Fix for MTL diner truck swing

[OldEastRR]

I found one truck on this car had a decent swing, and the other rather limited one. After studying the car and doing some measuring I discovered the underbody insert was slightly off, putting it about 3 or 4 N scale inches closer to one truck pin mounting than the other. By moving the insert to sit exactly equal between the mountings I got both couplers to have equal swing. If your car has a similar problem you should look to see if this will help you.
On a related note, it seems like the raised center beam is hitting the outer end wheel sets' flanges when the truck swings, but I imagine some work cutting or filing away some of the beam height will solve that and be basically invisible.

[bbussey]

Can't imagine that the flanges would come close to hitting the centerbeam unless the track radius is extremely tight.

[OldEastRR]

Can't imagine that the flanges would come close to hitting the centerbeam unless the track radius is extremely tight.

Maybe not. I was just swinging them by hand with car upsidedown. However, if I do have problems I'd take a look at that first.

[reinhardtjh]

I found one truck on this car had a decent swing, and the other rather limited one. After studying the car and doing some measuring I discovered the underbody insert was slightly off, putting it about 3 or 4 N scale inches closer to one truck pin mounting than the other. By moving the insert to sit exactly equal between the mountings I got both couplers to have equal swing. If your car has a similar problem you should look to see if this will help you.

I pulled a random car out of my 4 that I bought and it was like this.  One truck swung nearly completely around, the other hardly at all. I pushed the underframe insert towards the truck that rotated and it slid just a hair.  Now they both rotate approximately the same.  The brake hangers hit part of the underframe which limits the swing.  Before sliding the one truck's hangers were farther away from the low hanging section and therefore swung farther.  If I had any photography skills I'd post  photo of what it looks like.  I have't checked the other 3 yet.