I bought 4 or 5 very cheap box cars and tankers the other day, the wrong thing for a new person like me to do. Live and learn.
Anyway here’s a shot of the coupler that is on the units…
Upon closer inspection what I thought was a screw seems to be a brad holding the cover for the draft box. Can the coupler be replaced and if so, how or should I just assign these to some back area of the layout?
Some of them are mounted to the frame while others are mounted to the trucks. What do you call this type besides what I’ve been calling them which is
G#@$^ %#@!! things!
Unscrew the truck.
Try to gently pry the pin out of the coupler pocket. It may work to put a thin screwdriver blade under the coupler pocket cover and gently pry up on the cover to pu***he pin out.
If that doesn’t work and the “pin” is actually a melted plastic rivet or a glued in pin, cut it off, remove the cover and drill out the hole, tap it for a 1-72 or 2-56 screw and use the appropriate screw to to resecure the cover.
Chill dude! I’ll try to talk you down. It’s better to practice with a cheap model than an expensive one.
First, remove the truck, and try to pry up the pin or brad holding the coupler cover on. If you can’t, drill it out with a drill bit smaller than a #50, say a #60 or so for a pilot hole. Be sure to get it dead in the center. If that’s difficult, try a smaller drill bit.
Then drill out the head of the pin only with a drill bit the same size as the head. You should be able to pry off the pin head and maybe the pin too.
Once you’re that far, read this ARTICLE on couplers from Model Railroader on fine tuning knuckle couplers. (click on highlited words)
A lot of my old rolling stock has the talgo mount or truck mounted x2f or horn hook couplers. I use some sprue cutters to snip the coupler box off of the truck, then body mount #5 Kaddees to the car. Be careful to get the coupler in the center of the car. I use the draft gear box to locate the hole I drill and tap for a 2-56 screw to secure the coupler. If, as stated, that coupler cover on your body mounted ones will come off, you can replace the hornhook with a Kadee #5 and centering spring. I have used the pin that came out back in with a small dab of plastic cement, but I also would recommend drilling and tapping the hole for a screw.
All good advice, you may want to entirley replace the trucks with a newer one sometimes the bolsters are alittle wonkey on these types of cars. I’d grab an athearn trick and tap the bolster for a 2-56 screw to mount the new trucks as well. Rob
There are wo articles on the NMRA web site that address changing couplers to Kadees and changing out the talgo trucks and adding a coupler box at http://www.nmra.org/beginner/
That’s the NMRA ‘Introduction to Model Railroading’ where you can find a number of useful tips.
Thanks for the tips and the links, I’ll read them over. Me thinks I’ll be more careful buying older stuff at rock bottom prices for a while, my modeling skills are not that good when it comes to redoing things. If I was good at it then it would be a different matter.
Jacon
