Problem with williams/fastrack

[HopperSJ]

I bought my son a williams stock car for easter. I had never seen a williams out fo the package and/or running, but I thought I would give it a shot. I was reasonable impressed. However, I have one problem: it won't uncouple.

When my williams uncouples by hand on a regular track it's thumb tack hits the center rail and shorts out the track making taking the engine out of neutral and sending it careening down the rails... I could handle that since I was soon installing remote uncouplers and the blocking around the magnet was sure to help, right?

Well, I just installed the uncoupling tracks and now when I activate the magnet it pulls the thumb tack down all the way (until it contacts the track) but not far enough to make it uncouple. the magnet is slightly raised on a fastrack uncoupling section which causes my williams to hit the magnet before it releases.

Any suggestions?

The remote uncoupling track works just fine with my lionel cars. Anyone find a fix or run into something similar?

[Jumijo]

Apply a piece of electrical tape to the bottom of the "thumb tack". That way, when it hits the rail, it won't create a short. You could also just uncouple the car in front of or behind the Williams car and get the same result couldn't you? Either way, the Williams car will be uncoupled.

Jim

[HopperSJ]

I could just uncouple the car in front/behind. I forget why that wasn't working, but maybe that rig had a lazy uncoupler too, or something. Lying awake one night I realized I can remove the uncoupling tab and shorten the stem that holds the knuckle in place. If I take a milimeter off, I think it will work. With my luck I'll shave too much off and then it'll never couple. Thanks for your thoughts...

[phillyreading]

I have run into problems with Lionel switches & Williams locomotives so this does not surprise me to hear of other problems with Lionel track & Williams products. The problem I have is using Lionel switch # 6-23011, looks like a Gargraves/Lionel kit bashed switch from the factory, I refer to this switch as experimental by Lionel.
Have you tried using Lionel wheelsets instead of Williams on the trucks? Maybe replacing the whole truck with Lionel O gauge trucksets will help.
Lee Fritz

[HopperSJ]

My first thought was to replace the trucks, and as a last resort I can always do that. Or, if I just don't like the way the trucks behave from here on out, I'll do it anyway. I'm away from home for a week, so I haven't had time to run my experiment of grinding down the post. I'll try and remember to post my results if it works...