Reworking Rolling Stock


Larry

Long Winded Old Fart
Well, after about 5 days of sitting at my workbench I've reworked all of the couplers, trucks & wheels on 165 freight cars. All of the couplers are lined up using the Micro-Mark coupler alignment block. I also took all of the wheels out of every truck & cleaned each one w/the Truck Tuner from Micro-Mark.
I also set all of the wheels to the NMRA ga. & some had to be spread apart a little w/my Micro-Mark wheel puller. Then some of the couplers had to have new springs put in & I did that w/my new M-M spring installer. I don't know how I ever did w/out these tools all these years. I bought them about a year ago & have just used them.
I still have about 100 more freight cars, 35 passenger cars & all my engines to do yet. That little reamer for cleaning the axle pockets is a tool in its-self.
When you are using it U can actually feel it smoothing the trucks. If the wheels don't spin freelie after I use it I apply some graphite powder to the ends of the axles & that really makes them spin easy. I hooked up 85 cars to 3 engines & they rolled 100% better. No drag & no couplers pulled out of their sockets. I had to add spacer washers to almost all of the cars to get them to line up w/the coupler block. Only 1 out of 50 were actually in the right place.
I also cut some coupler pockets off of the cheap truck assy.'s & glued them to the bottom of the car. Body mounted. They worked real good. I like the body mounted couplers better, now that I have made the switch.
I haven't done the long pass. cars yet. May have to leave them attached to the couplers.
It's really nice to have all the couplers at the same heighth. Nothing unhooks on a slight graduation of the rails anymore. I'm going to have to buy about 100 Kadee's w/diff. lenghts of shafts & raised & lowered heads for all my engines that I haven't worked on yet. Engines are usually the hardest to work on because of the diff. mfgrs.
End this Novel.:D

Larry:rolleyes:
 
I also used to glue my coupler boxes to the car itself. upgrading cheapo freight cars is one of my favorite parts of the hobby. However I realized that they need to be removed from time to time (especially if they are not at the right hight) so now I got a 2/57 threader from my LHS and fasten all my couplers with the same size plastic screw that Kadee makes.

Im not being critical, thats just what worked for me.

Sounds like you had quite the project upgrading your rolling stock! Its a blast!
 
Larry, you don't work for Micro-mark do you:D They could use this as their new advertisement;)

Ken.
 
It is time consuming but worth it. I am converting to body mounted kadees and metal wheels one car at a time.

Speaking of that, how are those screws working out? They looked a little long when I glanced at them, but I figured they work at least work for the trucks if nothing else...
 
I used the truck tuner on all my cars and it does make a big difference. You would believe they had bearings, they way they free roll and roll and...
 



Back
Top