I bought a IHC Alton Limited last year and it had some problems. Roof was bowed like a Banana, did not track well and wobble badly. It sat for about a year, then I fixed the problems. Self Tapping sheet metal screw to care of the wobbling. Bigger shoulder of the screw worked much better than the push pin!
It is now time for better wheels. I use Proto 2000 wheels,would the 36 inch wheels work with the trucks?
I work in Alton IL, so I like the name and pretty good looking paint scheme but not in love with passenger services so all I want to do is up grade the wheels.
Does any one know where I can get a few more? IHC shows them out of stock, Walther’s only has one kind of car in stock. It is the one I all ready have.
36" wheels would be correct for a heavyweight passenger car, but I’m not sure if the P2K wheels would fit exactly. Try the Reboxx site and check their table for the appropriate wheels. They’ll look better than the P2K wheels, anyway. The only issue I can forsee with the wheels themselves is whether they will bind on the brake shoes cast into the truck. If the truck uses 36" wheels, they should snap right in…
I’d look for the cars on eBay. They do show up occasionally…
i used 33" wheels on all my rivarossi passenger equipment. they cleared the brake shoes ok and you can’t really tell that they are a little undersize. since i body mounted the couplers their height was not an issue.
I recommend any of following dealers for IHC passenger cars:
Flora’s Electric Trains - website shows whole set of Alton Limited available, along with some individual cars.
Toy Train Heaven
Model Train Stuff (MBKlein) - usually best prices
USTrainCo - have to order by phone
I have a rather large fleet of IHC/Rivarossi/AHM - HW/SS/CS passenger cars with many road names. I upgraded all with McHenry couplers and 36" or 38" Intermountain wheelsets depending on how much height was needed for couplers using Kadee coupler gauge.
I have the exact same passenger car set with a matching steam locomotive. Use 36 inch Intermountain wheelsets for the passenger cars. If you have the interiors, add weight before installing them by filling the cavities in the bottom with lead shot glued in place with white glue. Remove the crappy truck mounted couplers and install body mounted Kadee couplers using Jay-Bee mounting pads.
I put a decoder into the locomotive above the motor, and a SoundTraxx DSX sound only decoder in the tender, which has separate electrical pickups for the backup light. The 2-6-0 can pull the complete passenger car set up a 2 percent grade without slipping.
Ken … The best option in my opinion is to replace the truck with IHC premium trucks. These trucks were worthwhile at retail prece of $25, and now they are on clearance sale for $13. I mounted long shank Kadees to the carbodies using home made (easy to do) mounting pads.
wow 36" wheels ,I dont have the heavyweights but I just did some smoothsides and 33" were dragging on the brakes had to do some heated bending to get clearance (proto 33" wheels ) .still not real happy with results but 7 fold better than stock…did loose some brake shoes bending that sucks … J.W.
If they show the light kits in stock the metal wheels come with the kit. I myself eliminated all but one of the IHC light kits but if your stuck thats one way to go. I had all of the problems you described with my cars as well with the exception of the bowing, but non of the interior kits fit and had to be modified to get them to sit right.
I bought one set of those IHC heavyweights. They were not bowed, but otherwise were just like yours. I cured the “duck walk” by putting a flat washer between the truck and the body on one end. They derailed a lot. I finally figured out it was the wheels. I replaced them all with Intermountain 36". That was when I found out that the previously mentioned washers were too big. It took me a couple of hours to trace the intermittent short circuit. Smaller washers and now they are fine.