American Flyer Scale Truck Redesign Samples

Dave OlsonOGR Forum Member DIGITAL SUBSCRIBERFORUM SPONSOR

Received samples of the modified truck. Wanted to share pictures. These trucks will be on the latest offerings of the scale Covered Hopper that was in the 2019 Big Book.

There are many improvements made over the previous version of the truck:

Lowered the overall ride height
Adjusted wheel dimensions on the hi-rail wheels
S-gauge coupler tooling modified to prevent impact with the car body when the truck rotates
Improved bushing design for reduced axle friction
Scale coupler now sits at NMRA height without the use of shims
Scale wheel sets have been properly gauged and the wheels themselves now meet NMRA spec

The redesign of the truck has the active sprung-bolster feature removed. Like on our O Scale truck, the sprung feature was so stiff that it did nothing to actually improve the tracking of the truck. It only complicated the assembly. Removing the feature also allowed me to drop the truck height to where I wanted it. The springs are still installed in the side frames, but only serve an aesthetic purpose.

I don't have any samples yet of the revised scale wheel sets. Note that they will be offered through Customer Service for those that want them. With the redesign, I don't recommend trying to use the previous version of the scale wheel sets with these new trucks.

It is likely that we will offer separate sale pairs of the trucks in the future for those that want to upgrade their older cars. Stay tuned to future catalogs for that.

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8/1/199:44 AM

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Rusty TraqueOGR Forum Member

Dave, the new trucks looks MUCH better. The car no longer looks like it's ready to attend an off road rally.

Now, if there were only other types of cars these redesigned trucks would be suitable for... nod

Just as a reminder to folks: Here is the difference between the original truck height and a car that had been lowered to the correct height using AM trucks.

rLAF CylHop 2 008

Dave's photo looks to match pretty well the height of the "scalified" car.

Rusty

8/1/1910:03 AM

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D&H 65OGR Forum Member SUPPORTING MEMBER

Dave; Now that you have the truck itself re-designed, how about some attention to the knuckle itself- i.e. one that actually opens far enough to slide past the one it's trying to couple up to. None of my LTI/LLC "S" couplers really open far enough to ensure a reliable coupling since the knuckles usually engage the face of each other and close both couplers instead of engaging each other. The present knuckle just doesn't open quite far enough.......electro-couplers included.

8/1/191:18 PM

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Dave OlsonOGR Forum Member DIGITAL SUBSCRIBERFORUM SPONSOR

D&H 65 posted:
Dave; Now that you have the truck itself re-designed, how about some attention to the knuckle itself- i.e. one that actually opens far enough to slide past the one it's trying to couple up to. None of my LTI/LLC "S" couplers really open far enough to ensure a reliable coupling since the knuckles usually engage the face of each other and close both couplers instead of engaging each other. The present knuckle just doesn't open quite far enough.......electro-couplers included.

Already taken care of thumb