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 Posted - April 14 2016 : 11:24:56 AM
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I would like to do away with the truck mounted couplers on my Alco C-30/33 Tyco engine and put body mounted Kadees on it. What's a good way to do this? (Pictures if you have them). Perhaps there's and article already in the files on this but I've never been able to figure out how to use the search feature.
Richard in Vermont
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Posted - April 14 2016 : 2:21:36 PM
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Richard -
I've never done this with a Tyco but have converted a few AHM/IHC Alcos to body-mounted Kadees. Looking at the Tyco setup, it seems very similar.
It required cutting off the truck-mount tabs, as well as fabricating a simple pad in the pilot for the new Kadee coupler box. A side benefit was that the body mount couplers allowed for filling in the pilot.
I'll see if I can get some pics to show what I'm talking about.
http://tycodepot.com/
Edited by - JNXT 7707 on April 14 2016 2:28:31 PM
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Posted - April 15 2016 : 12:22:53 AM
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Thanks Jerry, I would like to see your photos. I can see what you mean about cutting off the truck-mount tabs/pads and filing in the pilot hole but golly whiz there's hardly any room between the body and the truck to mount a coupler box. This is certainly going to require some tricky engineering to pull this off. I tried putting a Kadee in the truck pad but it fell apart. I don't think there is enough room for a full size coupler box so maybe I can figure something out with a whisker coupler. I was hoping that someone on this forum had already figured this out. Very good to hear from you. Have you done anymore on your Buffalo Creek and Gauley engine?
Richard
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Posted - April 15 2016 : 01:08:00 AM
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Richard, there may be less room to spare in the AHM/IHC locos than the Tyco!
You will need one of the 20- or 30- series couplers to do it - they take up less room than the standard full-size Kadee coupler box. Most all of my locomotive coupler conversions have been done with the 20- / 30-series coupler boxes, very handy for that.
What I do is build up a pad in the end of the pilot with scrap sheet styrene until it puts the coupler at the height I want it to be. Then drill a hole with a #50 drill bit and then tap for a 2-56 screw. Use additional styrene to fill the wide open gap in the pilot around the coupler.
Here's some pics. First one of a Tyco GP-20 to show how much space it has. Not an Alco but I'm going to guess its similar:
Here's a IHC SD40:
And a AHM RS3:
As you can see, there's not much room in those pilots, but just enough for what you need.
No progress to report on the BC&G 2-8-0 yet, but I have a work area and some time now to do projects again so I'll be diving back into that soon!
Let me know how this coupler thing goes.
http://tycodepot.com/
Edited by - JNXT 7707 on April 15 2016 01:10:21 AM
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Posted - April 15 2016 : 10:55:42 AM
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Thank you very much!!!! That's the answer I was looking for. Those pictures are awesome. Can't thank you enough. I will report back to you when I get it done.
Richard in Vermont
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Posted - April 17 2016 : 5:21:32 PM
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On a related note, if you've got a Bachmann F unit of 1980 vintage or thereabouts, I recommend the Kadee #8 coupler. It's discontinued, so you'll have to check evilBay or see if your LHS has old stock or w/e, but it's the easiest one to fit. Bachmann F units from that era have wonky low-slung coupler boxes, so standard-shank couplers, be they horn-hook or operating knuckle, will not fit at the proper height. However, if you shave the walls of the coupler boxes off and screw complete Kadee #8 couplers to the mounts, they'll be perfectly at the correct height.
Feedback-hungry attention w****
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