A while back there was a thread on how to lower MTH Premier TOFCs. Thanks to the tip from Dave Minarik I used his technique to lower the cars closer in height to Lionel's cars. Lionel's TOFCs seem to be the nicest of all the 3 rail TOFCs with loads of detail plus what appears to be close to prototypical height. MTH's on the other hand are.......not. This is about not only lowering the cars along with some more photos but also adding detail to make bring them closer to Lionel's.
Here is the MTH car out of the box. Note the height difference. Its over a scale foot higher.
This shows what Dave and I did. Cut off the bolster nub and insert it from the top (bottom in the pic) after expanding the hole a bit. A tapered reamer would have been ideal but mine maxes out at 1/2" and that is what the hole size is to begin with so like Dave I used a step drill.
Before then after.
I deviate from Daves method here as I will continue to use claw couplers. I have too many cars to start converting to Kadees but agree they would have looked better. To use claws the end beam had to be milled. removing .050" so the coupler would not hit.
After milling.
To add the guardrails I used styrene. The most tedious part cutting and then tapering the stakes, 32 in all, then gluing the rail. I used the car as the jig laying it on its side to keep the solvent glue from getting on the car itself.
Lionel ramps were added to the ends and a brass beam added to hold the ramps upright when moving.
Here is the result. Nothing has been painted yet because I am looking for a closer match. I picked up some Tru Color 53 Tuscan but found its a bit too red and I don't have anything yet to add some brown. Tru color has a few more Tuscan reds that appear to have a bit more brown and hopefully closer to the MTH color.
One down and five more to go.
Pete
