UTLX Tank Cars (Part 4) - Upgrades and Fixing Minor Details

SP 2850, a C-10 leads a string of UTLX tankcars.

In this post I'm going to start getting into looking closer at the mechanicals and the minor detail issues on the Tangent and Rapido tank cars that I covered in Part 2 and Part 3.

Rapido X-3

UTLX 32157, an X-3 in a consist of freight cars.

So I'm starting to take some more time to look closer at the Rapido X-3 cars.  I'm starting to work through the mechanicals on the car and I've noticed a few more things.  

Disassembly

The disassembly of the X-3s is somewhat challenging, but the early steps are pretty easy.  The screws to the tank are located just outboard of the bolsters and a hidden screw under the out-let pipe, which is a press fit.

UTLX 32157 with the three bottom screws out and tank removed.

The eight tank straps can be released from the tank body by lightly prying the upper ends out.  This will release the tank from the underframe.  BTW, the lower end of the ladder is either able to pry out or is encouraged by my flush-cutters, so that I can set it back against the running board when the car's reassembled.

UTLX 32157 frame released from the tank.

It is actually possible to remove the tank without removing the trucks, but it certainly makes getting the outer screws out and certainly back in.

Tank inverted. two more screws towards the outer ends are next. - Don't forget the grabirons!

The next step is pretty easy, remove the two screws holding the tank together.  But don't forget that there are four corner grabs which bridge the gap between the upper and lower tank sheets.  They are press fitted, so not too hard to get them out... but getting them back in is a nightmare.

Upper tank and lower sheets separated.

Here's the view of the tank opened up.  The inner tank bands are still on the frame, the outer ones are still hanging onto the tank.  Some of them can still pop out, if the glue is holding on the bolster-top.

Twin steel weights screwed in from the inside of the tank with two screws in the outer holes.

The car's weights are screwed in, which made it easy to remove the weights to put lead in below them.

Lower tank sheet and weights removed, with the two screws hanging around.

I did some scribing on the inside of the bottom tank sheet to get the RTV Silicon to stick to the plastic,

I ended up not bothering to glue the new weight in, it becomes trapped between the tank-screw bosses anyway and the weights over it.

I used a couple spare pieces of strip lead cut off from my MTH Daylight weights from years ago. (Second weight is for the other UTLX X-3 I have to rebuild)

The weights end up being about 0.3 oz, 0.188" x .093" in size.  This raises the weight from 2.7 oz to 3.0 oz.

Reassembly

The reassembly is a bit challening to get the corner tank grab irons to re-insert correctly.  Several of mine decided to abandon tank and shoot across the room.  If I get around to it at some point, I'll fabricate some new ones from wire, and probably redrill the holes in the tank to be more accepting of the new grabs.

The tank straps easily reinsert into their holes in the tank, with a little outward holding with some pliers to get the tank-tab to align and guide into their holes.  The lower end of the ladder is also lightly tack-glued to the main running board.  The ladder's upper end is threaded onto the belt-handrail, so it can't be removed easily.

All of the screws except the micro screw hiding under the outlet pipe went back together without trouble.  I elected to leave the center frame micro screw out and glue in the outlet pipe, so it won't get lost.  I noticed early on, during my early survey photos in the last post, that the outlet pipe was cocked slightly.  That would be because it's not hard-mounted, but is friction floating over the head of the screw, which means when you bump it, it can move... eventually I'm afraid it might fall out.  So for me the option to not reinstall the screw and simply glue the outlet is the preferred answer.  Your results may vary on how you want to deal with this on your car.

Rotated End Lettering Issues

UTLX 32157 X-3 with slightly rotated end lettering.

It was a pretty minor issue, but the end lettering seems to be inconsistent in that some lettering is rotated (aka, not level) when assembled on the end of the car.  One of the requests for me diving into this car was to see if there's a way to 'fix' this issue.  Let's look closer at the interior of the tank while I had it open.

The ends of the tank are aligned rotationally by these tabs in the ends and pockets in the bottom sheets.

The ends do not seem to be glued in, but I couldn't really get any rotation of the ends against the top of the tankcar.  So I'm thinking the tab-pocket system will make it unfeasible to rotate the ends to fix the lettering rotation.  I think the most simple way, given how complicated the disassembly and reassembly to get to this point is; is to patch paint the ends, then reletter the ends with decals, such as Speedwich Media's excellent UTLX set.

In Closing

I think that will about cover it for now on this topic.  I'm leaving several loose ends out, such as the replacement of the corner grabs, some of which I lost, during the work on the car in this post.  These minor issues shouldn't stop folks from getting these better models.  BTW, yes, I added the 0.3 oz of weight to both my X-3s, but they would probably be ok at the pre-rebuild weight of 2.7 ounces.

String of tankcars, mostly UTLX cars.

The fleet of UTLX pool cars is certainly looking good now that I have a couple X-3s, a couple GA Type-17s (of both sizes), a P2K tank car, etc.  So I'm going to move onto some other projects for a bit before hitting on any more detail upgrades on these UTLX cars.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

UTLX Tank Cars (Part 1) - New Models on the Market - GA Type-17, ACF Type 21, 27, & LPG ICC-105, UT X-3

UTLX Tank Cars (Part 2) - Tangent GA Type 17, 8k Gallon Tankcar Review

UTLX Tank Cars (Part 3) - Rapido UTLX X-3 10k Gallon Tankcar Review