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Reply to "converting a MTH RK switcher to 2 rail"

Now for switcher #2! Yes, I know... I still haven't finished the first one. I made a pilot and it was a fair amount of work. So I'm making a mold of it out of silicone and it's taking a long time to dry. So I started #2.

This should be an easy one. It's a MTH PS3 South Buffalo RK S2 switcher that's already 3/2 convertible. Yeah right.....

The first thing here is that one truck is closer to the end than the other. So that's a good clue. Ends up that unlike my other MTH 4 axle diesels, this one has two identical trucks facing the same direction. More on that to come.

Removed the trucks to get at the stock 3 rail couplers and pilots for removal.

So my attempt to mount the pilots that a forum member gave me, started off OK. I had to drill the cast frame to accept small metric screws. Got the first one mounted by luck.

Started the second one and noticed that the truck's sideframes hit the pilot? Started grinding the rear of the new pilot, then the truck's tab, then the pilot some more! Became apparent that the offset is different. Still didn't identify fully what was going on. Got the second pilot mounted and went on to the wheel swap.

I have a few sets of 6 axle wheels right here, so I grabbed a set. Swapped out the first truck carefully using the wheels with the insulated bushing near the gears.

Started on the second truck and that's where it got interesting! The wheel sets match the other truck? That's a problem because normally they are reversed.

To skip ahead I found that I needed to take 2 axles apart, and reverse the bushings to get them oriented correctly. I slid an axle into a large crescent wrench and snugged it down against the plastic insulator. I then used a drift and hammered the axle downward while supporting the wrench. Reversed the bushings and put it back together. I laid the wheel face down on the flat bench and drove the axle back in until I got the correct wheel spacing of near 1.110 to 1.118 I believe? I measured a few MTH engines to come up with that. They run well on my layout so that's what I went with.

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