I have a number of AMS cars, coaches, gons, tankers, etc. All are stiff rollers. I remember comments in the past about how to resolve it, but can’t find it. Do any of you folks have suggestions to improve (reduce rolling resistance), without wheel replacement? Particular lubes, axle polishing, etc. Thanks.
Hi Rich,
AMS made clips or spreaders for the trucks as the sides of the truck would come in at the bottom and pinch the wheelsets making them harder to roll. I believe this was a problem with first run production and has since been fixed. If your cars don’t have the clips you can contact accucraft.
Phills Narrow gauge offers wheel bearings and instlation service that corrects the problem.
Chuck
Rich, are the wheels stiff when just rolling them by hand or do you mean when the car is on the track the wheels are stiff and the car does not roll well?
With the AMS/AML cars I have I notice that the wheels are stiff and don’t roll well when you move them by hand but, when they are on the track they seem to roll just fine.
If they’ve got electrical pick-ups, remove them. I don’t know what they’re using for wipers, but they’re better suited for brake pads. If you need electrical pick-up for lights, switch those wheels to the ball-bearing pick-up wheels. I know that violates your “without wheel replacement” requirement, but you probably only have to do one truck, and your cars will actually roll–something the track wipers don’t allow very easily.
I know some of the earlier trucks had issues where the frames weren’t square to the bolsters, so you’d have to install small “L” braces to hold them square so the axles rotated better. I believe that’s been resolved (or at least mitigated) on subsequent truck designs, but it’s worth taking a look. The trucks on my hopper cars have very soft springs which is good from a rough-track standpoint, but if there’s slop where the sideframes slide on the bolster, that could introduce twisting which may be causing some drag as well. My hoppers seem okay in that regard, but I had one flat car truck which was particularly problematic in that regard. I ended up gluing one sideframe to the bolster and left the other one free to be equalized. The car tracks much better now.
Most of my Accucraft trucks roll okay as is with a healthy dose of oil on the bearings. (At least they’re on par with my Bachmann and Delton trucks.) They could all stand to roll better, but my trains are typically short (8 cars or less), so the drag isn’t bad. I’m loathe to outfit all my cars with ball bearing journals. (Two reasons–price first, but second, I want some rolling resistance so I can couple to the car when doing switching ops.) The passenger cars are probably the worst, and will probably get upgraded once I finally get off my duff and finish the passenger cars.
Later,
K
Rich,
I started buying AMS cars in early 2007. I had heard “rumors” at that time that their cars were terrible “rollers”. AND they were! I just made a decision at that time to upgrade every AMS car that I purchased, would be equipped with ball bearings. I have NEVER been sorry I did. I use BOTH Phil’s NG (wheel set re-bearing work) and the ball bearing wheelsets that Accucraft provides. I just had Phil rework three pairs of trucks for me. Two were “older” AMS freight cars (without the right angle braces) and one was an Accucraft brass long caboose. Phil added the right angle brace pieces to the pair of AMS trucks. The caboose trucks didn’t need them. The braces keep the side frames from tipping out and causing a bind in the axle and journal boxes. The J&S AMS passenger cars are "bricks"ie they don’t roll well at all! Those trucks I replaced with Accucraft ball-bearing wheel sets.
I agree with Kevin…remove the electrical pick-up wipers. They serve as great brakes! Replace with Accucraft ball-bearing/electrical pick-up wheel sets.
Rich,
Most of my builds run on Accu trucks, and I have a lot of Accu cars as well.
Like said above, make sure the side frames are braced, or the newer trucks.
Remove the truck and with a fine emery board, smooth the bolsters, both on the truck and the car.
Oil the bolster.
Then oil the axles real good.
That’s all I have done to mine and although they don’t roll as good as BB equipped wheels,
they work fine for me.
Although I don’t pull more than 10 cars at any time.
Gary Armitstead said:
Rich,
I started buying AMS cars in early 2007. I had heard “rumors” at that time that their cars were terrible “rollers”. AND they were! I just made a decision at that time to upgrade every AMS car that I purchased, would be equipped with ball bearings. I have NEVER been sorry I did. I use BOTH Phil’s NG (wheel set re-bearing work) and the ball bearing wheelsets that Accucraft provides. I just had Phil rework three pairs of trucks for me. Two were “older” AMS freight cars (without the right angle braces) and one was an Accucraft brass long caboose. Phil added the right angle brace pieces to the pair of AMS trucks. The caboose trucks didn’t need them. The braces keep the side frames from tipping out and causing a bind in the axle and journal boxes. The J&S AMS passenger cars are "bricks"ie they don’t roll well at all! Those trucks I replaced with Accucraft ball-bearing wheel sets.
I agree with Kevin…remove the electrical pick-up wipers. They serve as great brakes! Replace with Accucraft ball-bearing/electrical pick-up wheel sets.
I have 16 AMS freight cars now. All with ball-bearings. This length doesn’t faze my Accucraft C19.
Thanks for your advice guys. Honesty, they’ve been in their boxes for the past two or three years. Been so busy at school that the railroad has been on the back burner, really on the back burner. Retiring in December from UNM, and have already done considerable new ground work on the layout. Plan on working on the rolling stock this winter and test them in the garage on a test track, in order to be ready this spring. Same with the buildings. I’ve been reworking them all this past summer and they’re about ready. So again thanks for the advice. I simply don’t remember about the stays. Will look into that carefully. I know the coaches roll badly. They may be candidates for ball-bearings. Thanks again. I’ll get back to you as I progress.
Rich, Congrats are in order. Enjoy and stay busy!
Rich
There are bearing kit available for both the freight and passenger trucks
Doug Bronson’s
http://www.bronson-tate.com/parts/accucraft.shtml
http://www.bronson-tate.com/parts/btt-02.shtml
(he should have the kits for the passenger cars by next weekend. I’m casting the journals today)
Phil’s narrow gauge
http://www.philsnarrowgauge.com/Services.html
If you are going to use track power for the passenger cars, then I’d use the Accucraft’s bb wheel sets.
With bearing kits installed, your cars will roll away on the slightest grades.
Congratulations on your retirement.
Rodney
I agree with Kevin on this. I WANT some rolling resistance. I have a long steep grade on my railroad. Every once in a while on the way up the hill a coupler will open due to bad track work or some mulch between the rails. I’ve had 5 cars run away from the top of the hill, around two 90 degree turns and across a long elevated section. Even with the steep grade the cars never accelerated to the point that they couldn’t make the curves and finally came to a stop once reaching level track.
Also, because of my grade I get some surging when headed down grade. I’m sure this would be worse with free roiling cars.
That said, I have tried to improve the free-roiling characteristics of my AMS cars. I came up with a standard that each car must meet: It must free roll to the end of a 5 foot section with one end elevated 3.5" (side of a 2x4). This is a pretty easy test for most cars to pass but many of my NOS AMS cars needed quite a bit of work to pass.
To your initial inquiry: I remember years ago when I could still see HO, I used a “powdered Teflon”. Have not seen that in a while. From GR, I read about “Dupont Teflon Non-Stick Dry-Film Lubricant”. It is a liquid. I just tested it on my finger, so I can’t type. It goes on wet, then dries. You can put it on axle ends (good name for a rock band) with a toothpick or pin. I would be concerned with oil accumulating dirt and dust. I got a 4 oz bottle for about $7 at Lowes. Should last forever.
“Creates a dirt-resistant, dry film coating on any surface.” I cannot report any long term effects, neither do I have any severe grades for testing. “Made in Canada”
Rodney, thanks for Phil’s information. I’ll store that. Jon I too have long grades, about 3% or so, I’ve noted the same issue with surging, your point is noted. I think I’ll start with the coaches first. The other cars might get by with only lube. Lou, I’ll get some of the DuPont stuff today. Sounds like an alternative for some of the cars. Will test.
And thanks for the congrats Ric. Keeping busy will not be a problem. Too many things put on the back burner
for too long. Won’t miss going to an office every day, but I will miss the students…much fun with them.
On the early released AMS rolling stock, the wheels are not very good and didn’t have the fillets next to the flange and needed almost perfect track. So you may need to replace some of your wheels anyway.
On the top is the old style and the newer one on the bottom.
(http://imageshack.us/a/img545/4263/btcd.jpg)
Another advantage with bearings is you will not have this happen to you if you run your trains a lot.
These were lubed but it happened.
(http://imageshack.us/a/img407/3687/py14.jpg)
I have a 100 feet of mainline where I have a 4% grade and as Jon said that if a coupler does come undone, you will have a runaway.
While I was at my dad’s railroad this past summer, I was experimenting with working brakes on the caboose to mitigate the surging. He’s got some long 4%+ stretches where that can be a problem. I came up with a scheme wherein I wrapped some string a few times around the axles of one of the trucks. When in tension, it put enough drag on the axle create some slack in about three or four cars’ couplers going down the grade, which was enough to–for the most part–get rid of the surging on all but the worst offending locomotives. It still needs some refinements, as braking is not consistent due to how the string is wound, stretching, and also the direction of travel.
(Oddly, I got the idea from having to pull my Accucraft coach down a 4% grade. It would not roll on its own.)
Unfortunately, the photos I took didn’t turn out, but it’s a work in progress anyway.
Later,
K
"I came up with a scheme "
Why not fit the wheel wipers from the coaches?
Maybe go a bit further and set up the brake wheel to squeeze them together so they don’t touch the wheels when going uphill.
Rich,
I can confirm that Phil’s NG BB kits for the ams coaches are a great way to go. I have also installed 7x4mm bearings (ams 4mm axles) from an r/c car source, but the ams coach bearing blpcks aren’t drilled by machine it seems, and the holes aren’t always in the center so a 7mm drill sometimes mangles them.
If it turns out your cars are old enough to have the wheels with the lack of rounded fillet between the tread and the flange, let me know. I have 32 axles taken from hoppers in a box here somewhere. (Why? Because pal Geoff is a perfectionist and he did a bulk order for scale wheels and got me some too.)
Pete Thornton said:
Rich,
I can confirm that Phil’s NG BB kits for the ams coaches are a great way to go. I have also installed 7x4mm bearings (ams 4mm axles) from an r/c car source, but the ams coach bearing blpcks aren’t drilled by machine it seems, and the holes aren’t always in the center so a 7mm drill sometimes mangles them.
If it turns out your cars are old enough to have the wheels with the lack of rounded fillet between the tread and the flange, let me know. I have 32 axles taken from hoppers in a box here somewhere. (Why? Because pal Geoff is a perfectionist and he did a bulk order for scale wheels and got me some too.)
I purchased a set of AMS coaches when they were first introduced back in early 2008. And yes, these had the wheels that were “missing” the fillet between the tire and the flange. Phil had just announced at that time about doing ball-bearing rework to the AMS passenger car wheelsets as he had done with their freight trucks. But he wanted the entire truck sent at that time to assure proper fit. I tried to remove the trucks from the coaches and that’s when we all found out the nut for the bolster screw would break loose from the bottom of the car. That entailed complete dis-assembling each coach to get the trucks off. So I then received some AMS ball-bearing wheel sets from Jonathan (electrical pickup tabs installed on these, btw) and just changed out the wheel sets. These wheelsets had the new tread profile with the added fillet! These cars have been running fine ever since.
In the meantime, I have taken these cars apart for interior work and “fixed” the glued nut problem. Easy to remove the entire truck assembly now! I am going to send these passenger car trucks back to Phil to “do his magic” in the near future. I can then use the AMS ball-bearing wheelsets for my new purchases of AMS cars.
A new Aristo boxcar arrived the other day and I went to put Bachmann metal wheels on it and for some reason one of the axles was catching, inspecting the truck the axle hole looked OK, tried a different axle still sticking? In the past I have drilled out the truck this time I simply used sandpaper on the metal axle and suddenly it was good to go.
Some cars like Bachmann 2 axles cars and theri passenger cars have brake shoes that haave been known to catch and drag.
As for putting resistance on your train maybe 4 years back I remember in a issue of Garden railways a guy built a flywheel car to slow his live steamer down. I don’t remember the issue but something like that might help.
“Why not fit the wheel wipers from the coaches?”
I thought about that, but it’s actually not quite enough to cause any kind of significant breaking. (i.e., taking the slack off half or more of the train.) Once you break the static friction, it doesn’t take much of the slack at all. It drags, but not enough to mitigate the surging of the loco.
I’m contemplating now prototypically-operating brake rigging with high-density foam rubber or cork brake pads. Hartford makes a brake-rigging kit for their trucks that I’m going to look into seeing if I can modify. Like the prototype, the challenge is to be able to apply enough pressure to cause drag, but not lock the wheels.
The flywheel idea has merit, but that’s more of a constant inertia thing, such that when I go to slow down, the inertia would end up pushing the train forward; the opposite of what I’m trying to accomplish. I want the force of the car to constantly be opposite that of the locomotive.
Later,
K