I have an old NMRA Business Car (Probably Athearn) that has two trucks with 3 axles (6 wheels) each on a long arm coming off the truck. Most of my cars have the coupler box on the frame and not the trucks.
I can’t get the Athearn coupler clips to hold. I am replacing the NMRA old type couplers with Kadee couplers.
Any suggestions?
One solution is cut off the talgo arm and glue Kadee couple box to the frame, but I would end up spending a lot of time trying to build up the coupler box pad to the exact correct height.
Another I guess is to glue a piece of plastic over the coupler.
Those Athearn coupler box covers usually get sprung apart on the sides. Try squeezing the sides back together, especially in the center of the cover near the notch where the cover snaps over the box.
Good advice above. Also, using a file and/or an Xacto knife clean up the part the clip fits onto so you get two good nubs for the clip to latch onto. Sometimes with use they get rounded over.
I am sure you will also get lots of advice to switch to body mounted couplers too, but the truck mounted will work fine as long as there are no other problems.
Advice for all metal Athearn coupler covers. They must be perfect to work. Make sure the wide flat part in the middle is dead flat. Many are dished. You can squeeze them with pliers.Run a flat file over the inside (Part that goes against the coupler) to remove any burrs. Make sure the sides are perfectly perpendicular to the bottom. Many are bent. Lastly, buy somee extras. Many come from Athearn punched wrong - the hole is not in the center or clips on the sides are offset. These will not work and need to be thrown away.