# Older Life-Like Gears



## petey (Aug 12, 2012)

Hello, 
I recently acquired a 'blue' box LL F7A. It ran about 4 feet made an ugly noise, and stopped. After I had opened it up, I found what I suspected; crumbled idler gears and cracked axle gears.
In addition, it was not the usual pancake motor drive arrangement. This has an open frame motor, with jointed driveshafts. I am told that these preceeded the pancakes.
The truck axle setup is the same as the pancake style.
So, what I need is a source for the rubber tired, plastic wheeled, geared wheel sets and the idler gears.
Anybody know of something, bluebox Athearn, or---?


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## shaygetz (Sep 23, 2007)

Got any pix? Is it like this one?


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## petey (Aug 12, 2012)

*Life-Like F7*

Shay,
I just posted a pic in 'Anything Train Album' under Life-Like F7.
Ignore the blurred pic(don't know how to get rid of it).
Your pic is close. My pic matches, exactly a LL 1977 ad.
I don't yet know how to put a picture in a reply. I'm not real smart about this stuff.


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## shaygetz (Sep 23, 2007)

petey said:


> Shay,
> I just posted a pic in 'Anything Train Album' under Life-Like F7.
> Ignore the blurred pic(don't know how to get rid of it).
> Your pic is close. My pic matches, exactly a LL 1977 ad.
> I don't yet know how to put a picture in a reply. I'm not real smart about this stuff.



That's why I use Photobucket...it saves the forum bandwidth and makes posting pix a copy/paste thing...:thumbsup:

I don't even know where the albums are here


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

At first I thought you were describing an older LL Proto2000 unit (they also came in light blue boxes for a while). The older Proto2000 units were notorious for the gears cracking. Fortunately Athearn axle gears are a direct replacements.

However it seems you're talking about an older Life-Like (non-"Proto" series) unit, so I can't help out too much. I've never really touched those.


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## petey (Aug 12, 2012)

*Life-Like F7*

Hello Chris, 
Thanks for reminding me of the Ath axles for P2Ks. I also have an early set of FAs that sound like the geearing is bad. But which Athearn-blue box, rtr, or gen?


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

petey said:


> Hello Chris,
> Thanks for reminding me of the Ath axles for P2Ks. I also have an early set of FAs that sound like the geearing is bad. But which Athearn-blue box, rtr, or gen?


A lot of the Athearn RTR is the old "Blue-Box" line with slight upgrades and not available as kits anymore. I haven't taken a Genesis apart, but would expect the truck design to be basically the same. It's a fairly reliable design.

Athearn offers replacement axle gears separately. This is what you're looking for:
http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH60024


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