Athearn Coalporter: Replacement Trucks

[ljudice]

Anyone find a happy replacement for said Coalporters trucks which stick out too far.

Ie.  balance between coupling distance and ride height.

[cjm413]

Anyone find a happy replacement for said Coalporters trucks which stick out too far.

Ie.  balance between coupling distance and ride height.

The trucks are OK, the couplers can be replaced with body-mounted Unimates.

[ljudice]

I was thinking of that, but there is not much room, since the trucks sit slightly outside the ends of the cars.

I tried some of the old Intermountain trucks, which I have a ton of lying around, but they seem to interfere with the frame.

Even getting the coupler distance down to BLMA TopGon levels would be acceptable...

Isn't there a short coupling accumate like option out there?

[cjm413]

I was thinking of that, but there is not much room, since the trucks sit slightly outside the ends of the cars.

If you look at the prototype, you'll see that they have the same "problem" 

[ljudice]

If you look at the prototype, you'll see that they have the same "problem" 

No, I know it's correct - just wondering if there is an easy solution....

[cbroughton67]

The factory trucks are fine. It's the truck-mounted couplers that have to go. I'm body-mounting Z-scale MT 905 couplers on mine. I have to lightly sand the lip on the rear of the coupler box to prevent interference with the truck bolster, but other than that, it's a good fit. It closes the coupling gab substantially.

Chris

[ljudice]

I just pulled the trucks off one and there is more room than I thought....

Body mounting looks like the way to go.

[jdg]

Remove the truck, flush cut the remaining bolster the screw goes into, and drill out the remaining for an MT pin. Put MT trucks with mounted couplers on all of mine.

[cjm413]

Remove the truck, flush cut the remaining bolster the screw goes into, and drill out the remaining for an MT pin. Put MT trucks with mounted couplers on all of mine.

Even if I set aside my personal contempt for both truck-mounted couplers and plastic truck pins, I'm not aware of any MTL 100T trucks that come with truck-mounted couplers to accurately represent the prototype.

Kato 100T trucks seem like a better option, assuming you could actually find them, and more importantly, don't have any objections to their truck-mounted dummy couplers...

http://www.katousa.com/N/Coalporter/

http://search.cartserver.com/search/search.cgi?cartid=s-1078&keywords=NBETHGON&maxhits=100&bool=AND

[jdg]

Never said they were prototypical. But they sure run a heck of a lot better.

[cjm413]

Never said they were prototypical. But they sure run a heck of a lot better.

What problems did you have with the Athearn trucks?

[ljudice]

These cry out for a Trainworx drop-in conversion.

[jdg]

What problems did you have with the Athearn trucks?

Just didn't like the way the rolled.

[Peter Amling]

These cry out for a Trainworx drop-in conversion.

So many of my freight cars cry out for a Trainworx drop in conversion. After they did the Atlas hoppers I wanted them to do everything else that comes with truck mounted couplers.

[cjm413]

These cry out for a Trainworx drop-in conversion.

The Trainworx conversions are meant for cars that don't have a tangible surface to mount a fixed coupler box.

The Athearn cars do have a sufficient amount of space to mount a Unimate, or alternatively, a MTL 903 or 905 coupler box.