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Rubber mounting athearn motors
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Here's what I do to tune the Athearn's. I too have a couple of AC4400's, and with a little work they'll run like a champ and be fairly quiet. <br /> <br />1. Remove and dismantle the trucks. Clean them up, and lightly grease the gears and especially any axle areas. Use a plastic compatable grease, or a silicone grease. <br /> <br />2. Dismantle the worm gear head. Is there any extra play in it? Find a SMALL washer and shim the end of it to remove any extra play. You want just a smidgen of play in it. This is a source of noise. Use light oil on the worm gear thrust bearings, and heavy grease on the worm gear itself. <br /> <br />3. Reassemble the trucks, mount back in body, and attach gear head. As you mount the gear head glue the motor end of the drive shaft in place with a smidgen of silicone caulk. This will prevent lash in the driveline and remove noise. This will also allow you to remove the driveline in the future if you need to. <br /> <br />4. Clean the motor armature with a pencil eraser. Wash it off afterwards with a Q-Tip and alcohol, nothing stronger. <br /> <br />5. Add lead sheets to the top of the body. Add as much as possible. You'll need to CAREFULLY measure the body and the frame to see how much you can add. Fill every space possible. If you're careful you can add as much as 12 ounces of lead to the locomotive. <br /> <br />6. Hot-wire the locomotive by replacing the copper "flap strip" that makes contact to the trucks with a thin wire soldered between the top of the motor and the trucks. Remove this from the motor before soldering it so you don't ruin the motor brush springs. Watch out as you remove it that the springs don't go shooting across the room! You can trim off the unused ends of this copper strip so that all you have left is the part that clips onto the motor holding the brushes in place and the jumper wires to the trucks. <br /> <br />When you're all done you now have a much quieter locomotive that'll pull the paint off walls that will run smoother and be more reliable. <br /> <br />Mark in Utah
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