Oh the joys of model railroading! I am having a problem with a couple of cars with couplers equipped with what resemble upside down thumbtacks to actuate them. They drag over Gargraves switches and touch the third rail. Any repairs or remedies? Odd-d
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Remove those thumbtack things. That is, take a good pair of heavy duty diagonal cutters and cut them off. That way they will never droop and touch the center rail, ever again.
Two coats of clear nail polish.
I only had this happen on two Weaver non diecast truck cars out of aprox 50 cars so far.
Should not be a common problem unless the arm sags for whatever reson.
I also operate new and old G.G. manual switches and have never experienced any of the horor stories I heard from others as well.
Must be an isolated incident.
Many of the MPC Lionel cars have separate thumbtacks pressed into plastic activating levers.
Gentlemen----Thank you for your time and advice. This may seem silly, but are those thumbtack things real thumbtacks
Well, they certainly look real to me. I even have some replacements from Lionel, and they look just like the ones I can take out of my thumbtack box from Office Depot. I even tried some of my office supply store thumbtacks, and they work as well as the Lionel ones. 
No, they're not the colored thumbtacks, most of them are silver, but I've seen black ones as well.
I have had good results with a dot cut from duct tape over the buttons. No more shorts even though I see the button drag at times.
I will admit, the problem never happens on cars made in the last 10 years.
Those are mostly MTH RailKing & Atlas.
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