I picked up a 6 car set of Bachmann N&W HO passenger cars and am in the process of refurbishing them with body mounted Kadee’s and IM or Kadee metal wheel sets and adding about 2 ounces of weight. I am looking for better rolling qualities and appearance. The trucks don’t seem to roll much better with the metal wheels. I used the Truck Tuner on the frames but they still don’t roll as well as my Athearn RTR passenger cars. I don’t know if the brake shoes are contacting the wheels but they don’t look like they are. I also noticed that the IM wheels are a little sloppy in the truck frames and the Kadee’s are tight. I measured the axle length and the IM are shorter than the Kadee. I read somewhere of replacing the trucks with Athearns, but don’t know if that is really the best choice. I don’t want to spend too much for trucks and the Athearns are about $6.00 a pair, about as cheap as I can find. Any suggestions.
I still need to put some working diaphrams on to fill the voids between cars. The cars look like they were made by IHC or Rivarossi for Bachmann and they have vacuum formed seats. They are not Spectrum line cars.
Thanks for the link to your earlier post, it was very helpful and well written. From what you describe I think my Bachmann cars are IHC as they have the split pin trucks, but they are 4 wheel. I had planned to replace these pins but didn’t know that a #6-32 was a direct fit (and I have tons of 6-32 screws!). I may try another brand of wheels like P2K and see if they work better than the Kadee or IM.
I found that a peice of .040" stryene is just right for a coupler mounting pad, just glued to the underside. I then located the coupler box and ‘tack’ cemented it in place and finally drilled and tapped for a #2-56. This seems to work great for the coupler mounting task.
I am still working on the weight problem. I used sheet lead on one of the coaches as it was thin enough to fit under the seat forming. I used the wheel weights in the baggage and combine cars as there was more room in them.
I think they will eventually turn out fine, but as was mentioned earlier it is a shame the manufacturers don’t do a better job of making these cars more ‘operable’ out of the box.
Bob, that is exactly what I did for the coupler mounts.
I use to use Jay Bee Enterprises coupler mounting pads which were specifically designed for these coupler conversions. But, for whatever the reason, Jay Bee was producing any for a long period of time, so I resorted to making my own, They work fine.
The JB coupler mount allows for car spacing coupler adjustment. Not sure if you have allowed for the diaphrams when couplers were body mounted. Don’t know your min radius. Minimum radius may require repositioning of the coupler or using a longer shank. Although the American Limited diaphrams are working ones, backing a string of cars can cause troubles if binding happens on turnout or curve.
I actually left too much space for the diaphrams. I have 4 pair left over from my Athearn project and they require .36" and I have at least .39". also, my layout has a minimum of 30" radius except for 1 curve that is 28". thanks for the input.