need help to find the proper wheels bolsters ect. lower parts for my ambroid wood kits

Marty,

1.  The first thing you need to do is find sets of trucks compatible with your other trains.  These will be 3 rail trucks with the 3 rail (large) couplers.  MTH and Atlas both offer these.   

2.  Next comes the issue of what style of truck to buy.  Go to your web browser and enter the name of the car you are researching and use the "images" tab to get pictures.  Look at the pictures and match those with the ATlas and MTH offerings. 

3.  Another issue you will have is mounting the trucks to the car bodies.  This is because 2-rail truck bolsters are made to scale so they easily fit the body bolsters on the body.  3-rail trucks have the body bolsters built into the truck bolster so a bolster on the body is not needed. 

4.   Also, 2-rail trucks usually mount from the bottom side of the car, as do the Atlas O scale trucks, while the MTH mount from the top.  I recommend that you buy the trucks you want to use and then start the kits using the floor--make truck mounting the first thing you do on the kits before you do anything else.  Create "rolling chassis" which are just the trucks and the floor and as few or none of the other details unless absolutely necessary at this phase of the build. 

5.  Another issue is that the large flanges on the wheels require the body to be mounted higher off the trucks than with 2-rail trucks.  the flanges also can interfere with details or parts of the body, especially when on curves.  You have to take this into consideration before starting the build.  These compromise the prototype appearance of the car but can't be helped. 

6.  And if that isn't enough, end details may need to be left of order for the coupler to swing side-to-side when going around curves.

Thanks, KD what about the weaver ultra line Metal wheels, plastic trucks and couplers.

are they the Bettendorf  design?

Martin

Thank you for all the information, can anyone tell me if the weaver ultra line, Metal wheels, plastic trucks, and couplers are the Bettendorf design, and are they what I want for my O scale ambroid kits ?  Also, can I use Kadee #805 Magne-Matic Couplers

I am running on Lionel postwar 3 rail O gauge track 

Marty

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Scale city designs a forum sponsor sells white metal bolsters for o scale kits

Hi KD Thanks, All my cars are old stock my father gave me a Lionel set for Christmas in 1953 I have added to the set over the years even bought some prewar car, I like the old stuff as I am an old Phart also. The kits I have will be run with my set on the old-style track, you had mentioned in your post that  The Weaver trucks/couplers (all of mine use the Bettendorf design) can be attached with a #2 screws, no further modifications necessary to achieve reasonably correct car height.  Can I use the old Lionel trucks and couplers and attach them to the wooded bolsters that come with the kit, or would they be too large?

Martyb

The Ambroid cars will be full scale size for whatever they represent, so they will be bigger than most lionel PW cars.   I don't think Lionel made any full scale (1/4 inch to the foot) size cars in that era.    I can't think of any, but I may wrong.    The N5C caboose (cabin in PRR talk) is scale height and length, but about 5/16 inch too narrow.   

That said, if PW trucks are mounted on the Ambroid cars as you mount on Lionel cars, same clearances etc, most will go around the  Lionel curves.    the truck carry the couplers talgo style, so they swivel, and you leave off any underbody details that interfere with the truck swivels.    o31 should be fine.     I am not sure about 50 ft cars, but I think they would work, and I would wonder about trying such things as 80 ft autofracks.      I think 40 ft cars would be just fine.

The lionel 6464 boxcars are undersize in most dimensions but length wise are pretty close to a 40 ft car.

As mentioned above once you mix scale cars with PW cars you may be disappointed.    I speak from experience, many years ago I started building kit cars and mixing with my PW cars and it did not take me long to remove the PW cars from the layout and stick with the scale size onex.

Thanks, what companies make the scale cars pre-built? I assume the weaver cars are

Marty