I have two identical IHC 2-6-0’s of obvious Southern Pacific protype but that is not the way they are decorated. I have run into a problem in dis-assembling the tender on one of the models. The other model has yet to be touched and thus does not yet have this problem. I was able to sucessfully remove the oil bunker cover from atop the tender with no problems. I next removed the rear truck on the tender as I desired to talgo mount a knuckle style couplers inside the trucks built in draft gear space. I now find it is impossible to get my real world sized hands to sucessfully fit into the “HO” sized space formed by the existing tender wrapper and the existing tender underframe. My fingers are so big that they just keep getting in the way. I have looked at the underframe of both tenders and noticed that only three screws are used on each tender. Two of these screws are supposed to be run up into a nut which is to be placed atop the tender underframe and also attach their respective trucks to this underframe while doing this. The third and final self tapping screw type simply holds one end of the drawbar off the locomotive to the tender underframe. Neither tender has any additional screws located any where that I can see them on the under frame. I wish to add decoders to these tenders as they are currenntly planned for a tourist train operation on my model railroad club layout. After spending a lot of time looking; I still beleive it possible to lift the offending tender wrapper form the underframe in order to complete this repair and decoder installation. I have not been able to discover how to safely release a pait of latches which are located at the locomotive end of this tender. I also have not discovered how to keep the latches from relatching during the separation process. Both of them must be manipulated at the same time if I am to separate the wrapper form its underframe. I am simply out of ideas and am asking if anyone has done this task and what difficulties did you discov
Perhaps your locos are newer than mine…Mine are close to 14 yrs. old. But the tender body just snaps on and off the frame with two tabs on the back and a single “snap” on the front. Apply pressure at the front, center, bottom of the tender and it should come loose.
I hard wired decoders into two of these little guys…They are great, inexpensive locos!
As for the coupler replacement…All I can say is “Good Luck”!
I have small hands and still they are too big…Not to mention they don’t always work as well as they used to!