K-Line Heavyweights

Ben, I had a similar problem when adding pickup rollers to a Williams tender. Even the shortest pickup the roller would hit the axle so I just put a wrap of kapton tape over the axle. The roller still has more the tenth of an inch space on normal track but I was concerned any uneven track might cause contact. Now, no worries.

Pete

I have KLine Penn heavyweights and not which design the trucks are. Don’t have an issue running them on our club layout and our switches are Ross.
But…. the couplers tend to open with the weight of 9 cars together behind a scale GG1. I cable-tied each coupler shut and no more uncoupling.
Anyway, for $25 a car, we’ll worth the small mod on them.

I have a set of Williams and MTH heavyweights and the trucks and rollers are horrible. I know I will need to replace them. Thank you for the insights.

Jay

Hey Ben,

How far back do those Heavyweights go as far as a date? I have 6 Heavyweights brand new in a box, unused yet, need people & lighting. Have LED's on a tape roll and some of GRJ's voltage/rectifier boards for the lighting purpose. Will have to check out the trucks on these. Hobby Shop in Somerville, N.J. was closing it's doors and the owner sold me 6 pasenger cars, still in a sealed box, for $200.00. Glad you brought this up!

    Steam Forever

            John

I believe that due to this shorting issue, many of the heavyweight passenger cars were part of a safety recall. Check this link.

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/1...-Recall-Model-Trains

@N&WY6b posted:

Hey Ben,

How far back do those Heavyweights go as far as a date? I have 6 Heavyweights brand new in a box, unused yet, need people & lighting. Have LED's on a tape roll and some of GRJ's voltage/rectifier boards for the lighting purpose. Will have to check out the trucks on these. Hobby Shop in Somerville, N.J. was closing it's doors and the owner sold me 6 pasenger cars, still in a sealed box, for $200.00. Glad you brought this up!

    Steam Forever

            John

I am going to guess the ones in the yellow and black boxes are OK. The earlier ones in the black with gold lettering may be the ones to check.

Pete

@Norton posted:

The earlier ones in the black with gold lettering may be the ones to check.

That's the style of the Southern Pacific set I have. I'll have to look at my cars again. Currently have no issues with them. Although, I did rewire the trucks and interior lighting.

First, Ben, nice work figuring out how to fix those cars.

Thanks, milnyc, for posting this link!

Second, how did a CPSC recall get put into play? Was there a fire caused by these cars? Did MDK realize they were a fire hazard? And, how much $$$ did this product recall cost K-Line?

@Mark V. Spadaro posted:

... how did a CPSC recall get put into play? Was there a fire caused by these cars? Did MDK realize they were a fire hazard? And, how much $$$ did this product recall cost K-Line?

Mark,

First of all the recall, and most likely the truck issues mentioned by the OP, are only problems associated with K-Line's first generation of scale heavyweights, which was labelled "The Heavyweights" by K-Line's marketing folks at the time.  You'll find that term prominently displayed on the packaging.  They did not extend to any of the more recent heavyweight passenger cars K-Line produced.

At the time these cars were so much more detailed than anything that came before them, and of course were in scale length which was also novel, so I immediately bought a set (NY Pacemaker, K71-4907-5) as soon as they were introduced.

Within a short period of time it became apparent that the wiring, as installed from the factory, was quite a bit shorter than it should have been, restricting pivoting of the truck and eventually causing wear-through on the insulation where it passed through to the interior of the car.  There were also apparently issues with a spring configuration on the pickup assembly.

If I remember correctly this is why the recall occurred.  Sparks and smoke.

Check out this forum post for more details:

     K-line recall on passenger cars? (5/12/17) | Tom weaver

Mike

The things one can learn here are endless. Found this post and pulled out my LIRR set from 2000. Sure enough, the rollers contact the axles when depressed fully. I never had the problem due to no switches on my old Christmas layout, but with my in-construction layout there will be 16 Ross switches. So, this discovery is timely in that it saves me the grief of figuring it out. BTW- yellow and black boxes. Thanks to all!

K line heavyweight trucks also  had a zinc pest problem.

FWIW here is my simple fix.

Pete

@Terry Luft posted:

K line heavyweight trucks also  had a zinc pest problem.

Later K-Line heavyweights might have but not "The Heavyweights" line as far as I can tell.  Because they were so popular there are many, many, many of these out there.  You can find them everywhere, eBay, shows, auctions.  I run across many of these over the years and have never seen any with zinc pest, or any reference to zinc pest in them.

Mike

I have a set of K-Line Long Island Rail Road blue "Cannonball Express - Dashing Dan" heavyweight passenger cars that have been on my layout since I bought them (new) years ago. Have never had a problem but I don't run them very often. The pickup rollers do contact the axle if pushed far enough. I don't see an easy way to make a proper repair so I won't run them any more and will instead run my well made MTH 18-inch LIRR "Madison" cars on which the pickup rollers cannot come in contact with the axles. Thanks for pointing out this problem.

MELGAR

I have 3 sets.  All came in dark boxes as i recall .  About half of them had the trucks fall apart

@N&WY6b posted:

Hey Ben,

How far back do those Heavyweights go as far as a date? I have 6 Heavyweights brand new in a box, unused yet, need people & lighting. Have LED's on a tape roll and some of GRJ's voltage/rectifier boards for the lighting purpose. Will have to check out the trucks on these. Hobby Shop in Somerville, N.J. was closing it's doors and the owner sold me 6 pasenger cars, still in a sealed box, for $200.00. Glad you brought this up!

    Steam Forever

            John

John

That was a great price on those   

The cars I converted are the second run Heavyweights   They had interiors with no people   They were in the Black and yellow box The first six car set is K-44382  The Lackawanna Limited 6-Car Set These came out in 1999 with the F3 A-B-A   They look a lot better with the LED's   I also used one from Rays Trains for the Observation with the Tomar marker lights and the drumhead

The second set I converted were all custom painted in Erie   I believe they were NYC green to start   They were also a mix of first and second runs    The baggage car had fixed doors so that was a first run   The diner and two coaches were second run with interiors    Each coach had a different type truck on it     Not sure of the timeline on these   

The first release were in the black box with silhouettes in the window.   Those are the ones that were recalled 

@milnyc posted:

I believe that due to this shorting issue, many of the heavyweight passenger cars were part of a safety recall. Check this link.

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/1...-Recall-Model-Trains

That was 1996 and the first run of these cars   They didnt have interiors  Mine came out in 1999

The cause of the recall on the K -Line Heavyweights was due to a lack of electrical isolation with the coupler assembly. One of my Ringling Bros. Circus cars derailed while my young daughter was playing with it. The derailment caused a short, this short sent voltage from my ZW through the metal frame and the all metal coupler assembly. The centering spring of the coupler assembly turned cherry red from the voltage and caused the cotton snow mat under the track to catch fire. When I returned to “fix” the train for my daughter I had an open flame under a live Christmas tree! I contacted K-Line, Classic Toy Trains, and the govt consumer office at that time, the same day. The gov’t issued a recall, the repair was to replace the washer that the centering spring rested on with a fiber one thereby breaking the circuit. The recall had nothing to do with wiring of the roller pickup. I strongly recommend anyone using K-Line “heavyweight” passenger cars check the truck-coupler assembly to ensure there is electrical isolation. This is at least the third time I’m responding to incorrect speculation as to why the recall took place, if you don’t have specific knowledge of the recall keep your opinions to yourself. I’m sure there are still many cars that didn’t have the fiber washers added, these cars could still be a fire hazard if not under adult supervision.

@Trainmstr posted:

keep your opinions to yourself

I do not believe this attitude is warranted and does nothing to help educate us here on the forum.