Concor/Kato/Lifelike/Hudson 6-wheel tender truck upgrade

[mmagliaro]

I have found that lacquer thinner has been working better for me than alcohol on these, although I always used to use alcohol.    Sometimes, I have had the undersides of the pickup strips in the tender have a permanent tarnish on them, and I have resorted to removing them and cleaning them with a hard eraser or 1000 grit sandpaper (do NOT use anything coarser than that if you go with sandpaper!  Those surfaces need to stay smooth.)

But first...
Place the thing on the track with the shell off, and make sure that the floor strips are reliably pressing on
the fingers from the trucks.  That's the most common failure.  Make sure that all 4 fingers can touch their strips
even when you rock the tender from side to side.   Rocking should not be pulling any of the strips up off their fingers.

And this is true for the LL or the ConCor tender.  They both suffer the same foibles (although the actual
structure of the ConCor/Kato tender, I think, is just a little different and seems to work more reliably).

[SkipGear]

I just finished working on 2 Concor GN S-2's and a GS4 that all use this same pickup. I have a mildly abrasive rubber wheel for my dremel that is about 4 times the thickness of a normal cutoff wheel. I used that to polish the wheel tread and the pickup at the same time by spinning them at around 5k rpm. Two of the loco's wouldn't even run before doing this. Afterwards, the tenders rolled smooth and the pickup was quite good. I think the biggest part of the problem is the quality of the metal of the wheels and the blackening on top of that. These wheels, even when polished look like pot metal castings. Not the best conductor or corrosion resistance in the world by far.

[mmagliaro]

That's good info, Tony.  Are these the later ConCor ones made in China as opposed to the Kato-built ones?
It has always been my feeling that the wheels and pickup strips in the Kato ones were better metal and had more reliable pickup. 

[SkipGear]

That's good info, Tony.  Are these the later ConCor ones made in China as opposed to the Kato-built ones?
It has always been my feeling that the wheels and pickup strips in the Kato ones were better metal and had more reliable pickup.

Yes, they are all Rail Baron series loco's. Some of my Hudson tenders definitely had brass wheels. These are not.

[peteski]

That's good info, Tony.  Are these the later ConCor ones made in China as opposed to the Kato-built ones?
It has always been my feeling that the wheels and pickup strips in the Kato ones were better metal and had more reliable pickup.

My observation is by no means scientific but to me it looks like Kato uses solid nickel-silver alloy for their wheels (which is then plated) where most other manufacturers use plated brass. Not sure what the plating is - maybe nickel-solver or nickel.  When the plating wears down, the golden brass color becomes visible.