Dear all, While putting a DCC-decoder into one of my recent ebay purchases (Intermountain SD45-2 / 69569-04), I found one of the tiny parts in the box, one fell out of the loco when I removed the fuel tank cover, and the third one was stuck behind the silver foil protecting the cover from the LED light. These parts are tiny, less than 1 mm. But I have no idea what these part's purpose it or what to do with them. Any ideas? Many thanks. Best Patrick
Are they LED covers to direct the light out the headlight lens? https://www.intermountain-railway.com/customerservice/dccwebpage/N-Scale-SD40T-2-SD45T-2-Insert.pdf They don't seem to be listed on the parts diagram? What's interesting is this locomotive uses Atlas parts for the motor and drive.
Those look like the little posts that are molded on each side of the gear case (part #490301 on the parts diagram) that the frame rests on the Atlas SD50/60's. The IM SD45-2 uses the same truck. I hate to say it but these have broken off. Check the trucks as there should be one truck with one post left for comparison.
Is that suggesting that somebody believed the common story that you can just pull out the trucks of a locomotive without opening it up and releasing them in a proper fashion? I'm picturing that clown who just feels compelled to lubricate everything and decides to yank the trucks out to lube the gears.
Many thanks, Brian! You were correct, those little posts belong to the gear case. I found them broken off not only on the model I was working on but also on the other two SD45-2 I acquire half a year ago via eBay. Thankfully, Altas still got those SD60 gear cases as part number 9490301 in stock so that I can fix this issue these days. Best Patrick
Possibly. Or re-istalling the truck before loosening the frame halves as I've seen a few folks do. I broke mine when the mechanism performed an unscheduled gravity test.