I have a bunch of Atlas Coalveyors that I'm trying to convert to body mounted dummy couplers and BLMA trucks. One aspect I don't like is the push-in kingpins that are common to the majority of N scale cars. Has anyone had success converting these to screws? If yes, what size did you tap for? How did you handle the shoulder?
For trucks, I just went to LHS and grabbed some pan-head screws in the little Walthers packages. I think they were 0-72? cant recall. i did tap at all. they are threaded like a wood screw and I just screwed them down snug and backed it off a tad so the trucks still had full movement.
I use 2-56 flat head brass screws from Walthers. The taper below the head helps center the truck on the bolster. I usually tap the bolster holes. These screws sometimes can be put in without tapping, but with greater risk of cracking the bolster.
truck pins falling out ? well, there's an easy solution. take pliers and squeeze the pins. if you press hard enough they will become oval and better hold in the bolster. of course you should just squeeze the part which goes into the bolster. alternatively you could use your teeth. that's the way i did fix a couple of pins falling out. no more issues since then. i also had some success by using sewing cotton. use a piece of 1/2 - 1". insert one end into the bolster. install the truck as intended. due to the cotton taking up some space inside the bolster the pin will have less space and therefore hold better. cut off the cotton once the truck pin fits tight.
Oh really, I didn’t know that. It was getting to be such a problem that I was just short of gluing them in. baffled: Thanks for the tip. :thumbs_up:biggrin:
I've been biting or otherwise smooshing them for years, but would really prefer being able to do it properly with a screw. It's nice to be able to set the truck rotation and yaw limits precisely. This would be a great accessory from BLMA - a shouldered washer that would snap into the bottom of their truck's bolster and that would sleeve the hole down to an appropriate diameter for screw mounting. Short of that, I may look to see if I can find any brass or plastic tubing that could do the same thing - but cutting short slivers of tube squarely could be a challenge.
That is an H0 scale size bolster screw. If it works, though, it works. There some be some size brass screw that will work.
Although I have used screws on a few occasions on my passenger cars and rolling stock without problems, I still prefer to use truck pins. I haven't had the wear and tear described to make the pins too loose but will remember the squooshing procedure (pliers or teeth approach) in case this is needed. I have quite a large amount of inventory, so I always keep on hand several different pins, and notice that MTL, IM, Atlas, Walthers, etc, all seem to have their own size which works best. I find that once you use screws, you can't go back, so I generally try to exhaust all different types of pins, or modifications thereof, before I use my last resort of screws. This is because I did have a problem at one time, when I finally located the right size to fit in the truck hole, but the only type available was the round head, which often protruded too far below the wheel line, and bumped switch frogs when I ran them. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
I had to replace trucks on a Key Imports PRR N8. The original trucks are screwed in with metric screws. I built an "adapter" which is a cut-off top part of the bolster pin with a hole drilled in it for the screw. First I used Intermountain trucks that were available, now I changed to BLMA ACF friction bearing trucks which seem to be the correct ones for the N8. The only problem now is that the bolster pin with the screw is very low. Sorry, no pictures (yet)
