The drawbar on my Intermountain FT A&B units is causing them to touch each other making the 11" curve hard to navigate as they get "stuck" for a moment when the A&B touch each other going around the curves? First I don't remember this happening on the 11" radius before, but for sure on the 9 3/4" radius? Can I get a long MU drawbar for it? Thanks to spookshow.net for the info and the pictures of it. I didn't even know it was called a "drawbar". Anyway I need a longer one and possibly a new body mounted coupler on the B unit too as this one moves at times and gets loose where the screw is. Thanks for any info!
In the past... at least 10 years ago... I always had great customer support from Intermountain Railway Co. I have not had any recent need to contact them so I cannot say for sure if they are still so supportive. A lot of 'things' in the model railroading supply chain has occured making parts potentially hard to get. Fortunatly IRC does mold many of their parts in-house and these drawbars and connector for the couplers may be easy available from them with a call. Sometimes they will send spares for free... that was my experience with them over ten years ago... but I would expect them to charge for replacements now... if you can get through to them by phone or email. I don't know how often you run your FT sets or if you frequently take them apart... but the drawbar and couplers parts are somewhat easy to break and this type of 'Delrin' like plastic is subject to shrinkage over time. If your FT's are the earliest versions from the 2005 to 2012 time frame... I would not be surprised if the parts have shrunk slightly. I own about 20 A/B sets and they rarely are taken 'out for a spin' and some of the first runs have brittle plastic coupler holders which are not fitting properly and others that broke. Unfortunatly this design feature of IMC appears to be the 'Achilles Heel' for their models. Most of my model trains are stored in their packages in an air conditioned area. Time does not appear to be a friend to some model trains. I need to check my IMC F3, F7 and FP7 units to see if they are having issues. This is not just an IRC issue... some of my Atlas models had frames which swelled an cracked.
How do you access the drawbar on the A unit in order to replace it? I just acquired a used set with a broken drawbar. Luckily the spare is still in the box.
I can't tell for sure on mine with magnifying glasses on if it is body mounted or truck mounted on the A unit. I would guess Body Mounted, but not 100%! sure? If/when you take yours apart let us know for sure.
Body mounted, or rather frame mounted. Apparently there's no way to unscrew it from underneath, or one of you two would have found it. So, remove the body, remove the two screws, and separate the frame rails. Both coupler mount and drawbar assembly will probably fall on your desk. There's a useful pic on Spookshow. It's entertaining that they use a drawbar. The fifth porthole on one side of the booster indicates these are FS, not FT. It was the FT that used drawbars between cab and booster. The FT had couplers.
I prefer the MTs to the IMs, so I sold my B&Os. I remembered that I still had my Old and Weary pair (MT did not do NYO&W). I just tried mine on both Atlas sectional and B-mann E-Z TRAK eleven inch. I ran them at slow speed. I did not see this problem.
"The pellet with the poison's in the chalice from the palace. The flagon with the dragon has the brew that is true?" " They broke the chalice from the palace." "But, did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle?" "Noooo, the pellet with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon, the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true."
You confused yourself Which in turn confused me. I was like wait, I'm looking at a Intermountain A&B FT with drawbars. So someone does or does NOT make a longer drawbar for it? If not if I ever decide to take it apart, maybe I can cut the drawbar in half and glue a piece of styrene in to make it longer, so the A&B units won't touch going around my 11" radius?
Well at some point I see if I can take it apart and see what's up? I think it is attached to the frame also on the A unit. I can't find a replacement drawbar for it to buy?
