Lionel AutoCarrier conversion to 2R and Kadee's

I did find some more of these cars, thanks Jeff Sohn!!! and will take a few more photos of the conversion process, maybe a video taking the cover off.

Here some other photos from a recent conversion.  As noted I use a sharp pick to gain access to the secret screw in the center sill. I also used the 746 couplers on these cars to try out the long shank couplers.

Here is a short video of some converted autoracks running on Brian Huang's layout.  Using the medium coupler shank on the 805's, 740/745's did work on his radius curves, but I wouldn't recommend anything smaller than a 54" radius for more reliable operation.  The 746 (long shank) couplers did yield better results and a more realistic appearance.

Looking good Mike! I hope Lionel decides to do more runs of these cars with multiple road numbers and more road names. I still can't believe that Lionel did scale autoracks, but I'm very happy someone did them. Thanks for posting.

Travis

All you need now is about 40 more! 

They are really cool, too bad they are about 30 years too new for my era.

Erik, with your ability, knowledge and talent, you should assemble at least one modern-era train to run on that beautiful layout you have - that would make for some awesome modern-day photos on top of it all. I can see it now...

 Mike, thanks for helping with this post. I followed your steps and it was easy. I found that removing the e-clip from the top side of the coupler post, made removing easier. I have the car sitting on the new Atlas scale 70t trucks.

I just received two of the racks myself and I like them very much. I'm waiting for some Kadee long shank couplers and I'm experimenting with different trucks to get that low profile like on the prototype. I'm gonna try to convert one of the Lionel racks into a tri-level with the wheel cutouts if I can get my hands on several more of these.Nice pics and thread guys! Just a few pics mixed in with other cars.

At the recent Amherst show, I heard Lionel didn't ship all the auto racks yet.  There should be another shipment soon.  I'm still looking for the 2 pack CSX and UP.  You guys with the single cars are sure having fun.  I recently took down my 7 Atlas articulated cars from the NYSME layout.  While its still equivalent to about 20+ standard 40' freight cars, as a modern auto rack train with 2 head diesels, it looks like it lost 2/3 some where.

No doubt we need like Erik said above about 40 of these to make a scale length train.  Mix in a couple articulated racks and it'll look right.  Need to weather and tag these cars for a more accurate representation of today's railroading.

 I finally got around to running one of these in a train. It hopped the rails on me so I added weight (some small vehicles). One truck is snug to make sure the car doesn't wobble and it maybe too tight.

 I wouldn't blame any co for this as my RR has some serious bumps in it. Every time one gets too bad, I have to fix it. My framing was for my G gauge and it will have to get replaced now. Overall I'm happy with the cars. I will have to figure out the sweet spot in the weight vs tracking. I don't want to make them too heavy. Filling them with reg vehicles would weigh too much I think. I may hollow out some pickup trucks that will fit inside. Most of them are too wide or the mirrors hit anyways. Maybe just use sticky weights???

Joe, sticky weights or flat bar seem to work the best in these cars.  They are a little light without any additional weight.

WOW they look good! 

The Lionel racks are pretty light without any weight added. I added 2 pieces of 5/16" plate steel square to the center sill to bring the weight up to my liking. With these weights added the rack weighs 27.4 ounces, which is an optimum weight according to NMRA specs. I like the feel of mine at the 27 to 28 ounce weight, I'll try to get one to 32 ounces or two pounds and see how it feels. Anything more than that is probably too heavy in my opinion. I definitely don't want them to weigh as much as the Overland racks I have, which weigh at over 3 pounds.

I can't recall what the racks weighed before conversion but I believe they were somewhere around 20-21 ounces in their 3 rail factory configuration. The 2 pieces of square plate steel added about 5 ounces of weight to the car.

I'm also doing open top racks as pictured below and since I loose about 3.5 ounces of weight with the roof and doors removed, I'll have to experiment with compensating for the lost weight. I'll add the square plate steel in the centersill and probably a flat steel plate underneath the car on each end in place of the metal plate that worked with the Lionel coupler mechanism.

5/16" plate steel square added to centersill.