Re: Movement of Wood Cars - C&S Caboose 1006

Hi Shane
You guys are lucky -1008 didn’t even come with doors!
There are tension rods that run from the top plate of the wall frames (both sides and ends) all the way down and through the outer sills. On the end walls they go through the header above the door, down through the frame and through the car frame section at the end of the car body (not the end beam). The purpose of these is to hold the wall frames together as well as connect the body to the main frame. When we disassembled 1008 we removed the walls and end walls (the end walls are just wall sections on either side of the door held down on the frame with tension rods through the header and main frame). I made new tension rods because most of the original nuts were rusted solid on the tension rods and needed to be cut off. I have never assembled a car body using mortise and tenon joints (which these cars have throughout) which helps the car to be a little more flexible bobbing down the track. My question is, since both cars (1006 & 1008) have new main frames which are presumably somewhat square, could adjusting the tension rods along with some shims help to square the car body and the door frame?
Richard