i am in process of buying some data only Con-Cor 54 mill gondolas and 3 bay greenville hoppers. are they easy to install kadee #5 couplers in?
I’ve never done their freight cars, but the passenger cars I’ve done were talgo couplers (truck mounted). It depends on which way you want to go on the conversion, stay with talgo or body mount, and also what your definition of “easy” would be.
I made mine all body mounted, and the easiest way I’ve found to do that is to buy some strip styrene, 1/4 inch wide and .020 and .040 inch thick. The back of the Kadee height gauge (this is a most important tool, if you don’t have one, get one) will show you how high a mounting point needs to be , if you’re mounting the couplers on the underside of the car body. Set the gauge on the track with the coupler away from the car, slide the car over it, and slip the end of one of the styrene strips between them to see how much you need to build this area up. Mine took a few layers, just glue them in with a styrene solvent type glue. When you get it to the right height, lay the coupler pocket lid on the strip stack and mark the hole. Drill and tap this for a 2-56 screw and use the screw hole to mount the coupler. Choose a screw short enough that it won’t go through the floor of the car, but long enough to hold the coupler pocket in place.
As a general rule, the standard Kadee coupler, a #5, drops into the cast on coupler pocket of HO freight cars. Passenger cars and locomotives aren’t so standardized and Kadee makes about 30 different couplers to fit anything manufactured in the last 50 years. Kadee has a web site here with a list of what fits what. I looked up Concor and found that both the 54 foot mill gondolas and the greenville hoppers take a #5, as expected.