wobbling cars

[botangles]

I bought a few Accurail cars, nice kits to put together glued in the weight, swapped in metal wheels and kadee couplers. Two of them wobble like their in an earthquake when running slow or fast. They never derail or uncouple, just look weird on the track with that wobble. I tried loosening and tightning the screw on the trucks to no avail, they still wobble. They are the only cars I have that wobble. Would new trucks solve the problem, or could it be something else ? Thanks.

 

[SABRR]

I bought a few Accurail cars, nice kits to put together glued in the weight, swapped in metal wheels and kadee couplers. Two of them wobble like their in an earthquake when running slow or fast. They never derail or uncouple, just look weird on the track with that wobble. I tried loosening and tightning the screw on the trucks to no avail, they still wobble. They are the only cars I have that wobble. Would new trucks solve the problem, or could it be something else ? Thanks.

When you say wobble, are you talking about the car body going back and forth like a rocking motion? If so, is it really bad? Is it slow or fast? Does it increase with speed and decrease with slowing down? What I'm getting at is if it does that and it's not causing any real issues, I'd leave it. It adds a realm of realism as real cars do rock.

If you have a wheel issue, by all means, fix it. You may have a plastic wheel out of round, or a truck whose journal is wallowed out.

 

[Selector]

Wobbling can be due to off-center wheels, bent axles, wheels bent on axles, gunk build-up on the tires, and uneven rail heights.

 

[ICG/SOU]

Whose wheelsets? I like to use Intermountain's with their metal axles, but sometimes even those can have a bad axle or two.

Take your wheelsets out of your trucks and roll them slowly on a flat surface, like a glass table top, and see if the wheels wobble. If so, the axles are bent.

 

[kenw]

Make sure the seating surface for the truck is flat, often this surface is sloped or uneven. You can file the surface of the boss flatter to remove any burrs or molding flash. In really bad cases, you can glue a small flat washer to the boss to give the truck a flat and level riding surface but be careful as this will raise the height of the couplers.

Adding weight can also affect wobbling in some cases.

 

[botangles]

woggling cars

These are new cars with hardly any track time and wobbled right away mainly at faster speeds. The replacement metal wheels are proto 2000 and yes I did check just now for level seating of the trucks and think that could be the problem. So I will try to file them level and hope that works. Thanks for all your advice. Bill W.

 

[Fazby]

If, perchance, the trucks simply do not tighten sufficiently, try some washers. Kadee makes 'em in two thicknesses, They will take out the slack.

You do want SOME play, but not such that a hitchhiker would get sea-sick.

 

[diburning]

The Proto 2000 wheels probably have a warped axle.

High center of gravity (weight too high in the car) can also do it as well as uneven weight.

 

[ICG/SOU]

While they look nice, I've had very limited success with Proto2K wheelsets.

 

[jbaakko]

Check the P2K wheel sets VERY closely...

I've gotten several with bent axles, but more notably, bubbled wheel tread!

 

[diburning]

The P2K wheels have lettering on the wheel face. That leads me to believe that the wheels are cast and not machined like most other brands. This may be the reason why; along with the warped axle problem.

 

[frog]

You might try swapping the truck assys onto one of your good cars and see it that transfers the problem to it.

From there swap the wheels and narrow the source of the problem down that way.

Way back I had some hoppers, I think Con Car, that had poor mating from the truck to the car. Bad quality really, I had to file down the post on the car to get it flat, shim it to bring it back into specs, at that point after removing material from the post I didn't have much left to work with.

So I cut a section from an old cheap car, fit it into place best I could and used it. Took forever to refit, but it worked.

Offhand I would say it would be your wheels either not centered onto the truck, maybe off set weights even. I have had that problem as well.

 

[Shoneburger]

Wobble

You may try taking a truck and truck screw to a hardware store and purchacing the smallest thinest Brass washer they have . The truck screw must easily fit in the washer center hole . Place truck on rolling stock and washer on screw . Carefully tighten screw . This usually works for me .

 

[diburning]

Another thing is, if the center of gravity of your car is too high, it will wobble. It will also wobble if the majority of the weight is in the middle of the car and not over the trucks making it imbalanced.

Prototype railcars flip over if they are improperly loaded

 

[Rico]

The P2K wheelsets are very easily bent when installing them, I've also had them come bent in the package.
I use Intermountain or Branchline sets with the metal axles on allmost all my cars now.
As Frog stated, I'd try switching out a truck from a good car, which brings me to another thing. Sometimes the plastic pins on the Accurail cars can be bent very slightly. That's when I replace them with a screw.

 

[botangles]

good suggestions

Thanks for all the great advice from this form. First of all I filed ever so slightly the post I thought wasn't level, just a bit less wobble. The weight on this car runs the whole length on the body, and it was out just a fraction of an inch and I re centered it and glued it back on. Then I checked the wheels by swapping them to another car, that wasn't the problem. This particular car the trucks screw in, not plastic clips. Finally I turned the car upside down and noticed the whole frame assembly hadn't quite set in the groves on one side of the body, maybe out 1/64 of an inch, corrected that.With all these adjustments 70% of the wobble is gone. It looks normal and more realistic now. Thanks again for all your response. Bill W.