How long does this take???

[JeremyB]

Hey Guys

I was at my local hobby shop this morning and picked up a CN F7A and B unit, the A unit runs great but the B unit is quite stiff, from experience how long do you guys find it takes to break in a Athearn unit???

Jeremy

[Anonymous]

In my experience, this tends to take an hour or so of continuous running. Make sure there's some grease in the truck gearing though - this can cause problems similar to yours. Also check there's nothing rubbing on moving parts inside the loco. You could also put a drop of oil on each motor bearing, as this tends to improve running.

I've also seen a trick suggested involving putting toothpaste in the truck gearing in an effort to make the loco quieter/smoother. I've tried this, but with mixed results. Considering the time and effort involved in stripping and cleaning the trucks afterwards I'm not entirely convinced that this is the best solution - just my opinion! There was, however, a noticable lessening of noise after I cleaned and regreased the trucks.

[Anonymous]

I've got 7 Athearn F7's, (3 superpower) and found that all were quite noisy initially. After cleaning and lubing after the first few hours of run time, I noticed that the noise was considerably reduced. These engines are now well used and I run them often and do run them hard. (Heavy loads, up and down inclines and keep them going for hours on end.)
They all run very quietly now and perform superbly. I use DCC and when running slowly or moderately, all you can hear is the wheels on the tracks. They will all start to "whine" a little bit when I really open the throttles and get them rolling, which I do once each time I run them so they don't always run at the same constant speeds. I also make it a point to run them in reverse for awhile often.
Since Athearn has been bought out and has moved, I hope they will survive and continue to put out reliable reasonably priced locos. For everyday runners' they are great, I save my "show" locos for more special occaisional operations.