The Athearn Genesis SD70m - Progress Update

Close up showing the original 'weathering' that was heavily applied to the entire shell.


The shell after cleaning off all the black paint.


The reassembled chassis, with rebuilt and cleaned trucks and the temporary DC board for testing.

I've started putting my basket case SD70M back together, the shell has been washed off to get rid of the weird 'weathering' applied by the previous owner, and I have reassembled and cemented the various parts including the drive train.

I've got a detail kit on the way for the locomotive, and an MRC sound decoder and bass speaker, so for now the engine is fitted with a temporary DC board so I could make sure it ran okay, which it certainly did!

The rebuild wasn't all plain sailing, I had to bend the copper frame pick-ups to straighten the trucks, and remove some tiny unidentified pieces of plastic from jamming the gears, but the new wheelset worked a treat, and also had the added bonus of being blackened wheels instead of the shiny original type.

Next task will be the detailing and number change, once my detail kit arrives.