Personal Preferences when removing MTL Trucks Welcome aboard the Trainboard! Now, the MTL Bolster pin is just that, a pin (or a plug, which ever you want to call it). Some bolster pins are tighter than others. I usually pry the truck from the rollingstock with a hobby knife blade between the rollingstock and the truck. Take care to remove it slowly as the pin could go flying. They tend to find places where we either don't want to look or can't physically look! Or even into Black Holes. Sometimes you might want to remove a wheel or both before attempting to remove the pins. Just go for it. Experience is the second best tool! Hobo Tim
Solo, they are plugs. Some of the plugs are realy wedge in. so I take one of the wheels off. Then I use my Xuron cutter to wedge into the pin, and slowly lift it off. Just becareful not to cut the pin. The sharp part of the cutter doesn't neet to touch the pin.
Thanks guys the slot on it threw me off, was trying to unscrew, that took care of the removing the wheels part of it anywaymg: As for the gumming of the axels I am going to put a little ball of Bluetack on the axel ends and the bushing, good idea?
Don, I paint the trucks and wheels by hand. When I do the trucks I don't paint the inside faces of them, just outside and around the edges. For the wheels if I'm real good I can brush a circle around the needle point without getting paint on it. About 99% of the time I just paint it though and haven't had any problems. You see the MT truck/coupler/wheel plastic is Delrin, that is a brand name I think. It is also called "engineering plastic" or "slippery plastic". Paint will stick to it enough to stay, but can easily be removed. Once the wheel is in the truck and run around the layout a few times the paint has wore off and the plastic has sort of polished itself back to new. Same plastic on the couplers. I slop grimey black on them. Then I drybrush some dirt and seal it all with a spray of Dullcoat. When dry the couplers will be stiff. I just take the car, put it in the middle of a train with cars coupled on each side. Now rock the whole train back-n-forth a few times. This loosens the coupler back up to where they work as new again. If it was regular plastic or styrene the paint would sort of glue it all together, not the Delrin though. Been painting N scale MT trucks this way as well. Solo, The trucks with couplers attached have a round hole in them and a round pin. The trucks without coupler attached have a hole something like this: (><) and the pin has a sort of "blade" on it that will fit into this strange hole of the truck. The slot you see that looks like a screw head is just what you use to line it up with the length of the car, to get the "blade" straight. This "blade" keeps the trucks from rotating round and round. Once you get it apart you will see what I'm talking about. I just wiggle the trucks till the pin works loose. Some times a small flathead screwdriver will help it out. The pin is held into the hole with friction, no threads, a press fit.
