The Hustler Farm
Before I almost started my own thread on Hustlers I searched for it on here and whaddya know... there was one. So let the posting commence!
The first pic is of my Hustler collection. My very first Hustler was the Wisconsin and Southern unit, I bought it as a project for my Boy Scout Railroading Merit Badge (that I never got because I never went through the proper channels to organize it) for $15 at a train show. Not bad considering the custom decals were already put on. Like most kids, they like fast trains and I was no exception so this was the perfect loco for me at the time. The second unit that I acquired was the silver #57 one, gave to me by my late neighbor. This one is one of the originals, to include brass wheels and "Athearn Inc., Los Angeles, CA, Made in USA" cast in the bottom. From the get go this loco never ran, but it's probably had it's share of run time judging by how worn the motor brushes were and the immense amount of crud on the wheels. At one point in time I took one of my spare r/c car motors and mounted it inside with a bigger rubber band connecting the powered axle to the non-powered axle... that thing REALLY flew! The other five lokies have been accumulated recently, coming from the famous Clarksville Model Railroad Club in Tennessee. The two black units are semi-permanently coupled and will be the paper mill switchers at the club. One unit will have the gearing kit in and the other will be a dummy, as four wheeled short wheelbase locomotives have really hard times picking up power without help. The DRG&W unit had a Ernst gearing kit already installed in it and fellow club member Bill Nelson had it on his workbench to be debunked for operation. Also at the club was a spare gearing kit for these little critters sans instructions, but luckily it was easy enough to figure out how they go together. I'll explain my next few pictures now.
I got the DRG&W Hustler with the initial issue that either the motor mounts were badly worn or some other cause for the gearing kit's worm to not make contact with the other gears. So far everything was true, with the inclusion that whoever initially installed the kit installed some of it the wrong way, making the idler gears off center enough that it wouldn't sit right in the old holes that held the rubber band tensioner. Also upon further investigation, I noticed that the drive gear is off center just by a tad making a world of difference of how it all goes together. So using the unassembled kit as a guide I assembled that one to learn from the mistakes made on the other unit. It went together pretty smooth, some parts I had to sand to make fit because of the such tight tolerances (the end bushings specifically). The end result turned out good, they fit in the Hustler as they should without any slop or mismatched holes. The only thing I haven't done is tried it out with the new gears.
The last pic isn't mine but a good idea, those are newer gear housings from a blue box Athearn loco mounted to a original style motor. This setup in theory should work relatively good, as Ernst Hustler kits are out of production, NWSL assemblies (the new Stanton drive or the other gearboxes that can be made to work) are out of budget, and stock Hustlers are just 300 mph short of breaking the HO scale sound barrier. So if anyone has any old Athearn diesels that need a new home, let me know!
Tyler