Easyfix Cars
Nickie Koskinen
I have several Lionel searchlight cars and they all seem to have weak/bllinking lights. My tubular track is clean as well as the rollers and they are not worn out. Most of these cars have plastic trucks. It would be nice to have a steady and brighter light. Hoping I won't have to change trucks on all of them. Anyone have some suggestions?
Virtually all lighted cars flicker to some degree; but there is a fix for that. Unfortunately, it involves adding a capacitor about the size of a C-cell to the car. For a searchlight car, you would have to disguise it as some sort of plausible equipment or load.
If you have plastic trucks that is most likely to blame. Your not getting a good, consistent ground. Converting over to all metal trucks isn't as tough as you might suspect or expensive. There are lots of used trucks around. My post war search light cars have lights that stay on all the time. As for you wanting brighter lights there are two solutions that I can think of. One- change the bulbs out to a lower voltage bulb.Two- add on more cars so the transformer will have to be turned up more resulting in more volts at the cars.
16667 Conrail Searchlight car, 16601 CN version, and I have a C & O one packed away, that came in a diesel starter set from a few years ago. I like the bridge rectifier and capacitor idea blended with lower wattage bulbs. I'm thinking it will be a big improvement. Thanks for the help.
... or you can simply replace the current trucks (using them elsewhere) with a pair of matching (die cast) powered trucks (ie MTH or PW parts dealer), rewire for parallel input, thus cutting the flickering at least in half.
The old postwar Lionel metal trucks had a center rail roller only, with the ground going though the truck assembly itself through the sheetmetal frame of the car, being attached with a C-clip via the metal stud that comes up from the truck into the frame. And still, these cars are just as prone to light flicker as those with plastic trucks.
First, make sure the pressure of these copper strips against the axles isn't so tight, that the wheels do not freely spin. Next, a dap of model train grease at these two points will help the wheels turn better while maintaining electrical contact.
Next, clean the wheels. The fast angle wheel sets are a mixed bag depending on where and when they were made. I have bought them from all sorts of parts dealers and have found sometimes the blackening process can reduce electric flow, as well as build up on wheels that have been run. I use 91% isopropyl alchohol and also since I have a Dremel, I also ultilize the Dremel along with a wire brush. So I get the wheel surface that comes in contact with the track, nice and clean.
Lastly you could add a little weight to the car. I'm not as big an advocate of adding weight to cars - especially to decrease derailments. The problem there is almost always the loose connection of the truck to the train car body, or uneven wheel sets on the same truck. BUT adding weight to an illuminated car with a roller pickup assembly will help to reduce flickering... it won't eliminate it but it will help reduce it.
Now on your cars, you have the flat car itself, then a base platfrom of which the search light itself is attacdhed to. That base platfrom attaches to the flat car itself via 4 snap tabs which you can see from the underside of the car. Carefully press these tabs and work the platform off the flat car, and then you can easily add some self-sticking lead automobile weights inside this.
Of course, you can replace the plastic trucks with die-cast ones. But if the wheels are dirty on those, or if there are pickup assembly adjustments needed (as I described above), there will not be that noticable an improvement for the extra money spent.
I say this all from experience and from being a low budget operator. Clean wheels, good moving and clean pickup contacts, a little addeed weighjt and clean track goes a long way towards reducing light flicker - even with plastic trucks, which I use a lot of!
Prior to stalling while at 40 mpg or so it will give a few noticeable hesitations, like a cylinder or two has misfired. I have cleaned the mass air flow sensor, changed the three ignition coils, spark plugs, sparkplug wiring, and checked all vacuum tubing for leaks.
A: A very common problem with these cars was a faulty computer and the diagnostic routine was very simple. With the car running, tap on the outside of the ECM (computer case) and see if the car shudders or shakes. If it does shake or stall, replace the computer. Other possible items are the crankshaft position sensor and the fuel pump.
Q: I am having an issue with my 2006 Honda Pilot that I was hoping you could help with. Whenever the car goes through larger puddles on the road, the battery light will come on and we will lose power for a second or two before the problem disappears. My mechanic took a look at this about a month ago and could not find the problem. Obviously something is getting wet that should not, but I am not sure what needs to be done to find the problem.
A: Since the problem only happens when the car gets wet, simulate the wet condition. With the engine running, pour water on the belts, starting on the crankshaft pulley. This should tell you if the alternator belt is slipping. The problem could be a faulty belt tensioner or a worn crankshaft pulley. I have seen some cases that the two-piece pulley slips when it get wet, which, in turn, causes the alternator light to come on.
A. I think it would be cheaper to buy a used Jeep to drive in winter than what it would take to get snow tires on your car. I spoke with Mike Albano, the head of public relations for Chevrolet, and he said there is no approved snow tire for the Z51 suspension. There is a Michelin tire, the Pilot Alpin PA4 winter/all season tire, for the standard Corvette Stingray. This solution would require four new wheels and TPMS sensors to go along with an expensive tire. Now, certainly, you could drive your car in cold weather but the tires are not going to have the superior traction that is most likely one of the reason you purchased your new car.
I need to ask advice. I have discovered that baby car seats are the most stupidly stressful and complicated thingS. I bought a maxi-cosi cabriofix seat and a family fix base. I naively thought they would fit into any car. They don't fit my husband's Toyota Celica at all. Some things on the Internet suggest they do but in reality they don't. He doesn't even have the right kind of seat belts for fitting it in that way.
So... I need to get a car anyway so I'm not stranded on maternity leave and have resolved to get one that fits the above mentioned seat and base and also has 4-5 doors and a large boot. Have found some decent looking ones secondhand online but there is massive confusion about what is and isn't compatible with this car seat. I am thinking of getting a 2001 Nissan Almera Tino. About three quarters of those currently for sale claim to have isofix points which is a good sign,I need to ask advice. I have discovered that baby car seats are the most stupidly stressful and complicated thing. I bought a maxi-cosi cabriofix seat and a family fix base. I naively thought they would fit into any car. They don't fit my husband's Toyota Celica at all. Some things on the Internet suggest they do but in reality they don't. He doesn't even have the right kind of seat belts for fitting it in that way.
So... I need to get a car anyway so I'm not stranded on maternity leave and have resolved to get one that fits the above mentioned seat and base and also has 4-5 doors and a large boot. Have found some decent looking ones secondhand online but there is massive confusion about what is and isn't compatible with this car seat but when I looked at the maxi-cosi website it said that even 2003 models of this car are not compatible with the cabriofix+easy fix.
Has anyone else got this car seat/base combination who can let me know what cars are compatible with them? Can't be anything too new as I will be buying secondhand.
Sorry about the rubbish copy and pasting in the above message. A bit stressed at the moment and making mistakes. Ignore the above and read this:
I bought a maxi-cosi cabriofix seat and a family fix base. I naively thought they would fit into any car. They don't fit my husband's Toyota Celica at all. Some things on the Internet suggest they do but in reality they don't. He doesn't even have the right kind of seat belts for fitting it in that way.
So... I need to get a car anyway so I'm not stranded on maternity leave and have resolved to get one that fits the above mentioned seat and base and also has 4-5 doors and a large boot. Have found some decent looking ones secondhand online but there is massive confusion about what is and isn't compatible with this car seat but when I looked at the maxi-cosi website it said that even 2003 models of this car are not compatible with the cabriofix+easy fix.
Has anyone else got this car seat/base combination who can let me know what cars are compatible with them? Can't be anything too new as I will be buying secondhand.
I am going to buy a car anyway though. I was always going to as DH will use the Toyota for the commute to work and I will need something for me and baby. So the car I buy now needs to fit the car seat.
We have a 2006 VW Golf Plus. We wanted to get the family fix base so we could use it with the cabriofix seat and the next size up (pebble?) But the leg was not long enough to fit securely in our car. so we got the easyfix base, which only just fits. When we checked maxicosi website it seemed to suggest either base would fit, although our particular model/age of car wasn't listed.
Moral is, test it in the actual car if at all possible.
Thanks caty I honestly thought the Easyfix base would fit anything that has isofix points so have been really disappointed to find that is not the case. Add to that the fact that a lot of cars in the 2001/02 range (ie the ones I can afford) don't even have the isofix points in the first place!
I can see why they're trying to standardise it all. The current situation is crazy!