The pad printing and details on my newly acquired Athearn LAJ CF-7 are really quite nice. The issue with  Athearn RTR locos, however, is that their low cost drive trains tend to be fairly rough runners. I really needed to find a way to upgrade it since it would  be relegated to slow speed switching.  That said, I didn’t want to be a pioneer as far as figuring out how to do it.  Fortunately, Richard New wrote an exceptional, very detailed, tutorial on the subject HERE.

Things got even better when, out of the blue, Richard reached out and offered as much hand holding as I needed to get through the job.  Can’t turn down an offer like that!!   I’ve ordered the Stewart donor locomotive and Kato parts in the article and should be able to start next week.