F7 coupling distance...

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Working on a fantisy F7 A-A unit, and want to know the proper coupling distance…using older Athearn units for this bash up project…

Thanks

Paul H. Liddiard

2

I used these in the past: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/147-6100

They worked great, but I don’t recall the kit that purchased including the diaphragms.

3

IIRC, it’s 3’.

4

Smitty,

That’s the correct set, but Walthers has it listed incorrectly on their website. 147-9800 is the one with diaphragms. 147-6100 just has the draft gear. Both are quite useful if one has older Athearn F-units…it puts the distance at 32" between diaphragm mounting plates.

5

Yeah, I thought that didn’t look right. That seemed really cheap to have included diaphragms. Thanks for the correction!!

6

REAL trains used 3’ or less.

USE Kadee #43’s, or 33’s, between units. Longer for nose.

7

3 feet, short-shank couplers should work.

BTW, anyone know hot to close couple Bachmann FT’s?

8

According to the diagrams published in MR, the coupler pulling face is 10’0" from the truck center and 18" from the end of the carbody.

Dave H.

9

For the HO scale FT’s, I used a short shank KaDee, and the spring, in the stock pocket. I forget which number, though.

A short whisker would probably work too.

Rotor

10

Thanks for the information…Amazing what we forget…

Paul H. Liddiard a D&RGW fan

11

Or, in the model world, just over 0.4", or if you like metric, 10.5 millimeters. It actually seems suprisingly do-able. I’d think you would probably have to have, say, 22" radius curves or up to avoid jamming them. They may work on smaller curves, but I don’t have any to test with.