IMRC 5161 Roof Fixes

[ljudice]

Couple of quick questions about IMRC 5161s....   

Is the roof section removable or glued in?

When there is a roofwalk support that is not fully pushed in, do they go in with force or do you have to
drill it out or something?

Thanks

[GaryHinshaw]

I just had to repair some loose weights in a few so I just went through this.  The roofs are spot glued with some type of plastic cement, so run a #11 blade along the side/roof seam to loosen it.  The roofwalk end supports just press fit into the ends of the car: those must be gently pulled away at one end of the car while trying to dislodge the roof from its glue joint.   If you raise the roof at one end, the roofwalk support at the other will come out easily, as you lift the roof off.  You'll probably have to work the glue joint a few times to get it to yield.  You'll also probably have to spot glue it again when you put the roof back on.

When there is a roofwalk support that is not fully pushed in, do they go in with force or do you have to
drill it out or something?

You should be able to press these in...

-gfh

[ljudice]

Gary, thanks...

I have one roof support on a new car that defies being pushed back in - even using slightly more force that I would consider prudent.  I am guessing the hole was not correctly formed.   It also looks like there is a spot of glue on it, although it is hard to tell.  It's the second from the end and is making an annoying little ramp on the end of the car that the FRA would not be happy about...

- Lou

[GaryHinshaw]

Not sure if this is still a live topic, but I had a 5161 roof off, so I thought I would post a pic:



You can see how most of the support holes penetrate all the way through (e.g., in the blue oval) and are glued from the inside.
Lou, from your description I'm guessing you mean the supports in the red oval: these do not penetrate all the way through.  You could probably drill them out from underneath w/o having to remove the roofwalk...

HTH,
-gfh

P.S. Off topic, but this is an NS car, and as far as I can tell, all of the NS 5161's are in sugar service and have secondary circular hatches within the trough hatches, e.g.:

http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=32654

Does anyone offer circular hatches as a separate part?  MTL perhaps?  (If not, I can make some.)

[Robbman]

P.S. Off topic, but this is an NS car, and as far as I can tell, all of the NS 5161's are in sugar service and have secondary circular hatches within the trough hatches, e.g.:

NS has and has had multiple classes of 5161s... almost all are in grain service.

The car you linked is/was HC105... 35 built for flour service (note also the gravity/pneumatic outlet gates... the little pipe sticking out of the middle of the gate), and I don't think they're on roster any more, though they lasted quite a bit longer on NS than the 33 HC92s (Thrall 5150s) built for flour service at about the same time.

[GaryHinshaw]

Excellent!  It looks like the series NS 294700-295213 is a decent match to the IM car, and that will let me use them in grain service:

http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=59643

All I have to do is renumber them, or pretend this series extends into the HC105 range that IM used.     Thanks Robbman.

[ljudice]

Gary,

Actually, the problem support is on the opposite side to the red marked area.  It's clearly a hole that did not get formed through and the just mashed the roofwalk down and glued it. 

Going to have to take the roof off and ream the hole out and it should plop in....

- Lou