01-06-2009, 09:58 AM
Lynn, as far as I know, all Accurail cars have the name moulded inside the body shells and also on the coupler cover plates. However, any car with an interior weight should have the weight secured in place. While my method is a bit more work than simply gluing it in place, I've bought a lot of otherwise perfectly good used rolling stock where the use of the wrong glue has damaged the floor so severely as to make the car inoperable.
Athearn blue box cars generally "trap" the weight between the frame and floor, and MDC used either the cast metal floor/frame as the weight, or held the interior flat sheet steel weight in place with plastic washers.
Herc, I'm sure that off-centre weights would cause even more problems in N scale, but another cause of wobbling is out-of-round wheels or wheels not concentric to their axles - in HO, some Train Miniature (and later versions of the same cars from Walthers suffered from this malady. I generally run my cars with the wheels that come with the kits, but I had to change out more than a few on these cars, which are still among my favourites. Of course, being a cheapskate, most got Athearn or MDC plastic wheelsets as replacements.
Also, if the truck is too loosely mounted, it can allow the body to rock from side-to-side - many cars that have their trucks mounted with friction-fit plastic pins can suffer from this. The best solution is to replace the pin with a screw, and on many cars, it's simply a matter of finding a suitable-sized screw, then installing it in the existing hole. Use a self-tapping screw in metal floors, but a regular machine screw will cut its own threads in most plastics. In some instances, though, you'll need to first plug the existing hole (plastic sprues from many kits work well for this, or you can buy various diameters of styrene rod from Evergreen for the same purpose). I use lacquer thinner to cement it in place, then let it harden for a day or so before drilling it for the screw. Most trucks and coupler covers, at least in HO, are held in place by 2-56 screws, so if you're doing any appreciable amount of these upgrades, invest in a decent quality pin vise, a #50 drill bit (for drilling the screw holes), a 2-56 tap, and a #42 drill bit (for drilling clearance holes for the screws in the coupler covers). While I have a complete set (#1-#80) of numbered drill bits, I keep additional ones with my stock of various screw sizes for these kind of jobs. For cars that rely on separate plastic pins to hold the trucks in place or on pins moulded as an integral part of the coupler cover, replacement with screws is a simple procedure that can improve operation and make car maintenance easier.
Wayne
Athearn blue box cars generally "trap" the weight between the frame and floor, and MDC used either the cast metal floor/frame as the weight, or held the interior flat sheet steel weight in place with plastic washers.
Herc, I'm sure that off-centre weights would cause even more problems in N scale, but another cause of wobbling is out-of-round wheels or wheels not concentric to their axles - in HO, some Train Miniature (and later versions of the same cars from Walthers suffered from this malady. I generally run my cars with the wheels that come with the kits, but I had to change out more than a few on these cars, which are still among my favourites. Of course, being a cheapskate, most got Athearn or MDC plastic wheelsets as replacements.
Also, if the truck is too loosely mounted, it can allow the body to rock from side-to-side - many cars that have their trucks mounted with friction-fit plastic pins can suffer from this. The best solution is to replace the pin with a screw, and on many cars, it's simply a matter of finding a suitable-sized screw, then installing it in the existing hole. Use a self-tapping screw in metal floors, but a regular machine screw will cut its own threads in most plastics. In some instances, though, you'll need to first plug the existing hole (plastic sprues from many kits work well for this, or you can buy various diameters of styrene rod from Evergreen for the same purpose). I use lacquer thinner to cement it in place, then let it harden for a day or so before drilling it for the screw. Most trucks and coupler covers, at least in HO, are held in place by 2-56 screws, so if you're doing any appreciable amount of these upgrades, invest in a decent quality pin vise, a #50 drill bit (for drilling the screw holes), a 2-56 tap, and a #42 drill bit (for drilling clearance holes for the screws in the coupler covers). While I have a complete set (#1-#80) of numbered drill bits, I keep additional ones with my stock of various screw sizes for these kind of jobs. For cars that rely on separate plastic pins to hold the trucks in place or on pins moulded as an integral part of the coupler cover, replacement with screws is a simple procedure that can improve operation and make car maintenance easier.
Wayne