Decided to re tittle this thread to reflect and to show how how I am mounting kd couplers and thier draft gear boxes to most manufacturers cars. I will try to show up close up photos as a guide so you can see what I am doing as well as trying to explane the steps needed. I will update this thread as I do different truck styles.
Guys for those running curves as tight as 036 I have good news. I been wanting to convert my rolling stock to kds,but with my fastrack 036 layout at the moment body mounting them was out of the question. Then one day a post appeared here on the forum about truck mounting the kds. I wanted to test out some rolling stock and try this on my layout. so I got just enough items to do the job for just testing a few cars out. If it did not work I was only out a few bucks. To my suprise they worked quite well.
Photo below shows what was needed to make this all happen.
When all the pieces needed arrived I decided to take a cheapo menards box car since they are not bad looking and about the right length to try the kds out on. The trucks looked like mouting the kds on would be fairly straight forward. Remember the trucks must navigate 036 curves and switches so car lenth is a factor here. Plus they are cheap,ruining one of these cars is better the a $50 or 80 dollar lionel or mth car and its trucks.
The menards car diecast trucks are just ok as is nothing great, but if you remove all the coupler mechanism parts and drill the rivets holding the die cast claw coupler on the rest is easy. I explane further down in this post how I mounted these kds to the menards cars. Here is what they look like on the cars from the side.
Nex onto mounting the kd 809 uncoupling magnets on my fastrack. The uncoupler comes with 4 long magnets and a metal base plate. I ended up only needing two magnets and some plastic styrene shim. In the uncoupler photo you can see how it is mounted right onto the fastrack plastic roadbed. Just a good amount of ca glue let it set and walla my uncoupler was installed. Note: before installing the magnets I rounded the top ends off so pickup rollers would not snag. Then once installed I took my hobby nife and scliced the side ends of the magnet just a little to make them bevel outward so the wheel sets would roll through them better. This looked better than I had envisioned. Plus now one kd 809 uncupling magnet set will give me two uncoupling tracks this was great news to find out.
Now with two menards cars one kd truck mounted coupler per car done I proceeded to test out what these cars could do and how they would handle my 036 fastrack curves and my back to back switch arrangements on my small layout. Instead of grabbing my legacy or dcs engines I grabed my new lionchief plus engine to do this quick test. Let me just say they worked better than I expected. Going through my switches slow,fast, pushing or pulling them worked flawlessly. Next test. pushing them with more cars added to the front car. Essentially backing up a long train with those cars near the front close to the engine. Then pulling all the cars through the back to back switches. Never a derailment even going some what fast. No matter where the cars were in the train. Front ,middle,back it did not matter they never derailed once. This was the good new I was hoping for. Next after ajusting the kds trip pins to work better over the uncoupling magnets. Again success kds worked as they should. Now spoting and uncoupling cars is a true delight. Plus the fact that with the truck mounted kds I can run these on my layouts small 036 curves is just fantastic.
NOTE HERE: I SHOW THESE MENARDS COUPERS WITH THE KDS MOUNTED IN THE SHAPEWAYS BOXES. WITH THE SCALE CITY SCREWS. I HAVE SINCE FOUND A BETTER SOLUTION FOR MOUNTING THE KDS TO THE MENARDS CARS AND IT WORKS 100% MORE RELIABLY. SEE FURTHER DOWN IN MY POST AS I EXPLANE HOW I MOUNTED THE KD TO THE MENARDS TRUCK.
The minor drawbacks are not all car trucks will accept a kd coupler without some modification to the truck. Body mounting them works on most all cars a lot better, but you need 060 curves or larger for body mounted kds. Truck mouting them like I did here is the only way to use them on small radius curves. Some truck designeds may not accecpt the kd couplers without some modification. Then comes the truck side to side play. The trucks at least the menards ones I tested the kds out on have some side to side play due to the wheel sets and the fastrack.this is normal for oguage trucks on three rail track.however this sometimes moved one of the couplers over to one side just enough when trying to couple the cars back up. The kds got out of allinement with each other. Making the recouple harder( if you are familiar with how these kds work you will understand this part) this happened very little though. Not enough to be a real problem. Also a transition car is needed to mate to other rolling stock you cant get kds on. As far as engines go these kds hooked up to my engines electro couplers just fine. Smaller rolling stock works better too. Car lenth can be a factor when using truck mounted couplers also, but this I am not shure of just yet and will do more testing on other types and models of cars.
Now as far as price the shapeways boxes were ten to a sprue at around $5 thats enough for five cars rufly one dollar a car. The scale city screws come twelve to a pack and a pack cost about $2.50 ruffley. The most expensive was the kd 740 couplers they come four to a pack that means you can do two cars. One pack was $10. I figure that rounds out to about $3 or so per car. My math maybe off but,its close,. Note: also in order to get the kds properly set up to the correct height ect. you really need the kd coupler height guage. It is about $18 and is a one time buy. I havent got one yet,but knowing that my initial kd test were successfull now I plan on getting one. To me it was worth it. I JUST LOVE THESE KDS!!!! There I said it. Now I can have realistic switching on my layout with 036 curves too. If you have been thinking about kd couplers but have small curves like me your in luck this maybe just the ticket it seems to work. I snaped some quick photos showing what was needed,the coupler mounted to the car truck and the uncoupling magnets placed in the fastrack with the plastic shims.
For me no more slamming lobster claws together anymore. Just smooth slow speed coupling and more enjoyment when switching cars on my layout. Hope this helps someone here. I say try it you will like it.
