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Stick on wheel weights - local NAPA store. If you live in the Northeast or CA, ask if they have any of the old lead ones (Discontinued - illegal to sell in these and other states - when they come off along highways, rainwater runoff from them harms birds and small animals). Often store managers (when told of their intended use) will sell them cheaply or give them to you as open boxes are not returnable to their distribution center.

Last edited by modeltrainsparts

This is quite an appropriate subject for me. I recently bought some new Weaver cars, mostly box cars and several hoppers. While they look very nice, they don't go through the Gargraves and Ross switches very well. I do have quite a few All Nation and Reynolds kit cars with Lionel trucks and they perform much better. I wondered if the Weaver units needed more weight? Someone said I should get a postal scale and compare weights and then act accordingly. Since this topic has come up here, I would appreciate any advice on helping solve this problem. Thanks in advance

@mike.caruso posted:

This is what they look like.

611CDB29-8915-4B6B-A476-58EDF0C8523B

And the adhesive is very tenacious.  I've used them in a Weaver hopper that was light as a feather.

@GregK posted:

I'll ask a beginner question - why add weight? Is it for realism in approximating a load? Or to help the cars stay on the tracks while navigating curves, switches, coupling up, etc?

The cars are too light to stay on the track reliably, especially if they're located ahead of heavier cars.

@SDBOB1 posted:

One weaver box car for some reason the plastic floor was bowing down. So I made a whole new floor out of sheet steel. Runs fine.Discarded plastic floor.Couldnt figure out why it bowed down.

SDBOB1, Weaver made flat, rectangular steel weights for some of their boxcars that were attached with a single bolt and nut.  They were mounted in the center of the car floor...exactly where you DON'T want to put weights!  Over time, the plastic floors/frames on some (but not all) of these cars sagged in the middle...no big surprise.

This is only a guess, but the car you're talking about may have had one of these center weights installed at some point.  Did you buy it new? One of the telltale signs is a hole drilled in the dead center of the car floor where the bolt went through.

The added weight really needs to be positioned over the trucks, especially on any boxcar with an all-plastic floor and sub-frame.  The photo below shows two Weaver boxcar floors with stick-on wheel weights that I added to bring the car up to NMRA standard.  You can also see the hole drilled in the center for the Weaver weight.

032

And here's a photo of two Weaver boxcar floors with no center hole...FILE0067

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Last edited by CNJ #1601

Artie- DL&W,

I have a number of the Weaver 2 bay hopper cars that I applied the weights, these are the straight side cars, I believe they are 4750 cubic foot cars First remove both trucks from the car body by removing the screws, next the bottom of the car body with the hopper is removed from the upper part of the car body. Using a small flat screwdriver insert this screwdriver in the gap between the car side and the bottom of the car body and gently pull the car body upwards repeat this at all 4 corners, then the bottom is easy to remove. When you do the first corner there may be a small pointed projection by the bottom end diagonal bracing that hold the bottom of the car body to the remaining car body , if you see one there are probably three more at the other corner locations.

The roof, sides and ends with the ladders is one molded piece, there are two removable vertical pieces that are inboard of the ends with the ladders, at the bottom facing inward is a clearance slot for the truck screws. The weight required is 5 ounces plus one ounce of weight per length of the car or 13 ounces if the hopper car is 8 inches long.

One the weights are added and bonded to the car body bottom section, you can reassembly the car in the reverse procedure.

Last edited by John Ochab

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OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

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