Everything on model trains, model railroads, model railways, locomotives, model train layouts, scenery, wiring, DCC and more. Enjoy the world's best hobby... model railroading!
6 Responses to Suitability of Kadee Couplers
Leave a Reply
SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION
Download Your Free Catalog
Use Tiny Railroad Micro Controllers
Model Train Help Ebook
for your life like cars, Kadee #5 couplers wold be the norm. However, take a look at your rolling stock and see how the present couplers are attached. When I converted my cars from the horn hook style found on life like cars to the Kadee I purchased a drill and tap gig from Kadee to mount the coupler to the car body. You may also want to have a coupler gauge handy to make sure the coupler is set to the correct height. The coupler guage can also be purchased from Kadee ( http://www.kadeecouplers.com ) is the website for the Kadee products.
Happy model railroading
Ivo Jim is right on this . A No 5 will work and is the norm. If you are mounting them on truck mounted coupler boses then get the KADEE no 28. It is the same as the no. 5 but the pack comes with the locking clip that goes into the coupler box with the coupler and locks it in. Wheel mounted couplers will tend to be lower if matching them up to body mounted couplers. and there is not much height adjustment unless you get the overshank or under shank coupler which are different numbers than the number 5.
Unless you are running on real sharp curves or running longer cars on sharp curves then here is what I suggest. Get the #28 coupler kits that come with the locking tab. Install them. They may not meet the height adjustment for other cars or engines but will work if your lead car has the coupler with the right height such as the over shank or under shank. The trip pins will have to be adjusted so not to catch the rails. So all your cars would be at the height of the car wheel mounted boxes.
To really do it right most of these types of cars had a pin type truck. Remove the wheel set, Take a piece of styrene from model kits that fit the hole, Glue it in the hole and cut them off flush, file it smooth. You will need new trucks that screw on. This will allow you to adjust the height of the car with the couplers mounted on the body. Drill that styrene for the proper screw. Then to adjust the coupler height use the coupler gauge from Kadee and as needed use the Kadee no. 208 or 209 spacer washers between the body bolster and the wheel set to adjust to the proper height. Sometimes you need them and may use as much as 3 spacers and sometimes they need none. Mounting the couplers on the body glue the coupler box on the body floor and mount the coupler in that box. If the coupler ends up too high with no spacers installed then you will need to put a spacer at the coupler box to lower it. If you are really going to revamp the fleet then this is the way to go. You can take some really good cheap cars and refurbish them and most would never know you have cheap cars Also while working the car make sure they are properly weighted as really light cars like to jump the rails on switches and diamonds.
I am redoing a dozen cheap backmann gondolas and I will be making a set train for rail. They will work well and since all the cars look alike the set train is the way to go. When you body mount the couplers the car will not do as well aligning the couplers to the next car on tight turns. That is why beginner sets had the couplers mounted on the trucks. But if you are using the shorter cars these will work fine on tight turns. Big long cars and long engines I recommend on shallower turns. Also changing to knuckle couplers will help you back trains much better. I back 40 car trains into the yard very well with body mounted couplers on my layout, cheap or expensive cars. If you are just starting out on the conversion then make your first car a conversion car. (Leave one coupler with the horn coupler. That way you can hook up the cars converted and with the conversion car connect tose not converted yet on the end. In fact I keep one conversion car here in case I have someone needing some work on theirs or wants to run them on my tracks. My engines are already DCC converted and knuckle couplers so if they want to run theirs on my layout they can pull them with one of my engines and the cars not have to be converted yet. That conversion car can come in handy in the future. from Newman
Ivo, I forgot to mention that if you wish to use your same trucks but body mount the couplers mount the couplers to the body and just remove the coupler boses from the wheel trucks. Like I said the lead car may need one coupler with an over shank or undershank on it to match your engine height. from Newman
Good info Newman Atkinson.
There is a lot of good information in the comments above but I will strongly recommend that you obtain a Kadee coupler height gauge and use it to check all the couplers on your cars. The objective is two-fold: First is that you want all the coupler knuckles to ride at the same height because if the knuckles join at different heights you have a very high probability for your cars to come uncoupled at locations where you have minor variations in the track – I can guarantee this. Second, you need to check the trip pin on the bottom of the coupler to ensure it is not dragging too low. There are special pliers for bending the trip pins but you don’t have to specifically buy Kadee’s pliers, there are pliers made by other folks that work just as well.
Most clubs and a number of modelers set-up a coupler height gauge on a board with a piece of track specifically for checking couplers on cars before the cars are placed on the layout.
Also, as the other comments pointed-out, the Kadee No. 5 coupler is relatively universal and fits a lot of cars, but it does not fit everything. Some cars sit high on the track and some cars sit low, thus the reason Kadee makes some couplers with the knuckles with the low head and others with the high head. They also make couplers with longer shanks to fit specific cars. Then there are some manufacturer’s cars which have odd coupler boxes on them and Kadee has a number of couplers to fit them; one just needs to browse thru the catalog to look for specific coupler recommendations for certain cars or locomotives.
Your right Bob That coupler height gauge is a worth while tool. Worth every cent you paid. You are setting them to a standard and not to another car. If that other car is off so will the next coupler. You want a standard or as you pull cars over uneven tracks they will walk out of each other if they are already off some. If you are converting old engines that had over or underset couplers when they were horn couplers, the same thing will most likely happen when installing KaDee knuckles Body mounted and truck mounted couplers don’t always match when working them both in your coupler system and adjusting the height by shimming the the truck mount screw is not always an option on clip on truck mounted wheel sets to raise or lower the car body.
from Newman