So since I finally have enough track down to run a loco back and forth more than 3 feet, I pulled out one of my P2K Geeps that I put a decoder in. Thump Thump Thump - cracked gears. Last week I called Athearn and ordered some gears - kudos to Athearn, I got them today. So upstairs I went, pulled out the Geep, and set to replacing gears. What was supposedly grease looked more like semi-dried caulk, I scraped that out while I had the covers off. In went the new Athearn gears - by the third axle I was getting the wheels spaced right BEFORE I checked with the NMRA gauge. A small drop of labelle gear lube on each gear, snapped the covers back on, and over to the layout I went - nice and smooth and quiet!
I got enough gears to do every P2K loco that might have the problem - 3 more Geeps and 2 sets of FAs. As I get to putting decoders in them I will swap the gears and head the problem off at the pass (I HATE that cliche!).
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrinker So since I finally have enough track down to run a loco back and forth more than 3 feet, I pulled out one of my P2K Geeps that I put a decoder in. Thump Thump Thump - cracked gears. Last week I called Athearn and ordered some gears - kudos to Athearn, I got them today. So upstairs I went, pulled out the Geep, and set to replacing gears. What was supposedly grease looked more like semi-dried caulk, I scraped that out while I had the covers off. In went the new Athearn gears - by the third axle I was getting the wheels spaced right BEFORE I checked with the NMRA gauge. A small drop of labelle gear lube on each gear, snapped the covers back on, and over to the layout I went - nice and smooth and quiet! I got enough gears to do every P2K loco that might have the problem - 3 more Geeps and 2 sets of FAs. As I get to putting decoders in them I will swap the gears and head the problem off at the pass (I HATE that cliche!). --Randy
Nice work, Randy !
I did the same thing some time ago with several of my P2K's.
I wonder how many thousands of these engines were sold with cracked gears.
Rich
Alton Junction
What did you use to remove the old gears and/or install the new ones? Did you use a gear puller? I guess removing the old cracked ones would be easy but getting the new ones on sounds like it could be difficult.
Springfield PA
Blue, it is pretty easy, even I can do it. You just push the wheels into the center gear with your fingers.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
cudaken Blue, it is pretty easy, even I can do it. You just push the wheels into the center gear with your fingers. Cuda Ken
That's what I do. You just need to make sure the wheels are centered on the gear and that they are in gauge.
Will
Yup, they pulled off easily, even the non-cracked ones (I repalced them all, I don't want to keep going back as one after another eventually cracks). Twist and pull. ANd putting the stub axles in the new ones isn't much harder, twisting while pushing helps them slide right on. Get them centered and almost all the way in, with a slight gap on either side, and check with the NMRA gauge for final adjustment. They are NOT self-gauging, you need to check.
richhotrainI wonder how many thousands of these engines were sold with cracked gears.
A few thoughts:
Randy, glad you got them running, I am very happy with my 50+ Proto2000 locos, many in the effected group since I model 1954 (8 GP7's, 15 ALCO FA/FB's, 3 BL2's, etc).
I seriously doubt any of these gears were cracked when the locos were made. And many were not cracked when the locs were sold - unless you bought them years later, as many of the subject locos were made in large production runs and did sit on shelves for many years.
Based on my own experiances, of having locos run fine at first, then crack later, I do believe that time, temperature change or both played a role in this failure. There was no way that LifeLike could have known at the time of manufacture that these gears were bad or would fail.
I replaced all of mine with complete wheel sets from LifeLike/Walthers - no replacement set has EVER failed. I do understand Walthers has become a little tighter about giving them away, and at one point I did simply pay for some to have plenty of spares.
In fact, I have used them to upgrade old Athearn locos that had the iron wheels.
Still, gracked gears and all, they have been graet running and great looking locos at great prices!
Sheldon
I check with Walthers several months ago and was told they weren't under warranty anymore. I guess if I'd spent enough time talking to different people I might have received them for free. The price is $1.50 per axle, including wheels and bearings. My P2K units are almost new, so I decided to buy the Athearn gears. Since they are cataloged as SD replacements, they come 6 gears to a pack. I bought enough to do my current livery as well as several future purchases.
Oh I love the P2K locos, especially when I can pick them up for $25-$30 still int he box. The Geep in question definitely did not have a cracked gear when I installed the decoder in it last year and test ran is on a piece of flex track. Yet it's been stored in an air-conditioned room since then, not subject to temperature or humidity extremes. That test run probably was the first time it had ever turned a wheel, when I bought it the box was still wrapped. When I tried it out this time, it actually was so bad it would bind the mechanism. I actually have had all these locos before, so this is the second time with the same products - I previously had replaced all the gears in that batch, but that was before Walthers and you could just call up Life Liek and they'd send out the repalcements. Since I'm buying these at trains hows and on eBay I don't have the requisite receipts to get the replacements from Walthers, and the Athearn gears are cheap enough. There's nothing wrong with the P2k wheels, so why not. I'd actually been plannign to order the gears from Athearn for some time, but wil an ever-growing to do list and actually running still somewhat in the future I kept putting it off.
Athearn doesn't make gears FOR P2K locos, it makes the gears for their own engines. It so happens that when Lifelike started the P2K line they used a clone of the Athearn truck. This is why they fit
What does it cost to get replacement gears from Athern?
Dennis Blank Jr.
CEO,COO,CFO,CMO,Bossman,Slavedriver,Engineer,Trackforeman,Grunt. Birdsboro & Reading Railroad
You want Athearn part 60024, SD40-2 axle gears. Pack of 6 (for 6 axles) is $4.98. If you order direct it's $5.50 shipping and handling in addition - but it's flat rate, I ordered 5 packs of gears and it was $5.50. Guess I should have gotten 6 but as far as I can tell (without digging through my boxes or inventory program), I have a max of 6 locos that could have the cracked gear problem, meaning I'd need 24 gears, so I should still have a few extras.
If you have a newer P2K loco, it shouldn't have a gear problem. Only certain runs have the cracked gear issue, which happens to include all 4 road numbers they did for Reading.
Dang, Randy, you got some track down. You were my last hope. I guess I'm the slowest one now at getting a layout going.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
I am horribly slow - there's a little more since the last pictures I put on my site, but that's almost a year's worth of work now - I AM slow. I don't even have all the benchwork built. I need to step it up by a lot.
rrinkerYou want Athearn part 60024, SD40-2 axle gears.
Colin ---------- There's just no end to cabooseless trains.
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cmurrayI've addressed this issue in the past but will repeat my idea at the risk of being pooh-poohed again. I concluded that the reason the gears split is that the bore through the gear is just slightly too small for the axle stub that has to be inserted. Over time, the extra pressure of the axle in the plastic gear is too much and the gear eventually splits.
Well you may be right, or you may be wrong. I can't say. But for whatever it is worth, I was recently reading the letters to the editor in an older issue of MR. One of the letters was from a person that worked at NorthWest Short Line. This would have been when the company was run by the previous owners. The subject of the letter was cracked gears.
His statement was that NWSL gears did not crack because they were machined from a solid bar of cured engineering plastic. In contrast, he said that the molded gears that were causing problems were made while the plastic was "fresh" (my word). After the gear was installed on the shaft, the gear would shrink as it started to cure. Because the gear bore could not shrink, the cracking would occur.
This explanation sounded reasonable and made the most sense to me.
maxmanHis statement was that NWSL gears did not crack because they were machined from a solid bar of cured engineering plastic. In contrast, he said that the molded gears that were causing problems were made while the plastic was "fresh" (my word). After the gear was installed on the shaft, the gear would shrink as it started to cure. Because the gear bore could not shrink, the cracking would occur. This explanation sounded reasonable and made the most sense to me.
This makes sense to me too.
On my old sets I got the replacement gears free from LifeLike. Those never cracked.The old explanation was that the sizes were off due partly to an English-Metric conversion issue, but it only affected certain P2K runs so I really suspect it was perhaps a bad batch of plastic with slightly different properties. Out of the 4 axles, only 1 was actually cracked - right through completely from left to right, right through the gear. Very obvious when looking at it. The explanation from NWSL makes sense, perhaps they were behind on gear production and were using them up as fast as they were made instead of having them sit around for a while after being molded. Dumping fresh ones on the top of the bin explains why they don;t all have the problem, even from the same production runs - ones grabbed from the top were the 'green' plastic prone to cracking, but as the workers started reaching the bottom of the bin they got some older ones that were cured enough to not shrink much, and those don't crack.
It's not only model trains that suffer from the cracked gear issue. A Toshiba DVD drive in my computer had gotten very noisy when ejecting or inserting a disk, which I first thought was a lack of lubrication, but a little Teflon grease didn't do the trick. When it started to have trouble opening the tray a few weeks back, I took it apart and discovered that the motor pinion for the tray drive was split. Luckily enough I had a replacement, because I tear old drives down for parts, so I slipped on a new pinion, and it's fine. If a big electronics firm like Toshiba can get bitten by the gear gremlin, it makes it easier to forgive model train manufacturers for occasional problems like this.
I've replaced old P2K axle gears with Athearns as well, and it has to be one of the easiest repairs in the hobby.
Nelson
Ex-Southern 385 Being Hoisted