FVM wheels

[Heath]

What fvm metal wheelsets have you guy's been using on red caboose and microtrains autoracks?

[lock4244]

The 33" ones.

[GaryHinshaw]

The 33" ones.

with .540" axles. 

Another thing you can do with the RC racks while you're at it is to spin the trucks by 180 deg. relative to the couplers.  Because of the offset hole in the MT bolster, this will bring the couplers in by ~6" and provide a closer car spacing between racks:



Before:


After:

[bobcat]

What a great tip Gary. So easy, but what a difference.

[stuntman]

 Gary,
 That's Brilliant!   I never thought of doing it that way.     I had swapped shorter shank couplers into the boxes that had been trimmed up a bit, But reversing the truck does the same thing.  Also, I noticed that the truck centers up with the Jacking pad now.  

[bbussey]

Another thing you can do with the RC racks while you're at it is to spin the trucks by 180 deg. relative to the couplers.  Because of the offset hole in the MT bolster, this will bring the couplers in by ~6" and provide a closer car spacing between racks:

See Issue #43 of NSR for an excellent solution to close-coupling the RC racks.  It basically intails replacing the 1019 coupler knuckles with 2004 coupler knuckles in the 1019 coupler box.  That brings the cars together another foot or so.

[lock4244]

Or you could just body mount them... though I suppose turn radius is why you haven't already done that.

[GaryHinshaw]

Body mounting is on my to-do list, but this approach entails no cost and virtually no work (except prying the bolster pins out - some of which seem to be inserted with a pile driver).  Grant's NSR article is a good approach too.

[lock4244]

except prying the bolster pins out - some of which seem to be inserted with a pile driver

I noticed that as well... though I'm not sure a pile driver could get them in that tight  ;D

[Heath]

Awesome tip thanks.

[Ian MacMillan]

Another thing you can do with the RC racks while you're at it is to spin the trucks by 180 deg. relative to the couplers.  Because of the offset hole in the MT bolster, this will bring the couplers in by ~6" and provide a closer car spacing between racks:

Mother of god! Nice temp solution until body mounting.