Resuscitating a Sunset 44 tonner

I was not aware that Sunset ever did a 44 tonner. Are you sure that is what it is?  Great pictures. 

My guess is that all the screws on this are metric.    All the stuff imported for many years have been metric.

I have one of these but I have not lost any screws, so I have had no need to replace any.    

On the weights, I agree with you, with all the original weights, it was way too heavy in my opinion.     I left the weights that were in the hoods off when I had it apart to put in a decoder.    It will still pull at least 12-15 free rolling cars on level track, and these are mostly newer, heavy Atlas.    that is much more than the prototype I think.

I like mine.

Quite an impressive saga of tenacious tracking down parts...like Mr. Johnston, l was unaware of a Sunset one...two rail as it looks in photos?  I was thinking of three, three rail brands and was aware one source made them, l think, in two and three rail.  Lionel, Williams, ?, ?.  non-scale; two,  three? scale sized? Looks like you could build a collection of scale and nominal 44 tonners.

Sunset Models did make the 44 tonner.

R.Heil - Sunset Models / 3rd Rail 

@colorado hirailer posted:

..........l was unaware of a Sunset one...two rail as it looks in photos?  I was thinking of three, three rail brands and was aware one source made them, l think, in two and three rail.  Lionel, Williams, ?, ?.  non-scale; two,  three? scale sized?

Quite a few brands / importers for 44T.  I have a nice basic Kidder that I like a lot.

I have one in Santa Fe (in fact, I bought it from Bob Heil). I believe the screws are 2mm diameter x 4mm and 6mm, respectively. Microfasteners.com sells them but I think the minimum quantity is a pack of 50. I have quite a few 2mmx8mm (which work for the coupler mounting) and can send you some if you want to file/cut them down.

There have been a few different imported 2 rail versions.    someone, either NJCB or Sunset brought one in, in the 1980s, 2 rail only, body same version as the latest sunset.     The Yoder did the 3-4 different versions maybe 10 years ago to match specific prototype body changes.     And the latest is the Sunset one we have on this thread.    

Don't forget the W&R Enterprises 44 tonners produced in three phases in the '90's. Very nice O scale models.

I have one from Rich Yoder. It's a little jewel and runs just like one of these was meant to run on the prototype. I do not expect it to handle more than a few cars for my application. Nice!

Bob

Any well-stocked ACE hardware store should have small metric screws, loose for each sale.

No need to buy a large box to get a few screws.

I also brought a Sunset 44 Ton a few years ago cheap with bad rubber joints also, This posting reminded me I still have it somewhere.

"They are held in place by two really tiny screws, and move freely up and down against a spring. Would love to find a source for these (if one exists)."

Try your local optical store.