I got this very nice model of an NP RPO car at a swap meet and found when I got it home that it lists heavily to one side. Or the other. It never runs straight up and down. It doesn’t fall over, it just leans. If I push it to center, it settles into a lean the other way. It’s like the drunken sailor on my mail route.
I believe it to be an IHC model #40525. There’s one exactly like it on a popular auction site right now, which is how I identified it.
I thought maybe the truck screws needed to be tightened a skosh, but I can’t reach or even really see them; they’re hidden by the middle axle of each truck. Next I thought to remove the body from the chassis and see if the truck pops out that way, or if the fastener can be removed. But getting the body off is eluding me. I can see that there are six plastic tabs (see photo below), three on each side, but there’s no way to grip the chassis and pull on it while simultaneously releasing all six tabs – even if I had seven hands, or three hands and two agreeable friends.
How do I get this thing apart? And once I do, what should I look for in trying to fix this lean? Has anyone experienced this listing with this model before and if so, what did you do about it?
I had hesitated because I thought I might break the truck, but yes. I got the center wheelset out and what my partial earlier glimpse had suggested was confirmed. There’s no screw-head there. Just a kind of plastic grommet around some kind of pin. So it must unfasten from inside. More’s the pity, as NorthBrit might say. It means I still have to find a way to bust my way inside there.
Then you’ll need some toothpicks. Insert one at each tab location to hold the tab away from the shell. That should reduce the number of hands required from octopus down to human.
The tapered ones work the best for that. I always have them handy in my tool arsenal for that purpose, as well as convenient applicators for tiny amounts of adhesive.
Now that I’ve had some time to think about this, it occurs to me to ask if you are sure that what you have is really a screw. Some of these things just have a press fit pin. Maybe a photo with that center axle removed will elicite a response from someone more familiar with that car’s construction.
If this car is like my IHC cars the roof and interior windows are one piece which inserts into the open top car body. The trucks are “secured” by non adjustable plastic split pins that can only really be removed from inside the car when the roof/window piece is popped out of the car body. Those clips do need to be freed from the car body, they are along the bottom edge of the window part of the roof piece. I believe the clip locations are asymmetrical so when reassembling the roof into the car body it only fits in one direction.
Your issue might be worn plastic truck pins or perhaps even truck mounting bosses that are not quite flat. Fitting screws in place of the pins allows adjustment of the trucks. Getting and using a 2 56 tap to put threads into the car body truck mounting bosses is worthwhile.
Theres an extensive thread about upgrading these cars which I can recommend. I found a NIB set of 8 passenger cars (lightweights) to which I added weight and screw fastening of the trucks in accordance with the ideas in the thread. I replaced the horn and hook couplers with to correct part number of McHenry couplers made to be a direct fit for IHC trucks. On a couple I modified the trucks to fit the recommended Kadee couplers but that’s s lot more work than simply removing the old couplers and clipping in new ones. One tip when fitting new McHenrys is to place your thumbnail behind the plastic moulded in coupler retaining pin as you push the new coupler in place. I’ve had a couple of those pins break off when pushing on the new coupler. Then you have to fit the Kadee version. A little Labelle oil or grease on the pin or the coupler clip is also a good idea before you press in the new coupler. The coupler swings on that pin and the lubricant eases the fitting.
I am pleased with the results. One small issue is the use of screws instead of pins requires a solution to lock the screw while retaining adjustability. I used those pressed lock washers with the crim
Looks like 6 32 screws fit the IHC truck mounting pin holes. I’m not sure why I thought 2 56 worked but maybe I used 6 32 in the event. I don’t have the cars in front of me at the moment. I also have the lightweights with two axle trucks so the screwhead issue isn’t a problem for my upgrades.
I note from the photo you already have McHenry couplers. When (not if) the coupler knuckle springs go awol I confirm the Kadee springs are a better choice for replacing those. The McHenry coupler springs frequently leave the knuckles when reversing a consist or if the coupling speed is a bit too high. I don’t really like McHenry couplers in general but these are a convenient fit so I put up with the poor performance.
If you look at the bottom of the car, you should be able to locate some plastic tabs - 2 on each side, which is what you pointed out. Push them apart (I used a small jewelers flat head screwdriver-no damage to the car) and what this enables you to do is to take the roof off, which holds the windows as well. Then you can look inside to see if someone put weights in there to car balancing. I did that to all my IHC cars as they are very light. Also, the plastic pin that holds the truck in place comes out easily. I would suggest you put in metal wheels as well. Probably 36" wheels, but you may want to try 33" as the ‘brake shoe’ on some of those cars inhibit the trucks to roll smoothly…
I’m not sure you can. Those older IHC passenger cars were listers, as the OP calls them. At one point, I removed the pins and replaced them with screws and washers. That seemed to work for a while, but then the listing returned. So, I went back to the pins. The underbody design seems to be the problem. I am not sure that adding weights at strategic points will solve the problem.
You have to add some plastic to one of the bolsters. If I remember right all you had to do was pull the truck off (not easy) but since they were releised over a large time period that might just have been the run I or a freind had and they might have changed.
Thanks all. I’ve perused the great responses here. Will do some science later today if I can get to it, and report back. I have a feeling rrebell’s comment will be germaine to the issue, but “adding plastic” will be “a whole nuther” conversation.
I just acquired one of these RPOs on ebay and I am in the process of upgrading it. If it is the same model as mine, and it looks like it is, you don’t lift the car body off the chassis. You lift the roof off the car body. The roof and the window glass are one piece and the six clips in the bottom of the car hold that assembly to the car body and chassis which are also one piece.
No screw, as was foretold. Plastic pin, friction mount. The pin resisted a little but I got the edge of a small screwdriver under there and it finally gave, popped out like a cork.
John, thanks, this makes sense, but now I’m not certain I need to get in there after all. The next thing is to lean on rrebell for more details about this comment:
For starters, I’m not sure what a bolster is in this context.
For those of you who wish to prepare for the pop quiz coming up a bit later (John-NYBW, I’m looking at you), what kind of truck and wheelsets would you use to upgrade this? I use metal wheels and axles wherever I can.
At one time IHC offered metal wheelsets as replacements for the passenger cars, but if memory serves the wheels were the same undersized diameter as the plastic originals, perhaps as small as 31 or 32 scale inches versus the prototype 36". On the very similar AHM cars if you replaced the original undersized (but huge-flanged) wheels with 36" wheels with RP25 flanges, you had two immediate problems: a cast-on brake shoe detail would rub on the wheel tread and needed to be carefully shaved smaller, and the coupler height would have of course risen a bit. For some cars you were “lucky” because the original coupler height was too low anyway.
I also seem to recall that either IHC or AHM or maybe both offered after-market metal “pins” for holding the trucks to the bolster, pins that had slight corrugations on the shaft to give better tooth and grip the plastic hole, but with the risk that repeated removal and replacement of the metal pin would simply make the hole larger if the pin was twisted to get it out.
