Replacing Wheels in Metal Trucks

[reasearchhound]

Have some older Tyco (Mantua) rolling stock with metal trucks but plastic wheels that I want to put new metal wheels into. Is there any “best” technique for getting them installed other than gently spreading the side of the trucks enough to get things out and in again? Plastic trucks seem a no brainer but maybe there is a trick dealing with the metal ones.

Don’t have a set of spreading pliers but realize that may be a neccesary purchase in the near (if not immediate) future.

Thanks,

Dan

[j. c.]

don't think it can be done if memory server me the frames were pot metal .

[G Paine]

It has been a while since I have done somthing with Tyco trucks, as I recall, the sideframes are pressed into another metal piece making them rather rigid. Probably the best thing to do is to replace the metal truck with plastic truck and install metal wheels if they do ont have them.

[reasearchhound]

Okay, thanks very much for the replies. Guess this is where some of the new Athearn trucks I’m ordering will end up going.

[MisterBeasley]

I just buy new trucks.

Use a truck tuner, too, for good rolling performance.

[jrbernier]

  I have to agree with Mr Beasley.  I just upgraded on old Mantua/Tyco car.  I tossed the trucks and body mounted Kadee couplers.  I used Accurail plastic trucks with I-M metal wheel sets.  This combo provide the best value for a free rolling set of trucks.  Trying to force new wheel sets in those old metal sideframes may result in either too loose or too tight a fit.  And a 'truck tuner' is not going to ream out old pot metal sideframes!

[kasskaboose]

Sadly, this is another reason not to touch Tyco.  I see them on Craiglist, etc and just walk away. Replacing wheels is not hard. 

[SeeYou190]

kasskaboose

Sadly, this is another reason not to touch Tyco

.

But sometimes you just need to add an Old Dutch Cleanser covered hopper car to your fleet.

.

-Kevin

.

[doctorwayne]

kasskaboose

Sadly, this is another reason not to touch Tyco.  I see them on Craiglist, etc and just walk away. Replacing wheels is not hard. 

 

Tyco is what you make of it.

I was visiting a friend in the States, and we went to a local train show.  I had been looking for some gondolas to kitbash into CNR prototypes, but forgot that they were supposed to be Model Power gons, and bought a number of Tyco and Mantua gondolas, at a buck-or-so apiece.
When I returned home and realised my error, I decided to simply use them for my freelance home-road. 
First job was to strip the paint...

(the darker one in the pile is a Mantua, with a cast metal underframe)

I added some very basic underbody detail, just the stuff that might be seen from trackside, as the upper level of my layout is at roughly eye-level...

For the Mantua car, I left the cast-on AB valve and air reservoir, but replaced the brake cylinder with one from my "parts department".  To add the brake rigging, I cemented blocks of styrene into the centre sill - much easier on small drill bits than the cast metal...

Using my X-Acto and a small square, panel joints were scribed into the interior of the sides...

All of the sill steps and cast-on grabirons were removed and replaced with metal parts...

I also removed the couplers from the original trucks, adding screw-mounted Kadees in their own draught gear, and then modified the original trucks and underbody so that the trucks are now screw-mounted, too...

Here's one of the re-worked cars...

...and, other than the oversize rivets, it's almost identical to the much newer 41'6" gondola from Accurail...

Tyco also offered a wooden refrigerator car, with the usual clip-in trucks and truck mounted NMRA "horn/hook" couplers. 
Once the too-heavy factory-applied paint was removed and a few cast-on grabirons and sill steps replaced with free-standing metal parts, and new paint and lettering added, they weren't too bad at all...

However, after a while, the cast-on roofwalk....

....along with the simulated steel ends...

...began to look a bit out of place on my late '30s-era layout.  I decided to replace both the ends and roofs of the four cars I had, but got a little carried away, and ended-up with this....

...then these...

...which eventually were turned into these...

SeeYou190

....But sometimes you just need to add an Old Dutch Cleanser covered hopper car to your fleet....

Speaking of which, some years ago I got one of those cars from a nearby hobbyshop, for free.  It had been in the store's window as part of the display, but had been badly deformed from sitting in the sun.
I was, at that time, kitbashing my recently-acquired Bachmann Northern (the version with the wheels regularly slipping out-of-quarter).  Part of the revisions was to make the loco look less Santa Fe, and that included shortening the huge tender. 

I decided to make it into a centipede tender, somewhat similar to those used behind New York Central's Niagaras.  After taking a segment out of the original tender and converting a portion of it to a modelled open coal bunker, I used part of the upper portion of the Tyco covered hopper to act as the rolled-under lower part of the tender, to which the centipede bed is attached.
For the centipede sideframes, I traced them, on paper, from an ad in MR, featuring a full-size HO scale photo of such a tender, then transferred that to sheet styrene.  The four-axle tender trucks were then cut apart and spliced together, then, with all detail except the journal covers removed, the plastic overlays were added, along with spring details fabricated from wire and parts cut from Kadee coupler boxes.

None of these can qualify as "silk purses", but I don't consider those Tyco cars to be "sow's ears", either.

Wayne

[mbinsewi]

SeeYou190

But sometimes you just need to add an Old Dutch Cleanser covered hopper car to your fleet.

I think Cudaken has a whole fleet of those!

I like Wayne's statement, "Tyco is what you make of it."  I think Tyco, Life Like, had a lot to do with getting many into the hobby.  That first trains set!

I haven't run a Tyco loco since my first Athearn,  but some of the cars remained in service for years.  Of course I'm talking the plastic truck models.

There is a huge Tyco following.  I learned that.

I certainly wouldn't mess with any with the metal trucks.

Mike.

[Lone Wolf and Santa Fe]

SeeYou190

But sometimes you just need to add an Old Dutch Cleanser covered hopper car to your fleet. . -Kevin

In California we cook outside on the grill so we don't need oven cleaner lol but we have to have salt.

 

[reasearchhound]

kasskaboose

Sadly, this is another reason not to touch Tyco.  I see them on Craiglist, etc and just walk away. Replacing wheels is not hard. 

 

Upgrading these few Tyco cars is more a labor of love than anything else. They are from my first HO scale set my dad got me when I was about ten. Up until then I had operated a Lionel set that had originally belonged to my older brother - although I always felt my dad had really bought it for himself. I’m 65 now and all of the original Tyco cars are still on my layout - but definitely due for some TLC. At this point, I wouldn’t dream of dumping them.

[Medina1128]

The old pot metal trucks were also common on old Athearn passenger cars. I just ordered new truck from M.B. Klein and tossed the old metals ones.

[last mountain & eastern hogger]

Lone Wolf and Santa Fe

 Kevin

 

 

I have a couple of these Morton C.V.s running on the LM&E.   However I was wondering are they fairly scarce ? as you hardly ever see any pix of them on any forum.

Johnboy out.................