Here is an alternative approach to bringing the Atlas articulated 2-car autoracks down in ride height.
I acquired and converted 5 Lionel 89' autoracks from 3-rail to 2, bringing down the ride height somewhat. I've been interested for years in acquiring the Atlas 2-rail articulateds, but never pulled the trigger. Now that I had the Lionel ones, putting them with the Articulateds from Atlas would be a snap, right? (since Atlas offers them 2-rail RTR.
So I bought two BNIB sets on the bay for a decent price/free shipping. I unpacked one and set it up. WOW! Ridiculously high off the rails! (sigh). These don't look good by themselfs, let alone next to my Lionels.
Here's what I mean:
My first thought is to swap out for weaver or athearn trucks. Problem is, those won't fit because the treaded mount is a tube sticking down from the bottom that is too thick to fit into the truck mounting hole. No now we are looking at some irreversible surgery to make this work.
Then I remembered I have those MTH trucks with the oversize mounting holes from when I lowered my 5-car spine set.
If you unscrew the top of the mounting plate on top of the MTH trucks, you can flip it over and put the screws back. You now have a truck with a big "receiving hole" that will also allow for lowering the Atlas car. Also put in some 33" 2-rail Intermountain wheelsets that are commonly found for about $11 for 4 axles.
before:
After:
Now install on each end with a washer and coarse-threaded screw. Voila.
I also had to dremel down the rod (about 0.080" ) from the diaphragm mounting to lower the center. Then I had to flip the mounting plates upside down to make the bodies lower in the middle.
Final step is installing Kadee 747 underset-head couplers where the Atlas ones were. They screwed in with 2mm screws without any re-tapping the mounting holes (Yay!).
Now it is noticeably lower and matches the ride height of my Lionels. SUCCESS!
Final thoughts: Well I only spent $16 for wheelsets and couplers to do this conversion. Luckily I had those odd spine car truck from MTH that I probably never would have found a use for. But why didn't Atlas manufacture these with a lower ride height in the first place? That's a huge compromise for a 2-railer.
Utlimately I am just going to keep this set and get rid of the other. I don't recommend this Atlas offering to 2-railers, though it looks fine with my Lionel autoracks (which are not exactly fine-scale models in the first place.)
