Die cast trucks

@DunningStation posted:

I've recently started to collect wood sided reefers that advertise different brands of beer. Some of these are older Lionel cars with plastic trucks while others are MTH with die cast trucks. Thinking about converting the plastic ones to die cast. I know this will allow these cars to track better and I don't plan on selling them but does it affect their value and desirability ?

This is a loaded question. There are collectors who will not even look at anything that has been altered in anyway. Others no original box forget it, some now go so far as you need the original shipping carton. They are yours enjoy them !

Collectors are fickle. They will buy special commemorative boxcars and then within a few years those cars have almost no value. So... you can buy those old boxcars from MTH that are really ugly for $10 to $15 and they usually have great trucks that you can remove and place them on your desirable refers. Document what you do to each refer so you can pass it along with any future sale.

Those plastic truck reefers are basically worth the price of new trucks  As john said you can buy metal truck cars for less than the price of the trucks and swap them and resell

Just some thoughts: the cars will "track better" if you simply make them weigh more. It isn't a function of truck material, but rather primarily of car weight. This is assuming a good quality truck, regardless of material. The metal trucks will indeed make the car weigh more, but you can do a better job of that by adding weight.

Large washers from the hardware store; wheel weights from an auto parts store, as two examples. They can be mounted inside the reefers using double-sided tape, Goo, or the like. The wheel weights should already have an adhesive backing. This will affect the "all-original" value of the car - as will changing trucks - but will also be cheaper.

The new metal trucks may be considered an upgrade by non-collector types should you want to sell, but it will also cost you more money to add said "upgrade" than adding weight will. Also, some plastic trucks are well-done visually, and work well.

They're your cars, if you want diecast trucks, put them on!  Too many people spend too much time worrying about the Collector Value of their train stuff.  Most of it won't fetch the price you paid for it, use them, enjoy them, and don't worry about the Collector Value!

Another quick trick to add weight to your plastic cars with plastic trucks is to wrap all 4 axles with solder.

You can use a roll of pennies and cut the roll down to wedge it in the car to prevent if from rolling around. Typically one roll will be enough to weigh down both wheel trucks and they're easily removed if you want to sell the car. And the best part is you only have invested fifty cents to weigh down your car and you can recycle them at the bank.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

They're your cars, if you want diecast trucks, put them on!  Too many people spend too much time worrying about the Collector Value of their train stuff.  Most of it won't fetch the price you paid for it, use them, enjoy them, and don't worry about the Collector Value!

Well said!

I’ll weigh in on this as I’ve steadily been converting MPC era cars with plastic trucks to sprung metal trucks. The cars run better and to my eye, look much better with the sprung metal trucks.

A few years ago I was waffling on doing more cars as, from a practical perspective, I was essentially taking $10 boxcars and turning them into $10 boxcars with $25 trucks. I shared my doubts with Lewis Collier - owner of Memory Station over in Watkinsville, GA. Lewis noted that I was getting a well made traditional size boxcar with nice graphics and sprung metal trucks for a fraction of the cost of a new Lionel traditional size boxcar with sprung metal trucks. That thought resonated with me and I recently completed re-trucking the last of the MPC boxcars I had targeted for this conversion.

To reiterate what GRJ said above, they are YOUR cars. Do whatever you want to enhance your enjoyment of them.

Curt

juniata guy writes:
“I’ll weigh in on this as I’ve steadily been converting MPC era cars with plastic trucks to sprung metal trucks.”

Curt - besides drilling out the rivet, have you discovered any other means of removing the plastic trucks? Thanks.

Mark; drilling out the rivet is the only way I’ve done mine. And, reflecting on it for a moment, I honestly can’t think of a better way to remove the rivet.

Curt

That makes 2 of us. I had 0 success trying to crimp the bottom of the rivet, and pulling the truck off. I wound up using a cordless drill in a plastic bag, drilling under gentle stream of running water to aviod melting the plastic bolster. Many times the bit got stuck in the rivet, and both were just spinning uselessly in the  bolster. Giant PITA😳

Mark:

There were times I experienced similar issues with the bit getting stuck. I pondered using my Dremel to cut off the head of the rivet a few times but, there generally isn’t enough “play” in the rivet to attempt that without possibly damaging the frame of the car.

Curt

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

They're your cars, if you want diecast trucks, put them on!  Too many people spend too much time worrying about the Collector Value of their train stuff.  Most of it won't fetch the price you paid for it, use them, enjoy them, and don't worry about the Collector Value!

Agreed.  Most of the time trains collections don't get sold until the owner is passed away or nearly passed away, so why bother with collector value?  If you are already going to run them simply make them run better .

The cheapest way is to simply add weight.  If the tabs on the plastic trucks are popping open, then a truck upgrade is the way to go, but if you just went them to track nicer and stay on the rails adding weight is easy.  If the reefer doors open you don't even need to use adhesive tape.  Simple add material in a zip lock bag and shove it into the carbody, close the door.  It could be anything, but sand or gravel in a ziplock bag would be fine.

If you want to get precise about it, the NMRA scale crowd has recommended weight / length of car numbers.  That would be a good place to start.  A small scale like those used to weigh things for postage can be used to determine how much a car weighs now and how much to add based on the NMRA guidelines.

btw - if you have a bunch of left over mpc era plastic trucks laying around please let me know.  I sometimes use them to for lego built freight cars.

Plastic frames need weight centered over the trucks. Unlike stamped metal or die cast frames, they will otherwise sag when weighted. Ask me how I know😕

@Mark V. Spadaro posted:

Plastic frames need weight centered over the trucks. Unlike stamped metal or die cast frames, they will otherwise sag when weighted. Ask me how I know😕

@Mark V. Spadaro, how do you know?