Tender Under Frame Causing Problem

April 11, 2009

William wants to hear from anyone who can help with his model railroading problem and asks:

“Dear One and All; I have asked this question elsewhere but not received imformation that I can make good use of. I have two identical “HO” IHC Southern Pacific style 2-6-0’s to convert. In attempting to install a Kadee compatible knuckle style operating coupler on the Moguls tender I let the truck become disconnected from its usual attachment spot on the underframe of this tender.

Both the tenders have snap on oil bunkers which are easily removable. I want to reattach the rear tender truck to its rightful spot on the tender under frame.

Since the tender wrapper is still attached to this underframe I have a problem in placing my full size fingers into the “HO” scale enclosed space left. Can someone please tell me how to safely separate the tender wrapper from the underframe?

The difficulty comes because two latches must be held aside simultaneously while the wrapper is rotated away from the underframe. I have thoroughly looked for and can only find three screws which go into the tender underframe. Two of those screws are used both to make connections with electrical wires inside the tender and to hold their respective tender trucks against the underframe of said tender. The last screw (a self tapping type) merely holds its end of the drawbar from the engine to the tender underframe.

I plan to install knuckle style couplers on both the engine fronts and tender backends and to add DCC decoders to each engine. Until I get a solution to this problem; I admit I am stuck.”

To help William or give some feedback use the green comments link below.