Fit & Finish Issues on MT Circus cars

[Roger Holmes]

Thanks.

[altohorn25]

Here that picture that I promised to post of the sleeper with the skirt removed and the trucks replaced with the proper 4 wheel ones.  I've also been working on additional flats for the train.  Here are the first 7 that I've done.  Waiting on the decals and they should be good to go.  In the photo where you can see 8 cars, the one closest to the camera is one of the flats from the MT sets.  

I body mounted the couplers on all these flats, including the factory ones.  By removing the MT drawbar, it gives the trucks much more lateral up and down motion and I have had no trouble with them derailing.  I did this with my MILW 20 car Sprint train as well an it runs great.  I would highly recommend it.

Nate

[Denver Road Doug]

OK, so finally got all my circus cars (well, with more containers and the pie car on the way) and took them to a friends' layout to run.  Virtually all of the Con-Cor cars were affected by the bolster vs. axle flash issue.  Two were literally sleds but most just had unusual rolling resistance.  They also "clicked" which I assume is that axle tapping on every revolution?   Anyway, I filed one of the sleds and was able to see what an astounding difference it makes.

But the bigger (and maybe related) issue is uncoupling.  The supplied couplers have an incredible amount of verticle play in them, such that it's hard to believe they're even put together right.   The lead coupler kept riding up and eventually over the trailing and almost universally throughout the train. (CC cars only)  Anybody else have this problem?

Also, what is the proper MTL p/n for the two axle trucks for the "sleepers"?

The train looks GREAT though as a whole.

[bbussey]

Do those couplers have the reverse draft built into the knuckle?  That tooling, since it's primarily for converting passenger models that no longer are readily available or sold, may not have been modified when the standard coupler line was years ago.

[SkipGear]

OK, so finally got all my circus cars (well, with more containers and the pie car on the way) and took them to a friends' layout to run.  Virtually all of the Con-Cor cars were affected by the bolster vs. axle flash issue.  Two were literally sleds but most just had unusual rolling resistance.  They also "clicked" which I assume is that axle tapping on every revolution?   Anyway, I filed one of the sleds and was able to see what an astounding difference it makes.

But the bigger (and maybe related) issue is uncoupling.  The supplied couplers have an incredible amount of verticle play in them, such that it's hard to believe they're even put together right.   The lead coupler kept riding up and eventually over the trailing and almost universally throughout the train. (CC cars only)  Anybody else have this problem?

Also, what is the proper MTL p/n for the two axle trucks for the "sleepers"?

The train looks GREAT though as a whole.

Doug,
 Did you run them "as is" or have you adjusted the coupler length. The first thing I did was adjust the coupler boxes to their shortest position on each truck. With the couplers in their shortest setting, I haven't had any problems running around my test loop (11" R) with the full train plus another half dozen flats. With the couplers extended all the way, any vertical allignment issues in the track are exagerated. I have dealt with the problem you are having on other Con-Cor cars I have converted. Shortening the coupling distance has fixxed the problem almost every time. I'm not sure why they have them set at maximum distance, even fully compressed, the cars will go around 9 3/4" R without problems.

 I have also found the problem with the bolster pin, as to why some rub and some don't. There is a spacer washer on the truck assembly that has been placed randomly it seems. If you put the washer between the car and the truck, the bolster pin doesn't rub (unless there is really bad flashing). If the washer is between the pin and the truck, then everything has to be perfect for the axle not to rub. About half my cars were assembled one way, half the other. Since I had mine apart to clean up the flash, I ground a little more off of the head of the bolster pin and put the washer between the pin and the truck to get the cars to ride a touch lower.

 You can also flip the trucks on the flats and vehichle car to pull the coupler in closer on them without any issues. Pull the bolster pin, rotate the truck 180 degrees and reassemble. The offset built into the MT truck will pull the coupler drawbar in closer. I haven't had any issues doing this on the cars yet but the coupler does ride very close to the frame after doing the swap.

 While I'm at it, before I dunk a bunch of 89' flats to make them silver, I picked up a "lot" of flats on ebay which included a couple of the original brown TTX flats. I'm not much of an intermodal guy but I remember there was some discussion of them being hard to come by. Are the important enough to hold on to, or should I dip away? the lot had 6 cars, 2 are the brown TTX, I was really only planning on adding 4 anyhow. 

[altohorn25]

I've also had problems with uncouplings with the passenger trucks (even after I shortened them up and switched most of them out for MT 4 wheel trucks).  One thing that has helped a little was painting the knuckles a rust color.  The added tackyness of the paint seems to keep the couplers together a little better.  It is still rather annoying, however.  I've been running my completed 32 car train around my home layout and the only problem that I've had is said uncouplings.  Not quite sure what to do about it.  I've heard that if you run a drill bit down the inside of the coupler face, it fixes the problem.  I'll have to try that. 

Here's a couple of pics of my 12 loaded flats (click to enlarge).  Puts the train at 4 animal cars, 13 sleepers, 1 generator, 1 container, 12 flats, and 1 rack car.  I could add more cars, but I'm not sure where I'd run it.    Enjoy.

Nate

[James Costello]

Looking good Nate!

[Denver Road Doug]

Wow, nice fleet there, Nate!

It's very frustrating that these cars require so much attention!   Nevermind the mods needed to get them somewhat closer to prototypical....coupler issues?   From a--ahem--coupler manufacturer?   I'm really trying to avoid having a negative attitude about these cars but it's just one frustration after another.   I was thinking, aha!  Bolster pin problem...Railwire guys were all over this one...I can fix this train!   Then, still couldn't make it a few feet without decoupling.   It's a cool looking train but when it can't even go around a layout once...that's hard to take.

BTW, I'm curious what the process is for removing the skirts on the sleepers?

[altohorn25]

Doug,

I'm swamped with our school musical for the next two weeks.  After that, I'll take some photos of what I've done and explain the process (perhaps the Pie Car will be here by then and I can use that for demonstration purposes).  It takes about 5 min per car; it's not that hard if you're good with a #11 blade.

Nate

[Denver Road Doug]

Nate, thanks for the reply.  No hurry.  My train is still parked in the yard on my buddy's layout. (they're having a circus in Chicago...hehe)   I have to finish the bolster filing and I'm gonna swap the trucks once I figure out what the part number is.

[altohorn25]

Doug,

Part # for 4 wheel, silver trucks:  MTL 1017S

N Scale Supply part #:  MTL00342051

(I get all mine from N Scale Supply; they usually have to special order them, but I have them in a few weeks)

Nate

[Denver Road Doug]

I actually dropped by the LHS at lunch and they had one set of the silver.   I couldn't find them on the MTL website in silver but I guess they just don't have their complete catalog on there or I just wasn't seeing it or whatever.  But thanks anyway for the p/n.

So are the six axle trucks on these cars actually Micro-Trains trucks or Con-Cor with conversions?  I am reminded again of this questionable move by MTL when I spend an additional $8 per car for the correct trucks, coincidentally from the same company.  I try not to be a conspiracy theorist but...jeez.

[Nato]

   Con Cor has never had a six wheel passenger car truck,unless you count Rivarossi made in Italy heavyweight cars sold by Con Cor. The trucks are the first gen MT heavyweight trucks with a leingth adjustment for coupling distance between cars. Problem is the Con Cor cars use a split pin to hold the trucks to the cars a left over from their original Japasese origins before Con Cor began to produce the cars themselves. The split pins do not work very well in the hole on the MT truck also the large hole in the car floor causes problems with the truck rubbing unless the washer mentioned is between the truck and the car. Also flash in the car hole rubs, and I reamed one out too large which caused the problem mentioned at the beginning of this thread. Finally to be politically correct the passenger cars execpt the ex baggage  cars (generator and animal cars)have four wheel trucks and the six wheel trucks that are used are the modern kind like under a Bachmann Dome car or a Santa Fe Hi Level diner. Nate Goodman (Nato). "Starter of this post (thread)."

[ntex]

Am I the only one missing the "wire" for the brake ratchet, on all of my circus flats? Also all of my baggage and stock car door
windows have die stamps showing. Very disappointed with this set, it could have been much better with other manufacturers
passenger cars.

[altohorn25]

None of my flats had the break wire and all my baggage cars had the bad mold lines in the doors.

Nate