I have two of these (hard to find) HO Mantua/Tyco derrick cars, both missing parts, and I am trying to create a complete car with parts from both.
The car looks like this:
I successfully unscrewed the derrick pole from the broken car, and plan to place it on the better car.
The car that I want to use has a broken pole, and, if life were easy, I would simply unscrew the base of the broken pole from the frame. Trouble is, the tiny screw connecting it to the bottom does not have a slot. When I turn the pole base to unscrew it, the screw turns right along with it.
It seems like the obvious, less-than-ideal solution may be to glue the head of the tiny screw in place, which in theory will allow me to remove the broken base and attach the new pole. However, I hate to glue things unless it is absolutely necessary.
Is there another solution? The screw head is very small and it is surrounded by metal housing, so there is no way to grip it with needle-nose pliers.
Perhaps using the tip of the pliers ot a screwdriver to put pressure on the screw while trying to twist off the pole will keep the screw head from turning.
Are you sure it is indead a headless screw and not a hex head bolt of some sort?
I thought you had unscrewed the good one. Is the hole threaded? It could be a plug like the way truck used to be attached to the bolster. It could be glue too. How about a gentle steady pull maybe try some hot, but not boiling water too.
Then scroll down until you see derrick car. There are two pages: assembly instructions and a drawing.
So there should be some sort of slot. Is it possibly filled with dirt?
If the mast on the car is the one you don’t want to use, you can try cutting it off at the base. That might release the screw. Otherwise I think you’ll have to go with the drill the head out method.
Thanks all. I was able to pry off the broken piece with needle-nose pliers and the screw dropped out. I was reluctant to do this, because I did not want to damage the base of the car, but it worked out. I was able to screw in the new mast with the screw from the other car. I will post pix soon. Thanks all!
Glad to hear it worked out. For future reference, original instruction sheets and parts lists are often contained on the wonderful and very interesting “HO Seeker” website. As it happens they have the derrick car (although it went through several versions over the decades).
EDITED POST: yes for some reason you cannot get to the pages I linked to. You used to be able to. Anyway for whatever reason HO Seeker has then under Tyco rather than Mantua, even though they were Mantua kits originally (and in the OP’s photo).
Thanks. That link brings me to their main page. I am not sure how to navigate to the instructions. Is it under “literature?” All I can find under the latter is catalogs.
Yes, click on literature, scroll down through all of the manufacturers and click on Mantua, when that opens, the middle box, “instructions/part numbers”, open the drop down box, click on freight cars, when that page opens, the box on the right, “freight car diagrams”, scroll to find “Derrick car 1962”. There are two pages, you have to open each one individually. The first page is literature and part numbers, the second page is the “exploded” view.
HOSeeker has a lot of info, once you learn how to navigate it.
As I do not know if you would like to keep this car in it’s as manufactured form (?) a possible solution would be to replace the derrick unit, with the derrick unit for the Athearn Car, which parts are available from several sources.
Thanks. I do have a couple of Athearn derricks, which frankly are much nicer than the Tyco/Mantua, but I want to Frankenstein together an accurate Tyco version, to complete my 1959/60 Tyco Maintenace train set (which was my first as a kid). Thanks!
It’s been 50+ years since Mantua freight car kits were common. TYCO, was originally their RTR Brand, essentially the assembled version of the Mantua kit.
Frequently, RTR versions had blind head rivets in place of slotted 2-56 screws. I suppose this was done to discourage dis-assembly or modification by the end user.
This, of course, required drilling out the screws and rethreading the screw hole or replacing them with self tapping screws. Changing thecouplers, for instance was a PIA.
Well, that explains it. Of the two that I have, the car that had the removable screw was the older, heavier Mantua car, and the one with the rivet was a RTR Tyco, with a metal base but slightly lighter than the Mantua.
I guess Tyco started slowly sacrificing quality right from the beginning. It’s amazing to think that those older Mantua cars were comparable to Athearn cars, and then you see what Tyco had become by the 1970s.
It’s a bit late, but next time you run into a “headless” screw, you could try filing a slot into the head that will accomodate a flat-head screwdriver.
