I have always placed the bronze spring over the centering post on my cars. Didn’t matter if it was in box, or on cover, that is where I placed the spring.
Never noticed any difference in any of my cars or locomotives, no matter what they were coupled too, or if the spring was top or bottom, or mixed, of said coupled train.
When I did notice a difference, was when I mixed regular 5 sized heads, with “scale” sized heads, when using the shelf-style couplers. (Tank cars get shelf style couplers, like the prototype.) For some reason, I could never get scale sized and shelf couplers to work together well… So, my “buffer cars” all get regular old 5’s.
Never had any issues with Kadee’s otherwise… Clones made of plastic however…
In addition to what others say about 148s (whisker), I’ll add yet again, they work much more consistantly for delayed uncoupling. I’ll be switching out the #5s…
Thats my experience too. If the centering post was on the bottom, I put the bronze spring on the bottom - even though the coupler was still mounted upright. It seemed common sense and worked fine.
I mentioned it in a Kadee topic recently in another forum, then someone said that upside down was the “wrong way”. I was like, oh well, I broke the rules and it worked anyway and was none the wiser that I had done it the wrong way.
In his reply to prove his point he showed an enlarged picture of the asymmetrical shape of the pentagonal end of the shank and the logic behind it’s shape and the bronze spring. It was so subtle I never noticed it and the guy was showing like it mattered and to prove I was doing it wrong. My reply was, my coupler still centered fine, so the design was apparently not a significant one.
As more evidence that the old asymmetrical bronze #5 wasn’t effective, the whisker design, which IS symmetrical has far and above taken over as the most populer design. That is a further indictment against the idea that the asymmetrical design must be impimented as precribed rather than tampered with by mounting upside down.
The spring (and box) are designed to be biased towards the delayed move side, it will center fine but slightly weaker springing towards the delay direction. Also the box has a slight angle on the bottom which encourages the coupler towards the delay side. So dont get the box upside down. Spring on top, box lip on top.
I never found much difference . What I did find is that burnishing the coupler shanks with graphite made a bigger differnce a couple of light strokes with a file then burnish with graphite really helps
No worries if you do it backwards. At the first club show I helped out on, one of the Athearn hoppers in the coal yard popped the lid off (pesky BB metal lids) and I was talking to someone and my hands were kind of on automatic as I put it back together - upside down. So when I put the car on the track, the air hose was sticking up. Ooops. Always pay attention to what you are doing. I haven’t installed any new #5s in ages, all i buy are the 148 whisker versions now. One less piece to worry about.
I never use the graphite, I have cleaned plenty of caked up graphite from club cars. I use the rear end of a drill bit and polish all surfaces including the coupler. I never thought that slight angle on the box did much but try to do a nudge help to the delay, the magnet may have enough force to overcome anything, but its a “nudge”
I see a lot of you are using the 148, might have to try that one. does the coupler box actually snap together? or do you have to use glue still to hold it together?
The #148 couplers come with #242 snap together boxes when you buy them in the packages of two pairs. However, in many cases they will fit into the existing body mount coupler boxes so the #242s are not needed.
If you buy the #148 couplers in bulk packs, i.e. Kadee #14, the boxes are not included.
Post removed as i dont know how to read, lol… oh i see now you changed your post. You changed it after i read the orginal post, thought i was seeing things.
Been told this by several already and it looks like the design purpose has been basically abandoned in the newer designs. In a few cases I had to mount the bronze spring updside down in relation to the coupler and it still worked fine; centered fine. It’s not a deal breaker if this is done.
Silly question but when did kadee introduce the 148 etc couplers? I dont remember them being around about 10 years ago when i still had my layout, before i had to tear it down when my daughter was born and kind of got out of the hobby for a while.