I have always checked the wheel gauge and Coupler height on my Kadee equipped S Scale equipment, but for some reason, never paid much attention to those things on my American Flyer. Probably this was partly because the only time I ran my Flyer was for the holidays on simple loops with no turnouts. When I tried to run my Flyer on my Hi-rail layout which has closed frog turnouts, I had problems with the Flyer where none existed with my scale equipment, and it turns out this was caused by a gauge issue with nearly all of my Flyer “pizza cutter flanged” wheels being slightly tightly gauged. This was made evident when I started to use a dime to check the back to back spacing of my Flyer wheelsets. Once the gauge issues were fixed, I then discovered that the coupler heights of my Flyer “Lobster Claws” was also inconsistent, and couplers that hung too low came uncoupled over turnouts and grade crossings. With scale equipment, this is not a big deal because everything is held on with screws, and thus is easily adjusted, but with Flyer cars, everything is riveted together, which makes adjusting coupler heights almost impossible. I find that I must drill out the rivets and replace them with 6-32 bolts, washers, and stop nuts to make the offending trucks removable so that I can then bend the coupler arm to correct the heights without breaking the plastic knuckle couplers. I was surprised to find that almost all of my Flyer wheels needed to be re-gauged and at least 1 in 10 Flyer couplers we’re hanging too low, and needed to be adjusted by bending the sheet metal coupler arms, which is harder than it sounds. To check the coupler trip pin height, I used an old American Express promo (fake) credit card laid on the rails and rolled the with coupler closed over the card. As long as the coupler trip weight just barely clears the card, it should have no problem over turnouts and grade crossings.
It’s a bit of a pain, but it does make a difference, however.
Bill in FtL
