Marklin Tank car conversion

Heay Equipment Designer Feb 20, 2019

  1. Heay Equipment Designer

    Heay Equipment Designer TrainBoard Member

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    Sorry this took so long but finally got around to getting instructions done. As there is always more than one way to do anything, these directions make you basically disassemble the entire car and repaint of the carbody with new chassis on it. To me, this is the sanest way of doing it. But you can keep the car intact and pre-paint the chassis. But be very careful not to damage tank car superstructure or Marklin brake wheel. It could be easy to break these fragile plastic parts when removing required material from the Marklin carbody in order to allow room for truck mounted couplers.

    For the real adventurist, you could trim out just what you need to mount carbody mounted couplers. If you do this, I suggest using the MTL coupler height gauge jig to make sure you mount the couplers at the right height. If you go down flush to the Marklin chassis as seen in the instructions video, the couplers will be mounted to high.

    As for MTL brake wheels, email Anthony at Zscale Monster. You might have to wait as he might have to order them from MTL if not in stock. But well worth the wait and the cheapest part of the build at 45 cents each.

    Jim, sorry I did not see your post earlier. I wish I had put on metal wheel sets. Once you put the trucks on, you dont want to take them off. It would be a pain. I got impatient and left the MTL stock plastic wheels on. I can still swap out the wheels without removing the trucks. But easier to do and no potential of damage to the finished car if you add the metal wheels before final truck installation.

    Here's the instructions for the tank car.



    Here's a link to the tank car kit.

    https://www.shapeways.com/product/V4JABQSJX/marklin-tank-carbody-conversion?optionId=94483550

    Hope you enjoy this little kit as much as I did. Its a fun one and you get what I think is a decent tank car out of it.

    -Jon
     
    Kurt Moose, Chris333 and bostonjim like this.
  2. bostonjim

    bostonjim TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks, Jon.
    I will add metal wheels. I just ordered 2 kits to convert the 12 tank cars I have. PM me if you'd like the duplicate tank car set. They are NIB. Jim
     
  3. Heay Equipment Designer

    Heay Equipment Designer TrainBoard Member

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    Excellent! Thanks Jim. I just sent you a PM.
     
  4. Heay Equipment Designer

    Heay Equipment Designer TrainBoard Member

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    Finally got some good comparison shots today of unconverted Marklin car next to the converted Marklin car. Adding the brake lines and hand brake connection is an option but I think its worth while. You can see the detail without flipping the car over. I also highly recommend using MTL brake wheels. You can see the difference. Marklin's brake wheel like the wheel sets, trucks and couplers are quite out of scale compared to MTL equivalent.

    PS, what looks like a cobweb on the unconverted Marklin car superstructure is not a cobweb. Its actually flashing. I have found that Marklin did a lousy trim job on a lot of the tank car superstructures. But its easy to cut of with an exacto knife.

    DSC_0090.JPG
    DSC_0407.JPG
     
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  5. bostonjim

    bostonjim TrainBoard Member

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    I never noticed all the flaws in the Marklin design. Thanks for taking a closer look. I'll be adding FT metal wheels. The kits have arrived. Jim
     
  6. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    .....and those Marklin wheels, they're huge!!o_O

    Your work on these make them so much better looking, great job!!(y)(y)(y)
     

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