Lionel MPC Crescent Limited Passenger Car with droopy couplers

I just bought basically a set of five. One is fine. At least one coupler on each of the other four have exact same problem. I love F 3s. I had recently scored an MPC southern in mint condition. I didn’t start out to do a whole consist but here I am. I will do the zip tie trick just to watch this beauty go around the tracks a bit. Is it worth or possible to upgrade the trucks?

@Mossback Mike posted:

I recently acquired a 9530 Joel Chandler Harris passenger car, and both of the long coupler arms were drooping down so badly that the couplers wouldn't connect with any of the other passenger cars of this series. The tang of the coupler pivots from an outward projecting tab on the top of the truck saddle. This tab has a hub which mates with a hole in tang. The tang is held into place with a black plastic piece that sort of resembles a dearth vader helmet. So the tang is sandwiched between the tab and the dearth vader helmet. See the picture below. For some reason, the dearth vader helmet wouldn't hold tight, causing the coupler arms to droop downward. To fix this, I wrapped the sandwich with a 4" black plastic zip tie and cinched it real tight. This seems to have solved the problem - the coupler no longer droops down, it lines up with the other cars of this series, and the coupler arm pivots freely.

Here is a picture that shows the coupler arm after the zip tie was applied. The arm stands straight out without any drooping. I did this on both ends of the car.

Nice repair…….best of all these will work forever.

@obxtrainman posted:

I just bought basically a set of five. One is fine. At least one coupler on each of the other four have exact same problem. I love F 3s. I had recently scored an MPC southern in mint condition. I didn’t start out to do a whole consist but here I am. I will do the zip tie trick just to watch this beauty go around the tracks a bit. Is it worth or possible to upgrade the trucks?

Good luck with the repair. I hope yours will be as successful as mine. Regarding the truck upgrade - I never really investigated that, to see if parts were available. I did, however, upgrade the lighting.

Check out my post on this on-line forum.

Very nice repair.  Mine aren't that bad (I have all six), but I haven't used them since I bought the MTH versions.

May end up selling them.

Thanks for that great idea.

John

I had a couple of those with that problem. It has been some time and I don't remember the details but I found a problem that looked like shipping or handling issues. I do remember that I had to really get down close with my visor and light to see what was going on. I was able to fix them to their original state. Sorry for the poor explanation but they were fixable.