I have a few sets of K-Line Heavyweight passenger cars Beautiful cars but draw a ton of power when full sets are coupled up So i purchased a bunch of passenger LED light kits from Scott Mann at Third rail I started converting my first set A Lackawanna 18 inch version set. The LED conversions were a snap I got 10 cars done in two days When I brought them back to the club I found a big design flaw with the Heavyweight trucks 5 of the 10 cars were causing shorts on the track. They are actually a terrible design The pickup rollers hit the axels when traversing switches I have a few of the 15 inch cars and looked at the trucks on them and they are a completely different design and dont have the problem.
I tried disassembly of the truck but the pickup rollers are not adjustable So i thought I would try an MTH heavyweight truck on one car I ordered a pair from their parts site and got them in two days They were silver but I liked the look With a little wire reconfiguration and a couple of washers they work great So I converted all 10 cars to the MTH truck What I got from MTH were actually two different types of trucks even though they had the same part number One was the older truck with no springs and some were the newer fully sprung truck Everything works great now with the exception of the car spacing I am going to try shorter coupler shanks to move the cars together but here is what theyu look like now
When I did the second set I didnt feel like changing trucks but I found something else interesting I started by putting some liquid electrical tape on the axels to prevent the shorting When I got to the second car I found a completely different truck with a crosspiece to prevent the roller from hitting the axel I guess they fixed the problem on later releases