of friction to them, I'll clean them up and see if it helps. I would still like to have metal wheels though. Here are a few pictures of the trucks off of the two dummy locos. As you can see in the last picture all four trucks are the same. Once you rotate the frame to mount onto the loco frame, both the left hand side and right hand side wheels will both be going to ground the frame causing a short. Maybe the hobby store I purchased them from had switched trucks before I bought, or it was standard Athearn practice to use whatever truck they had handy. In either case I can't just add standard Athearn metal wheels to these dummy locos.
Whoa! Does the metal piece connect both sides of the truck? On a live engine there is an 'L' that is elevated and a 'short of touching the other side' piece.
Looks like that may be the source of the short. Compare to a live engine. Best I can do for a photo is:
The apparent culprit here is that the trucks have been switched at the manufacturer. If anyone else will look at a powered unit and pull the trucks, flip one of them around, you'll notice that they are completely opposite of each other as the "L" clip will be opposing then, when it is flipped back around it will then be on the same side but on opposing ends of the frame.
Looks like your only choice here is either replace one of the trucks on each loco or keep using the plastic sleeved dummy wheels sets.
Yep, it looks like four of the same trucks to me. If you look at a powered Athearn engine, the gear towers should face each other when the tracks are correctly installed. Your trucks all have gear towers facing away from each other, which indicates you got four of what would normally be the front trucks. You can buy two of the correct rear dummy trucks at http://www.athearn.com/Products/Parts/Default.aspx for about $5 each.
All that being said, I've found the dummy trucks with the plastic wheels can be made to roll freely by reaming out the bearing hole in the truck side frame. The powered trucks have a finer needlepoint axle and the dummies have more of a blunt end. Just reaming a slightly larger hole in the side frame allows the plastic wheels to turn freely.
Your trucks all have gear towers facing away from each other, which indicates you got four of what would normally be the front trucks. You can buy two of the correct rear dummy trucks at http://www.athearn.com/Products/Parts/Default.aspx for about $5 each.
I don't think Athearn made any 4 axle front and rear dummy trucks or they just aren't available. I would have to buy powered trucks to ensure that I received the proper trucks and they woul include metal wheels and exta gears to keep on hand.
Nevermind, Horizon is out of stock on all trucks powered or not. Guess I will have to wait until China production is up and BB kits and parts return if ever.
I will scour ebay for old Athearn powered units for parts.
If those are all the same type truck I can see how they would short when placed the way they're made to. Try putting one truck in so the top of the gear tower faces the end of the frame and put the other one in so it's gear tower faces the middle of the frame and see what happens.
A few years ago I saw something really neat done with an ‘S’-scale dummy loco and am sure it could also be done with one of your HO units if you were interested.
My brother, a Caterpillar technician, learned that CAT was supplying the engines used in locomotive rebuilds.
Realizing this, we started to keep an eye out for evidence of CAT parts being used in rebuilds and soon discovered that a substantial number of locomotives are operated with their access panels open, displaying their diesels.
My brother then purchased a “dummy” GP-35, modified and painted it to be a GP-38. He also cut away one of the plastic louver doors and replaced it with a brass door that could be bent open. He placed a 1:64th scale CAT engine inside and weathered it appropriately, creating an amazing model.
If those are all the same type truck I can see how they would short when placed the way they're made to. Try putting one truck in so the top of the gear tower faces the end of the frame and put the other one in so it's gear tower faces the middle of the frame and see what happens.
I can do that with the GE U30B as the frame is really open and the truck will go either way, but the GP38-2 trucks only go one way due to the way the frame is made. I like your outside the box thinking, that's what I was looking for to get some other ideas. So I can convert the U boat with metal wheels no problem.
wheeler1963 said:
Jerry, send me a PM with your address. I have some trucks here and we can swap 2 so we get you up and running.
Wow, that's a very generous offer, but I think we'll just put these on a side yard. I already ordered a new Athearn RTR UP AC4400, will be nice to try out the newer Athearn line. I will collect used Athearn parts over time and fix these up. It's really no big deal, just wanted to get to the bottom of the problem.
