What is the minimum radius required for and AMS Accucraft passenger cars using the body mount couplers? Also can the trucks be retrofitted with couplers for tighter radius curves. I am using 4ft radius curves and the car corners hit each other and cause the cars to derail. If couplers can not be mounted to the trucks, are there any extended shaft couplers that can be retrofitted in place of the existing Accucraft couplers?
Dan Stuettgen
Colorado & Rio Grande Southern
8’ minimum is best.
Jason
Dan;
The truth is the minimum radius or diameter might be 4/8 feet, and yes you could probably jury-rig some sort of adaptation to the couplers, to allow them to around that curve…BUT
Purchasing those pieces of rolling stock, is not cheap, and part of owning them is to see them on curves that promote their fine properties.
If you care about how they look, and get the most satisfaction from them; you need a realistic minimum of OVER ten foot DIAMETER.
If you can’t find the room to go for a wider diameter than 8 feet, then save yourself a lot of money and go for shorter cars like the LGB or Bachmann ones…which look passable on the sharper curves.
Ultimately, of course, it is your railroad, and you have to please yourself. I’m only passing on an observation…and am not meaning to insult or upset anyone, in any way.
Fred Mills
Dan,
Minimum radius on my indoor section of my layout is 5’ and there are no issues other that their weight and ability to roll. should mention I use #5 turnouts as well.
Al P.
If couplers can not be mounted to the trucks, are there any extended shaft couplers that can be retrofitted in place of the existing Accucraft couplers?
Dan,
One trick is to remove the body-mount, fit the coupler on a long strip of brass/plastic and mount it on the truck pivot, so it can move a little left or right. It doesn’t have to be connected to the truck - best not, then the truck retains its flexibility (what little it has.) With this solution, you can make the mount as long as you want so the coaches go around tight corners. You can even get the coupler back to the same height as it was when body-mounted.
Whaddya know. I found a thread with some (page 4):
http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/26653/eric-s-coach-projects/view/post_id/340245
That Kadee is on a strip that is pivoted on the truck pivot. Eric seems to have added a rod over (under when right-side-up,) to keep it from drooping.
When I helped Russ Rutalj (old LSC member) build his layout, I recommended putting down a minimum radius of 96 inches (8 feet) and those AMS cars looked magnificent. We also added ball-bearing axles and they rolled with very little effort. These particular cars were never meant to run on LGB toy-like radii, IMHO.
Guys. Thanks for all your input. I wish I had the space for 96" radius curves like the Sundance Central and Tom Miller has on their layouts, But I don’t have rooms as big as they do to build a layout in. I have come up with a solution to the problem and it only took about 3 minutes to make the coupler modification. I swapped out the original coupler with a longer shank Accucraft coupler. See that modification at my website at the following link. http://www.danstrains.net/ams_accucraft_coupler_mod.html
Dan Stuettgen
Nice little fix.
Jason
swapped out the original coupler with a longer shank Accucraft coupler.
That AP11-737 that you used is the old 1/29th AML coupler. I have 5 pairs somewhere that I never used.
Gary: when you get a chance could you let me know where you got the bearings that you put on the AMS Accucraft cars. Thats something I would like to do as well.
Dan Stuettgen
Pete Thornton said:
swapped out the original coupler with a longer shank Accucraft coupler.
That AP11-737 that you used is the old 1/29th AML coupler. I have 5 pairs somewhere that I never used.
and I note you reversed the spring.
The original AML rolling stock was designed for 4’ radius curves (even my PRR K4,) and the couplers have a spring that allows the coupler to pull out of the mount about 1/8" when the corners collide on a sharp turn. From Dan’s photos, he fitted the coupler with the pivot through the back of the coupler slot and the spring in front, whereas the original had the spring in the back.
Not a problem - whatever works for you. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Dan Stuettgen said:
Gary: when you get a chance could you let me know where you got the bearings that you put on the AMS Accucraft cars. Thats something I would like to do as well.
Dan Stuettgen
Dan,
The first axle bearings for my AMS 1:20.3 freight rolling stock were done by Phil Dippel (I don’t think his business is still active-I believe retired). I sent him my trucks and he installed new bearings and bored out the journals. I then sent the axles for one AMS J&S passenger car to Phil to do his magic on those. When he was no longer doing this work, I just ordered the full ball bearing axles from Accucraft. This was a long time ago, probably ten years+. The axles made a complete difference in the pulling capacity of my Accucraft #346 at Fairplex in Pomona, CA. I pulled five of these cars, plus a couple of box cars, 1/2 the day and on battery and Airwire.
EDIT I just looked up the Accucraft Store in Union City, CA and they still have the ball bearing wheel sets available for $24/truck OR $48 per car. Stilll pricey, but we’ll worth it
.
Dan Stuettgen said:
Gary: when you get a chance could you let me know where you got the bearings that you put on the AMS Accucraft cars. Thats something I would like to do as well.
Dan Stuettgen
I converted all my AMS coach trucks to ball bearing. The first had Phil Dippel’s conversion kit - he sold the bearings in a sleeve that fit the axle holes in the truck sideframes. I think he also sold the wheels as the axles were shorter, but it’s a long time ago. . .
The rest were done with r/c car bearings from Avidrc:
https://www.avidrc.com/product/1/bearings/367/4x7x2-Open-MR74-bearings.html
I’m having trouble finding an original thread, as they were done before 2015 and the Freightsheds only go back to 2016! From my few notes
the axles are 4mm and are a tight fit in the bearings; I recall having to sand the axles on occasion.
the journal boxes do not have holes in the dead center. Drilling them with a 7mm drill occasionally broke through the sides of the journal, as you can see in the photo below. It didn’t stop me putting it all back together though.
