Can this be corrected? (Repair Question)

Sure, if it bugs you that much, take the end caps off, carefully bend the little piece, put it back together.

Can it be repaired- probably yes.

Should it be repaired- level of effort, benefit, time spent, risk of more damage (breaking it off when bending back)????

Agree with my man Vern, just don’t get too aggressive, slow walk it,…..looks like the weak link is where I’ve circled, …..and if it breaks, you’ll be doing my other art work,….

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Pat

@GBW man posted:

Hello All:

Have a Lionel extruded aluminum coach being shipped to me; when looking at the photos, I noticed the ribbing/metal under the vestibule doors appears bent inward or upward, slightly.

Is this an easy fix to correct? Perhaps by bending the metal outward very gently so the ribbing then appears horizontal again? Please let me know and thank you!

Steph

I take the other stance, if you don’t look for it its fine. Remember the 4 foot test. You may make worse than you have garbage. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

We had a saying when our third world Jamaican chemical plant was operating but with major problems.  Job number One "Don't do anything that makes it worst".  I have used it numerous times when repairing broken but running items.

Charlie

Extruded aluminum cars are tricky and can be very unforgiving. I’d leave it alone.

It looks like the punching dies were worn out. There are other problems up the length of of the door. Aluminum comes out of extrusion dies very hot.  It is usually sprayed with water to cool it resulting in a T6 temper. The aluminum is probably very hard and springy. It is probably even harder where the punching dies sheared it. If an effort is made to straighten it, it will have to be over bent quite a ways. The adjacent material will have to be supported to get the material to bend in the right place. The “right place” will probably be the hardest place on the extrusion. That means all the bend will first try to occur in material adjacent to where you want to bend.

I would not say it cannot be straightened, but I would not try it.

Off topic a little, I once needed to straighten a frame on a rail car that had been in a collision, the end was bent down about 6”. We installed anchor eyes in the pit walls and chained the car down. We used 2 air powered screw jacks to press the bent frame up. I had no way of knowing how much force the jacks were applying. So I calculated how much deflection was required to exceed the yield strength of the steel channels. To straighten the 6” bend we were needed to deflect the channels up 15”. Lacking faith in my calculations, we would try a deflection and then back off to see how much change had resulted. It was a long night, but in the end we got most of the bend out of the cars frame.

@ThatGuy posted:

I take the other stance, if you don’t look for it its fine. Remember the 4 foot test. You may make worse than you have garbage. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

I'm with this position - I doubt that anyone will notice, and agree with others about the risk of trying to fix it.  That said, I know how it feels when you see that defect - even though it's tiny, it looks huge to your eyes. 

One option would be to search for a car (or set) in perfect condition and then sell the damaged car (with full disclosure of condition, of course).  The net cost for taking care of it this way might be relatively small.

If you want to attempt a repair, I would start with a thin piece of hard plastic stock of the correct thickness to fit in between the ribs - maybe a piece of styrene stock or an old credit card and run it down the gap a few times and see if it will bend the offending rib more to your liking.

If that doesn't work and you want to be more aggressive, I would consider using a wide, stiff-bladed putty knife or a butter knife to run in the gap and pry the rib and see if that works. Put some painter's tape on the edge of each to minimize any marring of the surface, and go slow.