Dear all,
Two trucks on my athearn shorty passenger cars got loose -- the wheels got too much swing and derail. Any way to fix it w/o buying new ones? Thanks!
Leo,
I gotta ask: if the trucks are too loose, how about tightening the screws?
Ed
7j43k...if the trucks are too loose, how about tightening the screws?
I agree. The screws which hold the trucks in place are inside the car. Simply spread the carbody at the battery boxes on the underbody, and the body will lift right off.Tighten the screws, put the bodyshell back in place, and it should be good to go.
Wayne
LEOFUTUREI am sorry if I didn't state it accurately. It's not the truck screw, but the sideframe is a little loose to cause the derailment.
Sounds like the side frames have come loose from the truck and may need to be secured on tightly, perhaps with glue.
One-piece trucks would not normally need the above treatement unless the side frame had brocken off, in which case you could try gluing it back. But any pressure to bend it out to insert wheels may cause it to break off again.
Can you tell if that truck is a one-piece or several separate pieces?
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
If these are really really old Athearn cars with the metal sideframes for the passenger car trucks, it might be that age and hard use has enlarged the bearing openings in the sideframes so much that the axle ends are rattling around to excess.
Or the axle ends are wearing. New wheels are the easist way to determine this.
Dave Nelson
Here's what the recent (last 30-40 years?) Athearn 6-wheel passenger trucks look like:
http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH90413
If yours don't look like that, they're either very old Athearn trucks, or someone has replaced the Athearn trucks with some other brand. Either way, the easiest solution would be to just buy new Athearn trucks. You can usually find them in a LHS or online pretty easily.
p.s. the Athearn heavyweight RPO-combine, Baggage, Coach and Observation car (now that they've rebranded the Obs as a "business car") are full-length, as these cars were generally 70' or shorter. Only the sleeper and diner would be 'shorties'.
After Daves's post, I had to look at HO Seeker, and the run from 1956 appear to be 3 piece trucks, bolster, and each side frame. Not sure if they are metal, but from 1956, I bet they are.
If it's not them, than I think the axles are just wore out. I'd replace the trucks and all.
Mike.
My You Tube
mbinsewi...the run from 1956 appear to be 3 piece trucks, bolster, and each side frame. Not sure if they are metal, but from 1956, I bet they are....
Yes, those sideframes are indeed metal. This modified Athearn coach, shown below, is equipped with them, and, even though it's sitting on a 2.8% grade, and has been manually pushed downhill several times, it repeatedly stops due to the non-rolling qualities of its original trucks....
The trucks are are three-piece metal castings, likely zinc, and are rivetted together using what appear to be nub-like extensions cast as part of the truck bolsters - they're definitely not separate rivets, and the peened-over ends are visible above the portion of the sideframes' castings which represent the leaf springs. Clicking on the photo should take you to photobucket, where a click on the magnifying glass with a "+" in it will give you a full-screen image, showing the rivet ends.
The "newer" plastic versions from Athearn are a suitable replacement, but Walthers offers some nice, albeit more expensive, options, as do several other manufacturers.
Thanks everyone. They are one-piece plastic
They look like this
https://www.amazon.com/Athearn-Truck-4-Wheel-Passenger-Black/dp/B0006O7ISC
LEOFUTUREThey look like this
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Athearn part ATH90410. They're about $10 on Athearn's site. I'd just buy new ones. Either your axles are worn out or the truck side frames are worn, or both.
Remember what Wayne said, you have to take the body shell off, as they screw in from the top.
When I read this, I was wondering whether you meant that the sides of the trucks splayed slightly outwards causing the axles to sit loosely? The combination of weight and heat may have been a factor
If that is the case, you could try the following. Take the wheelsets out of the trucks and place the truck in fairly warm (but not boiling) water to not quite where the bolster joins the two sides.
When the truck seems a tiny bit pliable, remove the truck and hold the bottom of the truck inwards but not too far until it cools. You could hold it in a vice (vise in US English I think) with it just clamped in enough to reduce the width of the axle area.
It should then be able to take the wheel set but be a tighter fit and reduce the play of the axles that cause your derailing.
We get some extreme heat here in Australia and my layout until 12 months ago was in my garage and i have done similar to this with freight car trucks but seeing I have had some of my blue box stock for nearly 50 years something has to give!
Cheers from Australia
Trevor
Sounds like easiest solution is replace the old metal trucks with the newer plastic ones.
As an add on to the metal '69 vintage 6 wheel passenger trucks some mentioned above. If you must keep those metal trucks, you will find it impossible to easily replace those wheel sets. The metal side frames will not give at all to drop out the wheels and axels. But if you must do a wheel replacement heres a way. Cut the old steel axels in the center and drop out the wheel set, cut the new (brass) axels somewhat off center, taper the cut ends and find a brass tube that slides snuggly over the longer half of the axel no longer then from up aginst that wheel to the cut, it must slide clear of the cut so when the two wheels are in the side frame you can slide the brass tube back over the cut and set the wheels gauge and CA glue the joints. You can slightly file a flat spot on the new brass axel from wheel to wheel so the CA glue can wick in the tube and secure better.