I have a few HO flat cars that I picked up at an estate sale. They are plastic, made in China and are well detailed but the trucks are very loose. The mounting screws are tight but the cars wobble more than I like to see. I saw a thread earlier that said that one truck should be loose and the other “not loose”. Should I shim one to lessen the wobble or just leave them alone?
You need atleast one stiffish truck and the other one can do what it wants. If you have 2 wobbily trucks, you will have a wobbily car.
David B
On many of the older Athearn Blue Box kits, the screws that hold the trucks on were too long, and the trucks could not be properly tightened. If you have no crimping tool with the screw cutter to make them shorter, there’s not much you can do. A shim between the truck and car body will not work because that just makes the car body sit higher on the truck. If you can find a suitable sized washer, you may be able to put one under the screw head, but the truck screws normally recess into the truck and it may then be too short.
The recommendation is to have one truck tight enough that it can still swivel without binding yet not allow the car to wobble.
I don’t know the proper name for the part. It’s the “tube” that the truck pivots on. Sometimes these are too tall and the screw head bottoms out on it before contacting the truck. I’ve had to lightly file this pivot tube down to get the truck tight. Or as mentioned, the screw may be too long.
Bolster.
David B
Thanks fellas. The bolster post was as Lothar said, too high. A few small file strokes were all that was necessary.
Even with a screw cutter, there’s a better solution (besides, the cutter isn’t recommended for steel screws, which Athearn supplies). Atheran used (and I believe still uses) a standard 2-56 screw for mounting trucks. A well stocked hobby shop carries these, simply buy a pack of shorter ones (or several packs, depending on the quantity of cars that need this fix).
If the problem screws only number two or three, a pair of pliers and a file will do wonders for the excess length. However, as another poster noted, the problem is just as likely to be the bolster pin on the carbody. A fix for the latter is a loose turn of bare wire around the screw shank, big enough to fill most of the space in the truck bolster, but not big enough to prevent movement.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)