I inspected the cars and decided that the plastic couplers
mounted on the trucks must be replaced with Kadee metal
couplers installed on the bottom of the car body. I chose
Kadee #5.
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3
2-3. The Con-Cor dome car looks great in the SP
Daylight paint scheme in the box. But turn it over
and it’s a different story with the old Rivarossi
style couplers and trucks.
Upgrading passenger car couplers - 2
STEP 1: Analyzing the problem
STEP 2: New coupler mounts
The #5 coupler would need
shims to support it at the cor-
rect height. I tested several
sizes of strip styrene, and
determined that an HO scale
8” thickness was best. The
Midwest Products #1124 Scale
Lumber Gauge shows thickness
in HO scale feet.
I built an #5 box with coupler to
be mounted on top of the shim.
Because of the size of screw I
used, I drilled a 3/32” pilot hole
for it and also reamed out the #5
box hole so the screwwould slide
through. I then drilled a smaller
pilot hole for the screw site.
Why not use CA or other glue?
After years of building, I have con-
cluded nothing beats a screw . Glue can find its way into the cou-
pler pocket, seizing the coupler, or youmay not have a good joint
and the coupler pocket is pulled off the car. Also, howdo you
replace a broken coupler if everything is glued shut?
I painted the mounts black to hide them a bit better.
If you have several cars, such as the 72’ baggage, 72’ RPO,
72’ sleeper, 85’ dome, 85’ slumber-coach, 85’ 10/6 sleeper,
and 85’ observation, and the tender end, you can upgrade
all the couplers in an assembly-line process. There you go,
a simple easy one-evening project to improve the perfor-
mance of your passenger cars.
4. Midwest Products
makes a Scale
Lumber Gauge
#1124 that shows
the thickness of an
item in HO Scale. I
needed a thickness
of 8 inches after
some trial and error
of different sizes.
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MRH-May 2014
