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Converting to Automatic Couplers
Richard asks readers:
“I have a whole bunch of older style HO scale cars which I want to change over with automatic couplers. My question is what kind is best and will it be a difficult and time consuming process? Does someone who has done the conversion know?”
4 Responses to Converting to Automatic Couplers
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I have been refitting cars and engine for several years and with new wheel sets and couplers it comes out to a fraction of the costs of new cars. I start by eliminating the cars that do not work well at all El-Cheapo cars usually.(Usually those cars look cheap too) I try to use Kadee couplers as much as I can as other brands are usually plastic and do not hold up. You also may want to adjust the weight of some cars too) Body mounting couplers alone will help the performance of your cars. Using Kadee Couplers work well even backing your train into a switch yard. I back 20 and 30 foot freight cars trains with great success. On better cars where the old horn couplers were already body mounted then just change out the couplers and adjust as required and height wise add spacers on the wheel truck mount screw. I have taken some of my better cheap cars where the trucks had their own plastic pin and the horn couplers were mounted on the trucks. Just cut off the coupler mount off the wheel truck and mount a body mount box at the right height and either replace the wheels to metal wheel sets and use as is.(but as is makes it hard to adjust the height.) or fill the hole with some plastic model kit mold fixings (Sprues) and fit it snug and glue in the hole for the truck and file smooth to the bolster. With a new truck drill in your new plastic for a screw to mount the truck. Doing it this way you can adjust the height of the car by putting Kadee Spacer washers on the mount screw No. 208 or 209 (2 different thickness felt washers) This will raise the car so the couplers will be the right height. Don’t throw away some of your cheap fleet when they really look good. Just convert them. I can convert my cars for about 2 dollars for couplers and depending on the wheel sets you buy, 4 to 10 dollars. Just try to buy a ready to roll car for that and those still come with those less than good plastic couplers that you will sooner or later replace. I am even modifying 85 foot flats, auto box cars and autoracks which you will see operating on my videos. Note: by doing these mods then 18 inch radius curves and switches may be too tight. You will not see very many tight curves less than 22 inch radius on my layout and nothing less than # 6 switches. That is why the starter sets had wheel mounted couplers for the sharp turns. Happy Modifying. Newman
Hi Richard
I always use KD couplers as they are far better then those in second place and are easy to replace on most cars either body mount or truck mount. KD’s have a complete rang of these couplers although I recommend that you purchase a height gauge so that you can set the couplers to the correct height. KD’s come with high, centre and low shank either short or long. I always use metal wheels as these require less cleaning to them and the track than the plastic type
I have converted 37 goods wagons, 21 passenger carriages and 7 loco’s from the old type Hornby type of couplings to Kaydee’s without any problems, but you do need a little inginuety to make some small adjustments. A Kaydee height gauge is a must !
I concur with the other folks in that Kadee couplers are the best relative to operability. I strongly recommend body-mounted couplers; the only issue becomes the radius of the curves you plan to operate your train on. Body-mounted couplers may be snug on 18-inch radius curves, particularly on longer cars such as 85-foot passenger cars or autoracks, while they will be fine on the 40-50 foot long freight cars. The bigger the curve radius, i.e. 24-inch or 30-inch radius, the easier all cars will operate.
I strongly recommend you obtain a Kadee coupler height gauge to ensure uniformity in the height of your couplers. Kadee makes a number of different couplers to fit different locomotives and different cars because mounting heights vary between different equipment manufacturers.
I also concur with the recommendation to use metal wheels on all your cars. We have found over time that plastic wheels tend to pick-up crud and re-deposit that crud on the track making it impossible to keep the track clean. Metal wheels overcome that problem.
The next issue is car weight. A lot of the older (cheap) ready-to-run cars were too light and tended to derail whenever they had an opportunity such as when going thru turn-outs. The National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) came out with a number of standards and recommended practices over the years to help the hobby and one of the recommended practices concerns weighting of cars. I believe the standard calls for the weight of model railroad cars to be 1 ounce plus 1/2 ounce per inch of length of a car. With this weight, a caboose for example that is 3.5 inches in length should weigh 1 oz + 3.5(0.5) = 2.75 ounces. (I need to go back and verify this formula…) The weight helps to keep the cars from derailing.
Another issue is verifying the gauge of the wheels. I have seen a few cars recently that used engineered plastics for the axles that changed dimensions over time resulting in car wheels that were out-of gauge. NMRA makes and sells a gauge that works for checking all sorts of issues.
There are a lot of modelers out there that are more than willing to help you thru these issues. I strongly suggest contacting any model railroad club or NMRA chapter in your area.
Bob