#1 – Zero maintenance layout (2200 sq ft layout) – You can’t maintain a large layout by yourself #2 – DCC 8 amp boosters and welding engine wheels of the engine derails #3 – Track Cleaning – Never again! #4 – Reverse Loops – Using a toggle switch with DCC #5 – Not removing ties on flex track #6 – IDC connectors - 3M scotch locks/Suitcase connectors for track wiring-NEVER #7 - The Rolling Stock Truck Tuner tool & why do you need one #8 – Soldering Track Joints #9 – Homasote Expansion vs Wood #10 – DCC and you have to modify the turnouts – YOU DON”T #11 – Homasote Cost – making a mess when cutting – You Don’t have to make dust when cutting
PLW the MRR Myth Busters – #7 - The Myth is:
You have to use the Truck Tuner Tool on every set of trucks
I don’t see the need for this Truck Tuner tool every one is talking about. Using it would just open up the distance between the side frames and everyone of my side frames are too wide now. I have never found a set of freight car trucks that were too tight!
What type of trucks are you finding that need this done to, or are you just using it because everyone else does and it is a neat looking tool!
I have over 800 cars on my layout and have never needed this tool and I have just about every brand there is, including some old metal Manuta’s etc.
What I find is that the side frames are way too wide and this lets the points of the axles ride too high in the side frame and effectively lowers the overall car height. Now I have to add the Kadee red washers to raise up the body and coupler to the proper height.
Now if I take the side frames and squeeze them to make the axle points ride where they should, suddenly the car now sets at the proper height and actually rolls much better.
But then again I spend the time to figure out just WHY the trucks are not working right,
Well Bob, I have to disagree with you. I have a lot of different truck sideframes(Atlas/P2K/Athearn/MDC/etc…). There are three things I do to each pair of trucks:
o - File the inside of the sideframe smooth(lots of ‘flash’ on some trucks).
o - Use the ‘truck tuner’ to ream out the flash in the journal, and get a nice 60 degree bearing surface.
o - Replace the plastic wheel sets with metal one(P2K or better yet Intermountain). For certain trucks, I have to use the Reboxx custom length axle wheel sets. Several times I have tested with unmodified cars, and I see a 15-20% increase in pulling when using the modified trucks. Further testing indicates that cleanup of the flash and a good bearing surface are the key items. The metal wheels allow some better ‘rollability’ over plastic wheels, but the metal ones stay cleaner and are easier to clean. Even plastic Athearn wheel sets roll better when the journal has been cleaned out using the tool. The worst rolling trucks are the Kadee ones. They have a ‘soft’ engineering plastic axle that gets chewed up in the rough metal journal. I have never been sucessfull in getting them to perform as well as other trucks, and the axles still keep getting chewed up over time. The best side frame out of the box? Those plastic Accurail ones! No cleanup of flash and metal wheel sets just ‘drop in’. I do use the ‘tool’ however to make sure there is nothing in the journal.
Basically if I use the tool then the truck side frames are going to need a longer axle are they not?
This means then I would need custom length axles on everyone of my trucks and that is going too a lot of expense to gain 15%
I figured that if the operators on my layout just have to have 2 powered engines pulling a train that little bit extra drag was just going to make the engines actually do some work instead of just being there to look cool!
Now for the steam engines I can see that any gain in free rolling ability is needed as most steam engines out of the box are not the best pullers in the world unless you have the BLI rubber tire units.
If you use the truck tuner tool so much you need longer axles, you used it too much.
One or two turns is enough, all you want to do is knock out any flash. If there isn’t any - you don’t need the tool. See the other thread about the tuner - I have one, on trucks that were already good quality, which is probably 90-95% of my stuff, it serves no purpose. On that 5% that needed it though, it makes a definite difference in rolling ability. We’re talking brakes on vs free rolling, not “without, the car coast 6”, with the car coasts 8"
What has needed it - Athearn, Accurail, MDC. What hasn’t needed it: P2K, Branchline, Atlas, Kadee.
My LHS has sold a bunch of these truck tool things. Every single person that buys one says something like “Are these worth 9 bucks?” “Do these really work for 9 bucks?” and the next week they come back and say “worth every penny” “can’t believe how much better my cars roll after reaming out the inside of the frames”…
If you do the cleaning or filing or reaming while you are replacing the original wheels with the metal wheels, that’s one less time you have to spread to frames.
Friend, you need to clean up your “rumor” list. The truck tuner is worth every penny. No every truck does not need it. But, enuf do benefit from it to make it worthwhile in my opinion. I have rolled enuf cars before and after that I am convinced it works great on a lot of trucks.
I’m afraid I must agree with the majority here. I have about 15 pieces of rolling stock (yeah, I know, whoopeee…) and eight locos. I have had to clean up at least two trucks that I can recall, so that is significant if my very modest sample is to be any indication. I bought a truck bearing ream at the insistance of my LHS owner, and feel I owe him a debt of gratitude.
As I already posted, older truck molds snapped the truck off the mold core, scarring the pocket for the axle end. Some of these molds are still in use by various companies. This is where the reamer becomes invaluable. If you only buy new high priced cars the molds are not made this way.
The CurtMc post above is another fraud. Disregard his inflamatory remarks!
I have one and where trucks are so tight the wheels hardly turn it works just fine. I have yet to “overuse” it.
But one day when I could not find it I used my cordless screwdriver and the Philips screwdriver did about the same thing.
I think what it mostly does beyond some modest enlargement of the bearing is to smooth it.
Dave Nelson
Hmpf. I replace all trucks with Kadee sprung trucks. End of all problems, and the non-rigid sideframes allow the trucks to track better over slight track discrepancies. No arguments about the springs being too stiff to work on properly weighted cars, please! I already know that. But there is a slight bit of movement between the two side frames, and it’s enough to improve trackability. So I don’t use a truck tuner - no need for one with quality trucks.
Maybe I’m just a rube, but I have Athearn rolling stock almost exclusively, some of which is going on 30 years old, and has operated just fine right out of the box with no problems whatsoever. I’ve never even heard of this truck tuning tool. What is it?
When I set up my cars I check the weight, replace the couplers with Kadee’s and check the wheel gauge.
In ALL cases the truck frames are way too wide as the axles just flop around in the axle pockets. So I apparently would not need the TOOL by YOUR standards.
Then why would I need to even have to make a pass with the tool as it would only cause the frame to get wider. This is where a lot of tracking problems and unexplained random derailments come from. The wheel sets wobbling around in the too wide of a truck frame just causes the axles to bind up then loosen and it ends up skewing the whole truck causing the derailment. Replace the truck and the problem magically goes away.
I check each wheel set when I check the wheel gauge to see how freely it spins and if I find a tight set of trucks (which I must be lucky as I have 900 cars running on the layout and haven’t found one yet) I can just swap out the trucks with a set of P2K and go.
When I check coupler height most all of the couplers are low due to the wide truck frames that let the axles ride out of the pointed area that the TOOL is supposed to make, so it is not going to help with the coupler height problem only going to make it worse!
Yep! For that 1% it would make a difference but I can change those trucks out to a better brand and not have the problem.
Clearly the tool need not and should not automatically be used on every truck regardless of need and I do not think anyone has claimed that it should be. Kadee metal wheels fit so nicely into most trucks that I rarely have to use this tool – and my supply of P2K, NWSL, NJ International, and other makes of metal wheels usually means I will find something in the scrapbox that turns nicely once I remove and replace the plastic wheels. But there are exceptions and the tool comes in handy.
I never regarded its purpose as being to spread out the sideframes, just to ream out irregularities in the bearing.
And sometimes there are aspects to the original trucks that make one want to retain them rather than replace them with P2K or whatever. For example the really interesting sprung trucks that came with some handbuilt Japanese imported freight cars from the mid 1950s, or rare sideframes from Red Ball and Walthers that have not been offered commercially in recent times. Ditto the caboose trucks from Eastern Car Works.
Dave Nelson
Gee what kind of rolling stock are you buying where the wheels flop around in too-wide sideframes? Or what kind of wheelsets are you using? Can’t say I’ve ever had that problem. I replace all plastic wheels with metals, most of my stuff works great with Proto2000 wheels,which are reasonably priced and, so far, after uncounted pairs used by both myself and my father in law, have NEVER been out of gauge or out of round. Occasionally there are products where the P2K axles are too long, or too short, this is where Reboxx comes in.
Next time I come across a sideframe with flash in the journal pocket I will attempt to get a photo. And set up an angled track to show a before and after rolling distance with the same truck and wheelset before and after using the Tool. This is not a myth. What is a myth is that you have to do it on EVERY piece of rolling stock you own. I started out like that, using the Tool every time before putting in the replacement wheelsets and quickly found that for most it was a waste of time. The already good ones - you put the Tool in and it spins like a wheelset, no resistence. The ones the truly need it, you feel it catch on the flash.
To truly bust this “myth,” wouldn’t you have to have at least tried it? Simple scientific experiment. Take a car, figure out some way of testing it, such as free roll distance given a push of a known magnitude, record the result, use the tool, push it again with the exact same magnitude, and record the results! The push could come from a loco striking it at a predermined speed (just hope it doesn’t couple on!). THEN, you will have proven one way or the other and actually made inroads into busting a myth. But then, statisticians say you need a sample set of at least 30 or so to gain any meaningful statistics.
Sorry, I’m a scientist, and I’m uncomfortable with absolute statements made without first conducting a verifiable, repeatable experiment.
I always appreciate your comment cmr . But the tools has been useful for me on some of my truck frames. just a little flash inside the journal removed, and this is just an occasional car, and all is well. Yes I replace many truck sets if they are really bad, which sadly is the case on some brands. But the few I don’t have to replace saves me a few buck to be spent else where on my layout. I have drawers full of brand new replacement trucks and /or wheelsets if needed, but a quick tune sometimes is all a car needs. My [2c]
Every Atheran, MDC and quite a number of P2K trucks are too loose.
Now by too loose for one person is OK for others. We can set and argue this all day.
While I never said that you should not use the tool it seems that quite a number from threads in the past months have given the impression that you had to. And this is where I was asking what brand of trucks were too tight as I wanted a reason to but the tool but if all of my rolling stock was too loose why spend the money!
And if I ever find a wheel set that has flash in it, it may be the first one I have ever seen!
All of you that have had cars with it in must be the lucky ones. (Play the Lottery!)