Crumbling couplers on original MTH Amfleet cars

DD0000073

I have several sets of amfleets and never had a truck crumble, just the couplers, and it was just the first sets (20-6519). I dont know anything about a half price deal on them, but they werent very expensive to replace. 

I have a set of the NE direct cars with couplers that are starting to look a little iffy (white corrosion), but they're still solid.

The only issue with first run Amfleet cars were couplers.  I have replaced some over the years.  I have never heard of a truck issue.  I know some expert will say not so.  Show a picture if you have one.

This is a helpful post, I recently acquired a set of the Amfleet passenger cars, they are beautiful, but had the crumbling coupler problem.  I was able to order the repair kit, part number DD-0000073, directly from the MTH web site.  You need to set up an account, it took about a week to arrive to Tacoma.  The price was $7 each, plus shipping.  I ordered ten, so my average cost was about $9 each.  

Replacing the couplers is very easy!  there are six screws on the bottom of the car,  I unscrewed all six,  on the first attempt, I did remove the car body from the frame, to look at the inside, but you don't need to do this, (I also removed the truck from the frame, but only did this on one truck, because it is not necessary to do the repair).  

This is what you get in the kit, I elected to use all the parts just to be safe:

In this picture, you can see that I removed the retaining washer o-ring washer and spring. Its best done with the coupler in this position, since you can push down on the spring when removing the retaining washer.  Once this is done, you can lift the frame from the body, to allow for the coupler to swing freely to the slide and have the t-pin drop out, that allows for the old coupler to be removed and put the new one in. 

In this picture, I did remove the car body, to show how far the truck needs to be turned.

By the time I did the fourth car, I was down to five minutes to do both couplers. 

All the best, Dave

I have a set.....bought used no boxes......how can I tell what issue they are....other than bad couplers???  They are packed right now....should I drag them out and check??? Thanks

Thanks Dave.  I actually purchased the necessary parts at the York train meet, and my son performed the repairs about a week ago.

I had mine crumble on my Amfleet cars and replaced them. No problems at all with the trucks. 

AMCDave posted:

I have a set.....bought used no boxes......how can I tell what issue they are....other than bad couplers???  They are packed right now....should I drag them out and check??? Thanks

AMCDave,

          I would if I were you, this post prompted me to pull out the Amfleet set I bought about 10 years ago and check, I placed them on my temporary carpet layout and found out two things, the first was that once my SD60M started pulling the cars, two knuckles broke right away, the second was that although the motor was turning, the rear truck on my SD60M was freewheeling. Just when you think the Train God is on your side. . .

I would be surprised if you had to replace more than just the knuckle coupler piece, surely the other parts are fine.

Does this effect only the Amtrak Amfleet of passenger cars or are others effected as well. I have some other MTH passenger cars so it would be nice to know what cars are effected by this.

Lee Fritz

Just run them Lee, if the couplers fall off, they're affected by the problem!

phillyreading posted:

Does this effect only the Amtrak Amfleet of passenger cars or are others effected as well. I have some other MTH passenger cars so it would be nice to know what cars are effected by this.

Lee Fritz

No. mine are MBTA. I found out when I tried to couple them together.  They just fell apart. 

Mine are Metra cars, I'll get the set number off the box.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I would be surprised if you had to replace more than just the knuckle coupler piece, surely the other parts are fine.

I've actually had more thumbtack bars snap than knuckles.  

The hardware is probably still fine, but both pieces of the coupler are definitely problematic.

The problem was not confined to the Amtrak cars.  I bought 8 WARR passenger cars at a show from a man selling his dad's layout.  None of the stuff had been out of the boxes for a long time.  The couplers were breaking apart as I took them out of the boxes at home.

I knew these cars were long past warranty so after sending a note to MTH alerting them to the problem they send me all the replacement parts at no charge.  I am amazed that they did that.    This was back about 6 years or so. 

As someone already posted, if you have never replaced these parts the first one took me a frustrating amount of time before I got the hang of it and was able to do each of the remaining ones in a couple of minutes.  

Ed

Neil, thank you for bringing this topic up, as it prompted me to check my #20-6519 Amfleet cars. Sure enough they are affected. I have not had these out of the box in some time. It is more the thumbtack piece, than the actual coupler, on mine. But, I will replace all parts that come with the new set of replacement parts.

Dave, thank you for the process to complete the job and also the MTH repair kit part number. I will be ordering 4 pairs later today.

Just an FYI, I have the 2-car add-on set #20-6655 and they seem to be okay. However, I do need to check my other passenger cars for this potential problem.

Thanks again!

Jim

ConrailFan posted:

Mine are Metra cars, I'll get the set number off the box.

My Metra Set is 20-6520

Unfortunately, this appears to be an industry-wide issue since all the importers started building in China. There appears there is little over-sight in what actually gets thrown in the "pot" prior to melting some ore for die-casting in Chinese factories. I've had "zinc-pest" issues with couplers on my Lionel I-12 caboose produced in the late '90s (?). Of course, old Joshua himself had these issues while building in the USA many, many moons ago as well.

I think a similar issue also exists with the "brew" used for some of our plastic bodied locos as well as I've had more than one diesel body from a particular importer that has had body hold-down posts crumble while trying to remove the screw installed in it.

D&H 65 posted:

Unfortunately, this appears to be an industry-wide issue since all the importers started building in China. There appears there is little over-sight in what actually gets thrown in the "pot" prior to melting some ore for die-casting in Chinese factories. I've had "zinc-pest" issues with couplers on my Lionel I-12 caboose produced in the late '90s (?). Of course, old Joshua himself had these issues while building in the USA many, many moons ago as well.

I think a similar issue also exists with the "brew" used for some of our plastic bodied locos as well as I've had more than one diesel body from a particular importer that has had body hold-down posts crumble while trying to remove the screw installed in it.

 

 

 

The die cast model car guys had the zinc pest issue a number of times too. Some high end die cast turned to trash. 

PRRMiddleDivision posted:

Thanks Dave.  I actually purchased the necessary parts at the York train meet, and my son performed the repairs about a week ago.

Hi Neal.   I have to drag my Amfleets out to check.  They are 10-12+ years old.  You say you bought the needed parts at York.  From MTH directly, I assume?  Do they still have a parts booth there?  I don't recall seeing one in several years.

I was surprised to see this thread come back to life after so many months.  The problem with ours was not the coupler itself, but rather the metal plate to which the thumbtack is mounted.  They could be snapped in half with minimal pressure. As I said, my son Steven did the repairs.  Not sure what he can add, but I'll ask him to chime in if he has something new to offer.  It only affected our Amtrak Phasse III four car set which was from the original run of Amfleet cars.  The Northeast Direct and two add on Amtrak Phase III cars did not have this problem, at least as I recall.  

Ron, yes MTH still has a parts booth just down the aisle from their main display.  They had plenty of the needed parts in stock, though one of the two guys manning the booth was clueless about the issue.

I too had this problem. All the couplers on my set crumbled and I had to buy 8 new sets. I was a little disappointed by the fact that I had to buy them since the cars were never used. They were in pieces as I took the cars out of their plastic sleeves. The new replacements seem to be holding up fine as I type this.

Does anyone know of another replacement part # other than DD-0000073 or know of a dealer where I can purchase 8 coupler replacements.  My MBTA set has this problem and the MTH website has them listed as being out of stock.

 Thanks 

Chris

Hi,  

I  was in the same boat 2 months ago with my Amfleet cars.  I bought the last 6 of the replacement couplers that were in stock at : Brassuer Electric Trains of Saginaw, MI.  I still have 2 of them on back order so I don't know if they will be getting more.  

It may be worth contacting them to see if they will get more or if they know what will replace it. 

NEWHAVEN9ER,

Thanks for the reply.  I have reached out to MTH as well to see if they have another solution or will be stocking this part again 

Chris 

How ironic this thread popped back up. Yesterday I took my Amfleet cars out of storage in my attic for some 11 years or so. The couplers are all shot. My question is..Has anyone tried adding Kadee couplers to this set?

Has anybody ever thought of not using zinc at all? Issues with that suggestion?

Brewman1973 posted:

This is a helpful post, I recently acquired a set of the Amfleet passenger cars, they are beautiful, but had the crumbling coupler problem.  I was able to order the repair kit, part number DD-0000073, directly from the MTH web site.  You need to set up an account, it took about a week to arrive to Tacoma.  The price was $7 each, plus shipping.  I ordered ten, so my average cost was about $9 each.  

Replacing the couplers is very easy!  there are six screws on the bottom of the car,  I unscrewed all six,  on the first attempt, I did remove the car body from the frame, to look at the inside, but you don't need to do this, (I also removed the truck from the frame, but only did this on one truck, because it is not necessary to do the repair).  

This is what you get in the kit, I elected to use all the parts just to be safe:

 

In this picture, you can see that I removed the retaining washer o-ring washer and spring. Its best done with the coupler in this position, since you can push down on the spring when removing the retaining washer.  Once this is done, you can lift the frame from the body, to allow for the coupler to swing freely to the slide and have the t-pin drop out, that allows for the old coupler to be removed and put the new one in. 

In this picture, I did remove the car body, to show how far the truck needs to be turned.

By the time I did the fourth car, I was down to five minutes to do both couplers. 

All the best, Dave

Brewman 1973 posted a very useful reply with pictures.  We can see how they are mounted and the length needed.  Finding an alternative to replace them may be the only solution if the parts are no longer stocked.  Given the amount of years it's taken for some of us to encounter the problem MTH may have figured there was no need to keep stocking them as they would have been replaced by now.

I've had them for over 10 years too and unboxed them for the first time like many others here.  

I recently started a thread "MTH 30-6405 Overton Passenger Car Truck Problem" in this forum in which I documented my problems with the couplers on early Overton passenger cars.  I noticed that the coupler on the Overton cars had a "nub" (see my graphic in my original post) which was inserted in the hole on the truck and then held in place with a screw.  The coupler and truck in this post both have a hole through which a "pin" was inserted.  Obviously, there were design changes early on.  As a side note, after talking to Midge in the parts department at MTH, I was informed that I would have to purchase the replacement parts.  It would have been nice of MTH to acknowledge the problem and pay (or at least share) the cost of repair.

Paul

I had a complete coupler failure on the MTH car carrier with '57 Chevys. The cars were quite old. And would not stay connected at all. They fell apart. I replaced all the couplers and they run fine now.

A friend gave me four of these to replace the couplers, the armatures are also suspect, if you are going to do the work, do both, save aggravation. The DD-73 couplers are out of stock at present at MTH, due in April... Pity that things that lasted for 70 years are now failing after 15, not just couplers, but frames, bodies, etc. 

I scanned my original receipt and E-mailed it to Midge who put through to send me all 8 couplers FREE of charge.  That is only the right thing for MTH to do in this circumstance.