I’m currently in the process of assembling some Highliner shells for use with a future passenger train. The instructions the kits come with have been very useful, however they don’t seem to make any mention of how best to attach to the shells to the locomotive chassis. Athearn’s F-units (which use the Highliner tooling) come with clear plastic clips that attach to indents on the chassis and also double as the porthole windows, but the kits don’t come with anything like that and I can’t seem to find any listings where I might be able buy them separately. I’m planning to use either Genesis or Intermountain chassis drives. I reached out directly on the Highliner website, but have yet to receive a response. What are my options for this? I’d like to stray away from any solutions directly involving adhesives or tape.
Glue some blocks of styrene to the inside of the shell and run screws through the frame of the chassis.The coupler mounting screws might be made long enough to hold the shell in place.
Mark Vinski
Here is a thread of interest:
https://forum.trains.com/t/ho-chassis-shell-interchangeability/310166/15
See Mel’s advice about using plastic nuts for this purpose. Mel was an excellent modeller…
Simon
Looking at the HOSEEKER.Net website (https://www.hoseeker.net/assemblyexplosionAthearn/athearnfsgenesisfs2004pg2.jpg, it appears that you are looking for the body retainer clips, G19202 (A unit) and/or G19203 (B unit).
I just did a chat with Horizon Hobby customer service. I asked if they were available, price, and where to buy. If they answer I’ll forward the info to you.
Well, not good news:
"Thank you for contacting Athearn Trains at Horizon Hobby!
The Body retainer clip, A unit set G19202, and B unit set G19203 are from our early F Units and have since been redesigned. The current units don’t use body clips, and we stopped producing them. So, unfortunately, we no longer have any parts for the older Genesis F-Unit models. We apologize for the inconvenience"
I suppose that I could have asked what the new design was, but I suppose that OP can contact Horizon to ask this question if he wants to.
I find it hard to believe that someone, somewhere, hasn’t made a dimensioned CAD drawing of these ‘retainer clips’ and/or produced them with 3D printing. At worst you’d have to give up ‘transparent’ porthole windows (which were never very realistic with the molded press-in parts anyway) or redesign so the clips go around the porthole areas and would be cemented to the shell instead.
I think this may end up being my best option, given the information from maxman that the clips aren’t available anymore. Fortunately, someone with a 3D printer joined my club recently, and the design is simple enough for a novice like myself to be able to reproduce and modify. Fortunately I acquired some calipers a little while ago for a related project.
I think that before I ran off trying to 3D print something I think I might want to investigate exactly what those things are supposed to attach to.
It seems clear to me that they lie against the inside of the shell, and locate by being pressed into the portholes, and the hooks at the bottom engage the chassis.
Based on the yellowbox Genesis F9 I already have, this is the case. I’ve also done complete decoder replacements for several of my friend’s YB Genesis F’s, so I’ve gotten some experience that way as well.
I agree with the upper part, but I don’t know to what the bottom part attaches. If all the frames are the same, then no issue.
There will be notches in the frame that those tabs at the bottom snap into.
As I recall, the original idea was to use a plastic for the shell that would take fine detail – this might not have been a good material for locating tabs to be molded out of. By making the tabs a separate piece, the material used could be ‘tougher’, and if any tab should be broken off, simply replacing a cheap clip rather than attempting to patch a carbody might be easier. And using a tool to pry on the tabs to ‘unlock’ them would not risk damaging the bottom of the visible shell…
Here’s a photo of the rear of one of the ‘redesigned’ Genesis F unit shells I had on hand:
Athearn Genesis shell mount by Edmund, on Flickr
You can see two screw heads on either side of the draft gear. IIRC the front end is similar but I don’t have a photo (yet). The redesign is still not perfect as you really need to jiggle and pry and shake the chassis free. The plastic ‘ledge’ interferes with the lip on the frame and you really have to jam the chassis forward in order to clear it.
Regards, Ed
So, okay, I have a Highliners “B” unit and curiosity prompted me to read the instructions to see if there was any instruction pertaining to attachment of the shell to the chassis.
Note that this particular kit does not include the Athearn style “clips” but does include clear plastic plugs to fill the holes in the shell.
The instructions state:
“If you are using Athearn power, the separate weight will either have to be removed, or a clearance slot filed or machined into the weight’s top in order to clear the molded recess in the underside of the roof of our body shell.”
{*Nothing else is mentioned as to how the shell remains attached}
Now comes the possibly helpful part:
“For Kato drives, the center most bottom detail on our carbody ends must be trimmed back approximately 1/16 " on each side to clear the Kato coupler mounts. Kato’s window glass is used to mount our shell to their chassis in the same manner as their own shell. However, to use our externally mounted flush porthole glass, Kato’s protruding glass must be slightly sanded or filed back. In addition, our porthole spacing correctly offsets the center porthole 3 scale inches to the rear. (I never knew that!) The Kato glass has the middle porthole centered. It may either be removed completely, or with judicious manipulation of the entire plastic piece, each porthole may be stretched (or compressed) into place in our shell.”
Here endeth the typing of the Highliner instruction. It will be up to someone else to see if the Kato part is available and if it can be adapted to the Athearn chassis.
For those still wondering about attachment, look at the “underframe” in the HOseeker diagram maxman provided:
You can see the engagement points for the four tabs, and also the ‘recess’ that holds the plastic clip against the car side when the shell is on.
I expect that someone familiar with the HOseeker site can find an equivalent exploded view of a Kato unit that shows their counterpart to this underframe.
Just looked. Unfortunately there is not a listing for a Kato F unit.
Didn’t Kato produce the early Stewart F units? Maybe there is something for a Stewart F unit?
