Frozen Knuckles and a Storage Warning

[Anonymous]

i spent my afternoon opening a few cases to inspect and dust off some lionel boxcars that have been in storage for 10+ years. some are postwar, but mostly they are modern with sprung trucks.

on almost every single one the knuckle spring is NG, no springy-ness left in it and they wont open when you pull the tabs down and some are stuck/frozen. there are a lot of them (30 or so Lionel 9801~9809 boxcars) that have die-cast trucks but a plastic knuckle and spring?!??[:(]


i doubt anyone has any suggestions or solutions but i thought i'd suggest to all to open the knuckles on your couplers before boxing them away for storage.

oh well...[xx(]
anybody selling trucks and truck parts cheap?


STORE YOUR TRAIN WITH THE COUPLERS OPEN!!![B)]

[lionelsoni]

It is possible to replace a plastic knuckle with a metal one and a metal spring, or to cut down a plastic knuckle to take a metal spring.