yeah,I had one of those BL2.forgot all about it till reading these posts.It did make that clunking sound while pulling.I thing i just scapped it after a lackluster attempt at repair.However,I recently purchased the walthers H-44 with sound and its squeeling badly.As loud as the sound system itself,which by the way the has the lowest volume by far of all my other sound equipped locos.Whats up with that?
Send 'em back for R/R..No need to fix a high end locomotive and Walther's needs to know they have a QC problem...
FWIW the crack gear issue still appears from time to time on some newer models..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
New Haven I-5 Oh, I have one of the older P2K's (Formerly Jeffery's) and it had a cracked gear before my ownership, and it runs fine. Oh, and by the way, it's a GP-30.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Oh, I have one of the older P2K's (Formerly Jeffery's) and it had a cracked gear before my ownership, and it runs fine. Oh, and by the way, it's a GP-30.
- Luke
Modeling the Southern Pacific in the 1960's-1980's
Did you buy the locomotives new? I have several P2K locomotives and all run beautifully. No problems at all.
Our number one kid has several P2K GP-7 & GP-9 locomotives and all had cracked gears/axles. We xontacted Walthers and they replaced the defective axles with new parts.
As mentioned the defective gears will lead to a thump noise ans sometimes a jerk in the movement of the locomotive.
IMHO P2k locomotives are top drawer.
I had a problem on a new proto SD-45. The drive shaft to one of the trucks had the U joint loosen, so the shaft spun but the U joint didn't and the gears didn't. I took it apart and put some CA glue. Seems to have worked Ok as I haven't had a problem since.
Tom
As I remember the locos with this problem are the GP7, GP9, GP18, GP20, GP30, FA1/FB1, FA2/FB2, BL1/BL2. There may be others.
As the one poster stated, you will here a thump thump noise, and if you have freight behind it you will also here a clicking noise. I have some of the older GP7's, GP9's, GP18's, and GP30's, they all at one time or another developed a cracked gear, its an easy fix and cheap to fix. Athearn made axel gears that are 99.95 the same, but made a bit thicker. If I had one gear that was cracked and acting up, I replaced all of the gears at the same time. Its just a matter of poping the cover off the bottom of the truck assemblt and dropping the wheel sets out, change the gears out, gauge the wheels, then put it back together.
Whats funny is that some of the older P2k's had cracked gears brand new. I bought a few of them right off the shelf that were bad. Allot of the retailers were selling them a few years back at a discount. Some owners sent them back to the manufacter and got them fixed, or they contacted the company and they sent them the new parts.
Here is a link for the parts from Athearn.
http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH60024
The cracked gear problem was on very early P2K locomotives made by LifeLike before Walthers bought them out, primarily the first run of BL-2 models.
I'm not familiar with current P2K models, but if these SD 45s are recent models, they should not have cracked gears. Clean the wheels and track and see if that helps.
I don't think the sd45's had the cracked gear problem. I would suspect they might need lubricating. to check for the cracked gears simply try to rotate the wheels by hand. If the wheels turn free with a little pressure then the axle gear is cracked. A good gear won't let the wheel turn without a lot of pressure. Check all wheels this way. Usually if there is a cracked gear you will hear a thumping sound when the engine is running down the track.
Dan Pikulski
www.DansResinCasting.com
I had seen on here some posts about some of the Proto engines having cracked gears . Which gears were being referred to ? I purchased 4 sd 45's new & tested them on my test track. 2 outta' the 4 wouldn't run right . One seemed to be binding inside & the other seem to be slipping on one truck. I haven't done anything to them yet as I don't know whether to send 'em back or what. Are these just lemons or does proto put out 2nd quality stuff ? I usually buy Atlas & Kato with no problems. These are Ho scale.