Fixing "Squeaking" Tangent Hoppers
When running the hoppers there was a noticeable squeak-squeak-squeak from 3-4 cars, coincident with poor rolling. I was attributing this to the previously-discussed issues of clearances related to the air hose, and didn't think much more about it. But it still bugged me.
Roundtuit in hand last night, problem was finally traced to axles rubbing on the screw securing the coupler box. It was a hard problem to quickly diagnose because it only occurred on the rails; turn the car over and spin the wheels, no problem, and the trucks by themselves are very free-rolling. On close exam I had run them just enough to see marks on the axles on the offending cars. Fix was to ream the countersink on the coupler boxes as the screw heads on these cars were ~0.010" proud of the box.
Yes, "shouldn't" be an issue relative to the price, but, to me, this is simply a cost of fine models, where attention to details and proportions collide with production tolerances. These are beautiful cars, and when Dave releases another batch of H100-16 cars in new numbers, they're in the budget.
