MTH Premier Broken Truck Mount Repair

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I had a chance to buy a 5 car set of the D&H passenger cars for a good price.  Since the D&H cars don't pop up all that often, I wanted the cars.  The only issue was, one of them had been dropped and the truck mounts on the car chassis had been both broken out.  Since I've seen this before, I figured it wasn't a big deal, and I made the deal.

After a little time on the bench, the body was good as new, and I mounted the trucks and all was well.  Here's the repair in pictures.

Original Body As Received

Clean Up And Rough Up Surface For Repair

Replacements Cut From 1/16" Styrene

Note that the bottom of these were also scored to maximize the grip of the glue.

JB Weld To The Rescue!

Glued and clamped, I used JB-Kwik and gave it a few hours to set.

Finished Repair, Ready To Mount Truck Again

Pop the truck back on and you're back on the rails!  Note that I made the patch one-sided, extended much more on one end.  I also rounded and tapered the short end.  This was to allow the truck pickup spring room to flex, the original truck mount is just a rounded bump.  In order for the spring to clear, I couldn't make that end longer than it is.

 

This is a quick and easy repair if you run into a similar situation, this is not the first time I've had to fix this style of car.

Hope this is helpful for the next guy that drops his MTH Premier passenger car.

Where did you get these cars from? Just curious because a friend and I are selling some cars just like these. I took pictures of them and they had a very similar broken truck mount

I got them on eBay, only one car, the dome car, had the broken mounts.  They were the D&H Premier 18" cars.  This is a common break, if you drop them, they break.

Good to see you found a use for the spring clamps from your benchwork.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I got them on eBay, only one car, the dome car, had the broken mounts.  They were the D&H Premier 18" cars.  This is a common break, if you drop them, they break.

Ha, I just checked the eBay account my friend and I sell on and you did buy the cars we were selling. I take the pictures and he sells them. Funny coincidence 😄😄

Great work John!....that’s my cup of tea right there!....take something with a big angry hole, and make it new again!.....nice!.........Pat

It was a pretty simple repair, but sometimes people look at something like this and don't have any idea how to proceed.  Hopefully, someone will benefit from the post.  Bob, I did have use for a couple of clamps, but the seventy clamps would have crushed the frame, so I only used a couple.

I am now the proud owner of this set.  I was looking for something to go behind my D&H Bluebonnet PA1s.  John had two identical sets and agreed to sell one of them to me.  I had a problem with the dome car so I’ll supplement this thread with my fix.

John’s fix is pretty slick, but the .0625” styrene patch leaves the truck too close to the frame.  The coupler arms could hang up on the frame when going around curves and cause the adjacent car to derail.  I added a .060 spacer (no glue yet) and replaced the 6-32X1/4 truck mounting machine screws with 3/8” long screws. Since the truck boss is .080” high and total patch thickness is now .1225”, I can’t fully tighten the machine screw.

It runs fine now so I’ll run it like this for a while.  When I replace lighting with LEDs, I’ll drill an oversize hole in John’s patches and glue the .060” patches so I can fully tighten the truck mounting screw.

Nice addition to the fix, I guess my limited circle of track at the time didn't allow for a test that was long enough to spot this issue.

Thank you. Always looking for new fixes. I had same problem on my Premier Santa Fe passenger car couple years ago. Broke it taking to shows for club.I just happened to have a damage railking passenger car. Took section of good floor out of damaged car and glued it into damaged car. Works so far. Now careful about dropping.

No need to hack up another car for this fix.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

No need to hack up another car for this fix.

Hey John I just noticed this topic. I think I may have help sell these to you. If you bought these from a gentleman on eBay named buyhi-sello I work for him. Here is a picture I took when helping him sell these cars.

The saga of D&H Willsboro Point Continues

While I had the car apart to add passengers and LED lights, I noticed a slight bend in the chassis, so I figured I would tweak it back straight a bit.  That didn’t go so well.  Looks like it’s time for more styrene and JB Weld.

@Lehigh74 posted:

I am now the proud owner of this set.  I was looking for something to go behind my D&H Bluebonnet PA1s.  John had two identical sets and agreed to sell one of them to me.  I had a problem with the dome car so I’ll supplement this thread with my fix.

John’s fix is pretty slick, but the .0625” styrene patch leaves the truck too close to the frame.  The coupler arms could hang up on the frame when going around curves and cause the adjacent car to derail.  I added a .060 spacer (no glue yet) and replaced the 6-32X1/4 truck mounting machine screws with 3/8” long screws. Since the truck boss is .080” high and total patch thickness is now .1225”, I can’t fully tighten the machine screw.

It runs fine now so I’ll run it like this for a while.  When I replace lighting with LEDs, I’ll drill an oversize hole in John’s patches and glue the .060” patches so I can fully tighten the truck mounting screw.

Nice thread and thanks to all for sharing their thoughts. A few questions before I start a similar repair.

1. The jb weld used is the usual epoxy - nothing special for mating the styrene and plastic correct?

2.is the oversize hole mentioned really a recess for the screw? Why not use a washer?

Thanks for suggestions.

@hokie71 posted:

Nice thread and thanks to all for sharing their thoughts. A few questions before I start a similar repair.

1. The jb weld used is the usual epoxy - nothing special for mating the styrene and plastic correct?

2.is the oversize hole mentioned really a recess for the screw? Why not use a washer?

Thanks for suggestions.

The areas should be prepped with a light sanding to roughen the surfaces.

On my latest repair (on a different car) I used two pieces of .060” styrene.  One with a hole to clear the truck boss and one with a larger hole to hold the mounting screw washer. That way you can tighten the screw that holds the truck in place.  If you just use a washer, you can’t tighten the screw.

Since this thread was resurrected, I noticed that I never followed up on the fix for the broken chassis I posted on 1/31/21.

I glued it back together with CA and made a backer plate from .080” styrene. The backer plate had to have cutouts to clear chassis stiffeners and mounting screws.

I also drilled out the existing patch to clear the truck mount screw head, glued my .060 shim and added a few small backers to the underside of the chassis.

It almost looks like a 3D-printed part could serve as a standardized gap filler that provides a screw mount, being that this is a common failure mode for these cars.

---PCJ

@RailRide posted:

It almost looks like a 3D-printed part could serve as a standardized gap filler that provides a screw mount, being that this is a common failure mode for these cars.

---PCJ

I'm sure that would work, but for us luddites, cutting and drilling a few pieces of styrene is easy enough.

@Lehigh74 posted:

I'm sure that would work, but for us luddites, cutting and drilling a few pieces of styrene is easy enough.

Of course. Just suggesting that at some point someone with a lot of time on their hands may decide to whip up a 3D model, bang it out on their printer, then offer the result to interested individuals. It's happened before

---PCJ