Athearn Genisis steamers

[calic]

Can anyone tell how to quickly put a Digitrax 9-pin decoder in a 4-8-4 Northern and 4-6-6-4 Challenger. I open then tenders and could not gently disconnect the 9-pin already in there. Has anyone else put a 9-pin decoder in these locomotives or has everyone else just scrapped their existing DCC decoders and put a tsunami dcc/sound decoder in. Digitrax says that a DH123D will work and should be easy to replace. But as you can read I am on hearing asking this question so apparently it's not that easy. Please don't mention sodering I'm not very good at it.

thanks for any help

 

[UP2CSX]

Mark, Athearn likes to make it a pain to install your own decoders in thier sound equipped steam engines. The 9 pin decoder cover will come off but it takes a lot of gentle rocking back and forth. I use a dull #11 xacto blade knife to get in the slot between the cover and the socket to get it moving. A minature needle nose pliers helps also. Just take your time and it will come off. After that, just plug in your DH123 and you should be good to go. Be glad you didn't get one of the MRC sound and decoder equipped models. There are guys still pulling thier hair out trying to get them to work right.