I have done several Kato DC

Kato SD40-2s are my favorite

Here's a good resource to make sure you did the wiring job correctly:

http://www.dufordmodelworks.com/katohardwire.html

I have done this on all four of my Kato SD40-2s and a fifth SD40-2 chassis that I used with an Athearn Genesis SD45-2 shell.  Just for kicks, I tried running the SD40-2 with DCC before rewiring it, and it ran terribly - kept stopping like the wheelsets were really dirty.  With DCC, you need to make sure all the connections are solid and soldering everything really helps.

I have also learned that the truck assemblies are very delicate and need to be taken apart and reassembled with care.  This is also important in getting it to run well as the truck assemblies keep the metal truck pickups against the wheelsets.

Good luck and hope it turns out ok - I really like these motors.

Kato drive, best in the industry

Though I will admit the current Chinese-manufactured drives found in Atlas, Athearn-Genesis and Intermountain (also I'll even add the latest Bachmann drives, surprisingly solid looking design for a 'budget' line) are getting to be very, very close runner-ups; I'll still pick the Kato drive as being the best in the HO & N scale industry.

On our club layout, we roster a number of RS-18 kitbash units, built from 1987-era (initial release year) Atlas RS-11 units with Kato drives. These have been in regular operation over 3 different club layouts for 26 years now, with I have no idea how many 100,000's of HO-scale miles under their belts now.

People talk about Athearn 'blue box' longevity. Pffft!!! We haven't had to do a thing to this fleet aside from truck cleaning. Well, not totally true. We actually wore the nickel silver plating off the trucks (down to bare brass) and had to replace them all about 5 years ago for better electrical pickup reliability. Aside from that, we've never had one go down for any drive issue.

We also have Kato 1990-era SD40's, 1991-GP35's and the 1993-SD40-2's in regular operation, likewise with stellar records. We can't say the same for other manufacturers.

As others have mentioned, those brass contact strips in their SD40-2 units are a poor design, one of very few bad engineering ideas from Kato. Aside from electrical pickup issues, they also cause the trucks to be too rigid and can result in derailments if your track is anything other than 100% dead-flat.

If you are relying on those brass strips for decoder pickup, that's your problem. As soon as we saw these we shook our heads. Hard-wire from the truck pickups solves the problem for good, and as an added bonus your Kato SD40-2's can navigate sloppy pre-fab code-100 & 83 turnouts, super-elevated curves and elevation transitions without derailing ...what a concept!

As others have mentioned, take care in taking apart & reassembling the trucks. Aside from that, it should be a pretty straight forward process.

Kato SD-40's

This forum is Gold - I tell ya!!

I have a spot on my layout that randomly derails my KATO SD-40-2's and it's been driving me nuts. And of course, it's not flat. It's a curved transition into a siding. My KATO's are all stock and now that I have received my decoders for them, I'll be making sure to make the extra effort to do the hardwire.

Thanks for the insight Ted!

More info...

I may have inadvertently hijacked your thread when I reposted some of it in my blog.

There is some more good info buried here: KATO SD-40-2's

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