Bushings for Williams Trucks

Bill,

Do the trucks have fixed couplers? If so I have found from experience to replace the whole truck assembly with newer trucks from Williams. On the newer trucks from Williams/Bachmann I had to bend a metal tab(sticks up a quarter inch or more) down to fit the trucks to my older passenger cars.

I had a set of Williams Crown Edition passenger cars that had fixed couplers and no matter what I did(replace the Williams wheels with Lionel post war wheels, take some plastic off the coupler arm to allow it to move better) before replacing the truck assembly did not work. The only solution is to replace the whole truck assembly on some of the older Crown Edition cars. I think this involves the first run Crown Edition cars as I have some other Crown Edition cars that have opening couplers and have no problems with them.

Lee Fritz

Lee,

The trucks are not a fixed truck, they have the bendable coupling that pivots in the from the truck body.  Are these they type you were referring to swapping?  The coupling arm is pretty long, standard trucks, like what MTH and Lionel use would not extend beyond the frame.

I really am not probably going to be interested in doing a truck swap as spending $75 on these does not make since to me.

BB

Bill, 

I have a set of Santa Fe passenger cars with those couplers and have had only one go bad on me but I tried to swap side frames with another Williams truck assembly. Those are good truck assemblies as far as I know of. Maybe the truck assemblies didn't get oil on them for a while.

Lee Fritz

"some gifted Williams lighted double decker cars."

Are these cars especially intelligent?

If the axle is bottoming out inside the insert, would it be possible to fill the bottom with epoxy or JB-Weld and then drill out a proper pocket for the axle end to ride in?

---PCJ

D500 posted:

"some gifted Williams lighted double decker cars."

Are these cars especially intelligent?

I presume that these cars were received as gifts or presents.  If so, then maybe Mr. Bill is finding out why they were gifts.  If not, then I would think that any gifted, talented, intelligent car would have already fixed this problem before becoming a nuisance to the owner. 

I am continual shock and awe of the little things that come to light on this forum such as Mr. Bill's bushings and the "brass" axles on some of the Lionel engines.  Hopefully someone will start making a list of problem products like this with an explanation of what to look for or what to expect in the future.  You could probably even sell this list to members with annual updates or whatever.  I learned the hard way about the Kline die cast trucks that fall apart while still new in the box.  Appears it was only certain product number cars and not even all of that number.  Same thing for the pre war Lionel with the zinc pest.  For that matter many of the newer products in the past few years are still showing that cast impurities problem.   To me that list would be a gold mine and a must have to be able to refer to before making purchases.   A column of description of things to look for, ways to check, or maybe even just totally avoid.  You could certainly adjust your price range or your desire to own on a product after consulting such a list.  FWIW

"Gifted" car is funny.  My sense of humor would read in the same thing.    

These came to me from a friend that had several tubs of train stuff he no longer had space for.  I am not sure how much they were run or where the were obtained.  I oiled them before I used them.  They were always a bit problematic since day 1 for me.  I have tried to use them for maybe a total of 1 or 2 hours run time.  I even swapped the 12V bulbs for 18V ones as part of the prep process.  

PCJ, I may just try it.  I was thinking of epoxy or solder.  Solder may be too soft.  If I get up the gumption and get a result I will share it.

BB

If you measure with a caliper the size your bushing needs to be, we may be able to help. We have brass bushings that we use on our trucks that we manufacture, I have several different sizes, once I know your measurement I will see how close I can get, also the size of the axle will be needed. Then you can just drill that mess out and install a new brass bushing.

Marty

This bushing or even ball bearing can be found at an R/C hobby shop

Marty,

The dims are as follows:

Axles: 2.2mm

Bushing ID hole ~3mm

Bushing OD 6mm

I did not drill one out yet to find out the inner shape.  Do you have something that could work?

Bill