Hi, I purchased a twelve pack of Roundhouse 3 bay hopper kits recently and have a question regarding the trucks they supply. The two that I have assembled do not seem to roll freely although they are correctly assembled. Is this typical? If so I may order new trucks from MT and simply not use the MDC trucks. There is a little dimple on the metal underbody that looks like a good place to mount a coupler so that only new trucks would be needed. What have your experiences been with these models?
If you have some wheel sets with the proper axle length, you might try swapping just wheels to see if that works with the existing trucks. I purchased a (second hand) set of MDC cars and found that the small engine I was also testing could only pull ONE without spinning its wheels. I changed the wheels to BLMAs, and the same engine pulled all 5 without any apparent effort. steve
The trucks were notorious for poor rolling quality. And the dimple is for a body mount coupler to drill out for the mounting screw. I can't remember if the coupler box needed any shimming to be the right height but all the ones I have are now either MT 1015 body mounts or MT trucks with couplers.
Turn the car upside down and try spinning the wheels. If they wont spin for a couple of seconds they problem could be the trucks are too tight side to side. You can try spreading the trucks a little and putting the wheels back in the trucks and see if they spin better. Its a trial and error thing. Hope that helps.
We all have to live and learn, wish I had known too. Tried the spread the frame trick and it worked for 5 minutes or so then they returned to their earlier shape. A little heat maybe?
They're not BAD cars per say. I have many myself. Its just the trucks are rubbish. Just swap em out with MTs or BLMA.
One trick to getting molded plastic to take another shape is to soak the object, in this case the trucks, in hot tap water of at least 130 deg. F. No hotter than that. The 2nd step is once you have them spread some to immediately run cold tap water over them until cooled. Becomes a real PIA if you are doing a number.
If spreading frames works, then I would think that shorter axles would work just as well. But, in my example, I used BLMA metal wheel sets wit the same axle length, and that helped enormously. So, I think part of the problem may be the quality of the wheels themselves. Spinning the original ones in their trucks is not going to show you anything about how those wheels will roll on rails. Steve
I was going to buy one of these cleaning cars, but not now that I see its Roundhouse. http://www.ebay.com/itm/eSPee-TRACK...338?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item46364050aa
Same here. In the past I have owned a fair number and they were not good rollers, stock. So I swapped on M/T as the bodies were plenty good enough to spend the money.
I guess that it is past time to say that the car bodies are more than acceptable on these units and no doubt the trucks can be improved. I found a screaming deal on 24 used Bettendorf Kadee trucks with couplers so that will be my solution. I would not want anyone to shy away from these cars based on my limited experience with them. $120 total with "new" trucks for 12 nice Southern 3 bay coal hoppers is still a pretty good deal.
And heck, I just put some Fox Valley wheels on a pair of roundhouse trucks and they roll like ball bearings on glass. Clipped the rapidos off, body mounted the couplers and now I have a great rolling boxcar.
I probably had 100 of the Roundhouse 3 bay hopper cars of various roads. I cleaned up and then painted the weight Grimy Black. I put MT Betternorf trucks and couplers on them. They are great cars. I ran long strings. They ran well, even in a train of 50 or 60 cars. They also backed up, no problem. I've been selling some lately on E Bay.
Joh Moore is correct, but, before you apply hot water make a measurement of how far to spread the trucks to get the wheels to turn freely, with that measurement cut a dowel that length, use it to spread the trucks while heating and cooling with water. I used an electric tea pot to heat the water and a cup of ice water to cool them. The advantage of having the dowel is that you can make more than one and do several trucks at a time.
