I have several Atlas Classic locos fitted with horn-hook couplers. These are secured with a pin, not a screw. How do you remove this without breaking anything? What type of Kadees do you need to replace them? And how do you fit them, as there is no coupler box, and to fit a box (if there is room) would lower the coupler height too far?
And a question on this forum - can you and if so how do you search the forum for threads via key words? I am sure my coupler question must have been asked before, but when I put “hornhook couplers” into the search box I just got two reviews of locos with hornhooks.
To search just within the forums you find the space for “Search the community” off to the side and just above the list of users online, not the space up above which is for searching the entire site.
It’s relatively easy to pull the pin out with a pair of needle nose pliers by carefully twisting it from side to side while pulling on it. A Kadee #5 or its whisker version, #148, should be a good replacement.
I’ve converted two of these old Roco built Atlas locos and it’s fairly easy. Place the tip of a small flat tip screwdriver beneath the head of the pin and gently pry it up. It’ll come out easily enough. For the easiest replacement use Kadee #37 couplers. You’ll have to file both sides of the coupler opening so it’s 5/16’s of an inch wide, big enough to take a Kadee 30 series draft gear box. You may have to file the bottom a as well. DO NOT file any from the top of the opening. Assemble the #37 Coupler with the Coupler on top and the spring on the bottom. Don’t use the coupler box lid. Insert the assembly into the opening and securee it in place with the pin you removed earlier.
Kadee has an extensive “what fits what” list that covers every model manufactured over the last 50 years. It’s published on the big Walthers catalog and on line. Look up your Atlas locomotives and go with Kadee’s recommendations. It will save you some grief.
As far as searching this forum, the forum search engine is so feeble that I never bother with it. Go with Google.
You must be refering to “Yellow” box w/ the Kato drive or Rocco switchers. Been quite a while since converting to Kadee’s. The pilot needs to be opened up to accept the #5 box and if I remember correctly the hole for that push pin can be tapped to 2/56 screw. I don’t know if a whisker is a drop in. The coupler height worked out perfectly. I did this on RS1 and 3’s, RSD11 and GP7s. Not sure of your application. My Rocco switchers came used w/ Kadee’s installed.
As dsrtarr mentions Kadee has a virtually complete list of all conversions. Go to their site, click on Conversions, then on HO Scale conversions, then on Atlas, then click on the appropriate loco. A sketch will show you how to do it, if filing or shims are needed and what coupler to use. As mentioned the #148 whisker is a replacement for the old reliable #5, not all of the sketches may be updated. The only thing I have to be careful about is that the sketches are upside down, just like you were working on it. My mind keeps turning things over.
I’ve got an RS-1 on the bench waiting for its new #148’. Haven’t done it yet, so the descriptions the others have given you were very helpful to me.
By the way, Bill, if you can say just what Atlas engines we are talking about, back in the horn hook era the Model Railroader review would almost always say a few words about what Kadee could be fitted and how. For example for the RS-3 (still one of the nicest running engines I have seen, or heard, or not heard), they used a Kadee #8 with modest modifications to the coupler pocker and used the pin hole tapped for a 2-56 screw. I think that is how I added Kadees to my Atlas Rs-3 in fact. So tell me what engines and I’ll try to track down the original reviews in MR.
Not many guys use a #8 anymore, or a #4, but they had a nice spring action to the draft gear that I always liked.
Thank you all for your replies. I should have said that the particular engines I am looking at now are GP7s. However, they are a bit of a puzzle to me - perhaps hybrids. There is an article on the Atlas website, which is actually quoting a Model Railroader review, which reads as if there was an Atlas / Kato GP7 with horn-hooks, moulded-on grabs, not DCC ready, then Atlas replaced it circa 2001 with an Atlas China improved model with separate wire grabs, knuckle couplers and a board with an 8-pin DCC socket and called it Atlas Classic. My GP7s, all labelled Atlas Classic, have moulded grabs and horn-hooks, but also boards with the 8-pin socket and are stamped underneath “Made in China”, so they seem to be an intermediate stage. They are Atlas Classic #8402, Atlantic Coast Line #100; Atlas Classic #8405 + #8406, Central of Georgia #107 + #108; and Atlas Classic #8420 + #8421, Texas & Pacific #1110 + #1113. Down the line I will also have to convert Atlas / Rocco #8083, ALCo S2 GM&O #1006, and Atlas / Kato #8113, ALCo RS-1 GM&O #1108, but these last two are not DCC ready and so are downstream some way.
Please don’t ask where all these RRs meet up - I have not figured that out yet.
A couple of other things should be considered. I don’t have any of these Atlas engines, so I can’t speak from experience, but I’ve done similar upgrades to ancient Athearns.
You can get “draft gear boxes” from Kadee. They are very reasonably priced, just a few dollars for a bunch of them. They are styrene plastic, so you can glue them in place, and they have a hole through the center mounting pin so you can use a 2-56 screw if you’d prefer.
My old Athearn engines have solid metal frames, so replacing the the old plastic horn-hooks with metal Kadees directly would result in “hot” couplers, not a good idea at all. Instead, I cut out the old boxes with a Dremel, drilled and tapped a 2-56 hole, and mounted the Kadees in a draft gear box. This insulates the couplers from the frame.
Just swapped out the couplers on the RS-3. Piece of cake.
Pulled the pin that holds the coupler. Pulled out the coupler. Cut the tabs off the Kadee coupler box (I had a #3 package, which is #5 couplers already installed in the box) and filed the edges smooth. The sketch they give says to file the sides of the opening and insert the box. By the time I had the edges of the box smooth, it slid in, nice fit. Line up the hole in the coupler box, return coupler retaining pin, check coupler height and put it on the track and go.
Hybid eh? The Atlas GP7’s were manufactured for Atlas by KATO. I used to own a couple of the yellow box GP7’s which the classics were based on. What I did was took KD#5 couplers and cut the “ears” off of the boxes (the screw holes) so the draft gear boxes were smooth on the sides; an Exacto chisel blade would make quick work of them, must fast than a file. Then they would slide into the coupler boxes. At that point you can either use the old pins to secure them or tap out the holds and use screws to hold them in.