My coupler conversion saga continues…I am trying to convert all of my old AHM rolling stock to Kadees, and I am frustrated with how difficult this appears to be. These are all talgo (truck mounted) couplers, BTW, and Kadee says to use #37s. Would I just be better off to slice off the talgos and body-mount a #5? I also need to eventually convert my Athearn engines to Kadees and they also need #37s. Any advice or assistance for either project would be MUCH appreciated!
I converted a few older AHM cars and it’s best to replace them with frame mounted #5s and replace the trucks at the same time too. For the Athearn engines, #5s worked fine for me. If they don’t, use the #37s.
Thanks. May I ask…what trucks did you use?
If you’re talking about the old AHM (Rivarossi) passenger cars form the 60’s and 70’s, there’s two options: 1. If you have a wide enough minimum radius (probably at least 28 inches) the body mount thing will work. 2. Kadee makes a conversion kit for these to talgo mount the couplers, it’s number 505 for the six wheeled truck or 508 for the four wheeled truck. I’ve used these kits successfully.
There are two or three articles on the NMRA ‘Introduction to Model Railroading’ pages that pertain to changing couplers and trucks. Take a look at: http://www.nmra.org/beginner/