Athearn disassembly

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

I have an Athearn (80972) Chessie System SD50 in HO scale.

 

I cannot for the life of me work out how to take it apart to fit a DCC chip. There are no instructions except for an exploded parts diagram that covers several different locos.

 

It's in beautiful condition so I'm loathe to start poking around until I know what I'm doing.

 

Anybody got one of these and know how to get into it?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark 

[Allegheny1600]

Hello Mark,

 I will somewhat dangerously assume that you are talking about the “Ready to Roll” model?

If so, I think that all you do is remove the screws from the coupler boxes, then the coupler boxes themselves complete with actual couplers and that should release the bodyshell.

 I make this assumption on the basis that you appear to want to simply plug in a decoder rather than hardwire it.

 I cannot recall that Athearn made a blue box SD50 or SD60 but if they did, you should only need to “pop” two parts of the body that extend down from the walkway and clip over “pips” on the metal chassis. Couplers again may need to be removed.

Hope that helps,

 John 

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

1 hour ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Hello Mark,

 I will somewhat dangerously assume that you are talking about the “Ready to Roll” model?

If so, I think that all you do is remove the screws from the coupler boxes, then the coupler boxes themselves complete with actual couplers and that should release the bodyshell.

 I make this assumption on the basis that you appear to want to simply plug in a decoder rather than hardwire it.

 I cannot recall that Athearn made a blue box SD50 or SD60 but if they did, you should only need to “pop” two parts of the body that extend down from the walkway and clip over “pips” on the metal chassis. Couplers again may need to be removed.

Hope that helps,

 John 

Hi John, 

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

It is one of the 'Ready to Roll' versions in a blue box and yellow. There is a screw in each coupler box and four in the centre which are most likely for the motor (I'll leave these alone!). It has a plug for the 9 pin and an 8 pin socket (According to the exploded diagram at least.) I put a Digitrax 9 pin in my other Athearn loco so I've got another on the way for this one. Incidentally a really good price too at £17 and £1.50 for postage.

 

I can see what look like 3 clips on each side which seem to hold the top of the body to the walkway. It would be nigh on impossible to release these from underneath as the bogies are in the way, so it looks like removing the coupler boxes is the way forward.

 

Thanks again for your help.

 

Mark

[Gilbert]

34 minutes ago, Wear Valley Wanderer said:

Hi John, 

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

It is one of the 'Ready to Roll' versions in a blue box and yellow. There is a screw in each coupler box and four in the centre which are most likely for the motor (I'll leave these alone!). It has a plug for the 9 pin and an 8 pin socket (According to the exploded diagram at least.) I put a Digitrax 9 pin in my other Athearn loco so I've got another on the way for this one. Incidentally a really good price too at £17 and £1.50 for postage.

 

I can see what look like 3 clips on each side which seem to hold the top of the body to the walkway. It would be nigh on impossible to release these from underneath as the bogies are in the way, so it looks like removing the coupler boxes is the way forward.

 

Thanks again for your help.

 

Mark

You may find the lights are attached to the chassis so don't tug too hard when you remove the body...

Chris

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Mark,

You’re welcome.

I’m just glad that my memory is working! I’ve just done an internet search and found this, which may assist you;

https://tcsdcc.com/installation/ho-scale/1107

Sounds like you got an excellent deal on your decoder.

Cheers,

 John 

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

22 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Hi Mark,

You’re welcome.

I’m just glad that my memory is working! I’ve just done an internet search and found this, which may assist you;

https://tcsdcc.com/installation/ho-scale/1107

Sounds like you got an excellent deal on your decoder.

Cheers,

 John 

Hi John,

 

I picked it up from Coastal DCC. I'm not sure how good the Digitrax economy decoders are compared to say Train-o-matic which I normally go for, but time will tell.

 

The loco came apart exactly as you said. I never would have guessed you needed to take the coupler boxes out, so thanks again for your help. I also took the opportunity to swap out the cheap and nasty couplers for a pair of Kadees which I had lurking in a drawer.

 

I don't know whether Athearn put instructions in with their models from new, but all I ever find in the boxes are parts diagrams. Still, all fitted and working, albeit a bit on the noisy side. I think I'll be looking into disassembling the bogies at some point to give them a good clean out. Thankfully there's a video from Larry Puckett on Youtube for that so hopefully I won't get myself into too much trouble!

 

All the best,

 

Mark

 

 

[Wear Valley Wanderer]

On 16/02/2022 at 14:00, Gilbert said:

You may find the lights are attached to the chassis so don't tug too hard when you remove the body...

Chris

I nearly had kittens when it finally came apart and saw the wires there, but thankfully everything is still attached.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark