As a kid, and just before Lionel came out with couplers that have that little tab on them that let you manually uncouple them, I would pull the pin out of the knuckle by pulling down on the arm the pin was on. A little too much force, however, removed the pin from the knuckle entirely, and I guess the entire assembly of pin, arm and flat plate would move forward, and the pin wouldn’t go back into the knuckle any more.
Worse yet, if I pushed on the arm to move the pin backward (not either bending the arm or the pin, I think), the pin would no longer “snap up” into the knuckle, but sort of just move up if you pushed it up and back down when you let go.
I’ve tried to see how the magnetic plate/arm/pin is hinged looking at the Greenberg manual, but I don’t get it. Any help would be appreciated getting the pin/arm/plate to regain the action it had before I broke it.
The spring that returns the armature is a flat strip that is attached to the armature in the middle with a rivet and bears on the coupler assembly at the ends. You may have bent, broken, or moved this spring out of position.
Thanks, Bob, for the help. I’ll be checking this out on some of my couplers.
–jim
I have had this happen to me a few times when buying used PW rolling stock. Un fortuanatly, you cannot replace the spring to factory specs (rivet), without having you own riveting kit. You could try a small model aviation bolt and locktite on non- coil couplered or operating trucks.
Hope this helps,
Jerry