I bought one of the new Athearn RTR boxcars today. It has the new tooling and comes with the McHenry couplers already installed. A guy at my local club raves about the Kadee #148 whisker couplers so I picked up a 2 pack of those too.
When I replaced the McHenry’s, the Kadee’s don’t have the normal spring action to them. In other words, there is no spring-like return to center in the draft box because it’s too tight. I tried backing off the screw and in order to get the proper action out of the Kadee the cover plate is too loose. I thought maybe one of the whisker’s was caught but no. Checked it repeatedly.
Switched out the Kadee’s and put the McHenry’s back in and they center perfectly even with a snug tighten of the screw. What gives? Am I missing something here? Makes no sense. [?]
Check for any flashing in the box and there isn’t any sort of shim already installed… If not you can file or lightly sand the shank to thin it a bit. I keep a worn piece of #600 wet or dry on my workbench to sand/burnish every Kadee shank I install. I have noticed lately some heavy paint or coating on those shanks. A quick sand has eliminated any issues. Burnished graphite helps on some of the not so free couplers also. If the coupler shank only is tight at the open part of the box/ cover thin the lid at that point. Do this easy don’t want excessive vertical play. These should fit perfectly on this model, but odd things do show up from time to time.
Also, burnish the inside of the box and the coupler shank with the shank of a drill, or something similar, and apply a bit of graphite dry lubricant if you haven’t already. You may find a sheet of paper in the Kadee envelope that says something similar. I have never been able to figure out what that thing is for… [:)]
I’ve found the centering springs on the whiskers to be a little weak. I bent some of mine out a little bit to make it center up better. I only use these in cases where a #5 bronze centering spring won’t fit.
You might also want to try installing a longer Kadee coupler like the # 28 or #48 (long center shank in case i got the #'s wrong) i’ve had issues using the #5 coupler on athearn locomotives and found that the longer shanked couplers work better, especially if you plan to install a snow plow to the anti-climber.