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Hey all,

I just purchased a nice set of six 20 year old Lionel 15" Aluminum passenger cars (PRR Southwind).  These cars were produced before Lionel started to equip the 15" cars with diaphragms.  Have any of you added them to cars like these?  How are they attached on the newer 15" sets?  Part numbers?

Thanks!

Jon

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Years ago I modified a set of Williams 15" aluminum cars to add diaphragms and reduce the gap by shortening the coupler arms...

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...for which I was ordering Weaver's rubber diaphragms, P721.

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Easy to adapt to the generic 15" aluminum cars.  Look great!

But, alas...When Weaver's drumhead disappeared into the fog of things past, so went the diaphragms.  Oh, these gems pop up occasionally.  But if you're trying to equip an entire complement of cars, it can be increasingly a loooooong wait...even for just one pair!

And, we all know that someone, somewhere "out there" has the old tooling or source info......, but

Not much help I'm afraid.  But there must be a gazillion of the classic 15" aluminum cars and their clones that could benefit from a redo of the P721's...IMHO, of course.

The Scale City diaphragms?...originally the Walthers folded paper design of about 80+ years ago...then Keil...before finding their way into Scale City's ownership.  They can be fussy to install, fussy in operation...especially with O3R equipment and car coupler-wrenching maneuvers re the sharp transitional curves.

Will be interested if Jon (KOOLjock1) can breathe some new life into this old design. 

FWIW...

KD

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