Pluto Water reefer gets revitalized

As I thought about restoring the Pluto Water refrigerator car* I realized it wouldn't take a lot of work to bring it back to life. New trucks, couplers, and brake wheel, as well as a good dusting would revitalize it. Revitalize, not restore. For a proper restoration job I'd need to track down a lot of original parts, and since I don't even know what company manufactured this kit**, that could be tricky. Also, I thought enhancing the detail to bring it closer to modern standards wouldn't be respecting it or it's builder, my Uncle Bill.

This is how the underside looked at the start: one old cast truck and a static coupler, both held in place with tacks, along with some foot straps that had been bent out of place. Not much in the way of underside detail either. Although, I thought the construction work was clean, accurate, and square.

I had enough parts for a pair of replacement trucks in my scrapbox. The side frames are from some old '70s vintage model boxcar. The trucks' side detail was fairly close to the old truck on the model. The wheels are quite decent metal ones whose provenance is unknown to me. I drilled out the holes in the underside where the old truck tacks went and used #4 x 1/2" screws to hold the new trucks in place. One thing you can't see in the photo are two washers I cut from 0.040" styrene and inserted between the trucks and centre bolster to improve body clearance. I should also note that before installation the trucks were painted with a loose mix of flat black and my rust mix so they didn't look too shiny and new.

I didn't have enough coupler parts on hand, so I had to buy some: #143, Kadee "Standard" Head Metal Whisker Couplers. Unlike the trucks, I used Weld Bond to glue them to the body as there didn't appear to be enough room for a screw to go in without splitting the chassis or body. 

A brake wheel from an old, cheapo livestock car was stuck on the end of brake shaft.

The old foot straps were bent back into place and reglued. There are a couple that are missing, but I'll just live with that until I stumble across more.

To finish off I used an assortment of old, soft paint brushes to sweep off the caked on dust as much as possible without damaging the surfaces.

Digressions:

*Vince pointed out that I had incorrectly referred to this car as a boxcar when it is clearly a refrigerator car. Those hatches on either end of the roof are for dropping in ice blocks.

**Vince also did some research that suggests this model may have been manufactured by Red Ball. I need to do a little work on corroborating that observation.

Ok, so, enough with the digressions, as I was saying.... Stop the presses! I've just been handed this! We now know the secret ingredient at the HOJPOJ Mfg Plant: