Is it possible to ‘fix’ knuckle couplers, not the wonderful K-D ones with metal springs, but I’m talking about those imitation ones which have a plastic ‘whisker’ instead.
In my experience the whisker often ends up totally useless for the job of returning the knuckle back to centre, so the coupler is no longer able to ‘hold on’ to the coupler on the next wagon.
Or should I just chuck them out and replace them with metal couplers that have proper springs?
I would junk them. Maybe they can become part of a scrap load in a gondola?
What you’re describing sounds like a McHenry coupler or what Bachmann grandly calls thier Mark 1 operating Knuckle coupler. I’ve used both of these and they both suck. The only way to ‘fix’ one to hold onto the next coupler is to glue the knuckle in place. I would just put a dap of hot glue where the knuckle and the rest of the coupler meet. Don’t use Super Glue! It spreads into the coupler pocket and locks everything solid. The Other option, and the best one is to replace all those cheap couplers with Kadee’s. That’s what I finally did. Nothing will aggrevate you more than uncouplings and derailments caused by defective couplers. McHenry’s are well known for snagging on turnouts and rail joints in the curves. Replace all your couplers with Kadee’s. The added cost will be more than offset by the pleasure you get from the hobby. Be sure to get a Kadee coupler hieght gauge. You will need it to correct problems. Ask me how I know.
I too was fooled in believing the cheaper plastic type would save me a buck or two. But I found out like you, they don’t last long and are unrepairable. As a result, I went back to the old reliable Kadee!!!
Yeah, you repair them by opening up the coupler pocket, taking out the old one and putting in nice, new Kadees.
Like disk drives on your computer, the question isn’t when the imitation knuckle couplers will fail, but when. Over on the “Great Proto Endurance” thread, it was erroneously stated that the engine’s Kadee coupler had failed. “What?” chimed in a forum member, which elicited an investigation and correction. It was one of the original cheapos, not a real Kadee, that had gone to that great gondola-load in the sky.
Actually, a Kadee did actually break, but it happened to BigBilly5xL, not TA462, who is the one doing the test. Here are BigBilly’s actually words from his post.
He’s saying that for the first time, on one of his engines (or cars, he didn’t say which), a Kadee coupler actually broke, not a P2K or McHenry. I actually had a Kadee #5 go bad once, too. The uncoupling pin came loose and would swing freely.
I am a fan of Kadee and use them all the time. However in the interest of fair play, it should be pointed out that only the cheapest McHenry couplers have the plastic filament. Many of their products have metal knuckle springs like Kadee, but actually held in place so the springs don’t come out. I have some Mchenry’s of this type on my layout as they make some drop in replacements for IHC passenger cars for example, that require little or no work to install. I have never had one of these fail on me.
at 50 cents each, replace them with Kadees as needed, and be done with it.
Actually, the wagon in question was a factory-assembled PROTO 2000 stock-car. Normally I would use Kadee’s when assembling a car, but this one came with plastic knuckle-couplers already installed. Didn’t last long though! And I don’t even have a layout! Maybe that makes it more vulnerable to damage … I have a small home office (about 7’ by 11’) and the trains run around it in a ‘U’ - they go behind the computer and underneath the legs of the Mac monitor! One wall is covered in (home-made) glass-fronted cupboards (for display) and the other wall looks like a train shop - unbuilt kits up to the ceiling. I try to tell people that this is where I go to work ;-)))
I’ve only had one Kadee fail. That was a #27 on my Athearn F7. Reason for the failure? Well, things kinda break whenever they hit the floor…
But seriously, I’ve been using Kadees for nearly 15 years, and have never had one fail.
I agree, I have many cheap McHenry’s (which look eerily similar to the Bachman EZmate) and the metal ones. It’s not fair to group all McHenry’s in the same group because the metal ones are perfectly fine. I’ve had no issues with the metal ones, but as with almost everyone I’ve had plenty of issues with the plastic ones.
As to the original question, its more worth it to just replace 'em and be done with it.
I still believe Kadee’s are the only knuckle coupler that will couple reliably on a curve. I tried with McHenry’s, Bachmann’s, and P1K and P2K and they just won’t couple reliably on a curve.
I believe the reason they look so similar is because McHenry makes Bachmann’s knuckle couplers, kind of like Accurail makes Atlas’s couplers. The reason I think this is because McHenry was started in 1998, and Bachmann had Horn-Hook couplers before then. Athearn also started including the Bachmann couplers in their kits in 1998, which makes me think the Bachmann and McHenry couplers are, in fact, the same couplers.
Are knuckle couplers repairable? In most cases I can sum up in one word. NO!