Atlas H21 hopper Kadee-izing

Norm, I used the factory holes. I used 2mm x 10mm screws. When assembling the Kadee's I stake the outer 2 holes to keep the cover on. Then I drill out the other 2 I believe with a #44 drill to create a little more wiggle room. One Micromark shim gets it he height close. Catch one screw by a few threads And then the other. By alternately tightening the screws. The Kadee should walk it's way flush. Re drilling the holes will give you a closer to the body fit. if you look at the top of the frame. You will see two bosses designed to accept the screws. Drilling around these to mount the Kadee. I'm just not sure as to how thick the frame is around them.

 

I'm going to revisit mine. I need to paint the simulated Kadee air hose. I think by adding some styrene strip between the coupler box and the car body will fix the unsightly gap. Just need some Pennsy colored paint.

Mario did pads for Atlas cars so that the pad/shim fits right over the factory Atlas holes, and then the Kadee uses the outer holes in the pad/spacer. You can mount the Kadee back so its flush with the end sill, or forward like the Atlas holes make the Kadee stick out further.

Just need some Pennsy colored paint.

Scalecoat 2 "Boxcar Red #3" is nearly an exact match to the Atlas/Middle Division H21 cars.

 

LaidOffSick is correct. I can be really easy and I have done already printed.  Shoot a shot of the holes over and u can take a look.

How thick do you need them?

Thanks guys. Dave, I played around with using one of the existing holes to mount an 805 but I wanted the draft gear box flush with the end sill. I found a 2 rail version on eBay and saw the bulky draft gear box that Atlas supplies with them. That helps fill the gap in the sill but I don't see their couplers available on their parts site. 

 

Here a is a shot of the hole pattern. 

 

 

Norm. Recommend you call Atlas and ask about availability of their latest Kadee clone couplers.  They came on my latest  H21's and they are reliable operators after I replaced the closure spring with softer Kadee ones.  Big improvement over earlier AtlasO scale couplers.

 

Ed Rappe

Interesting information, Ed. I had so much trouble with the original run of Atlas scale type couplers, I finally had to replace them all with Kadee #805s. The Atlas knuckles kept breaking off. Sure hope they solved that problem.

I exchanged emails with Bill at Atlas and these are apparently out of stock until April/May. These come in two pairs and includes the draft gear assembly and mounting hardware. I may hold off on doing anything more with these until they are available.

 

Mario, do you have any photos of your adapters? Can they fill in that sill gap?

The Atlas knuckles kept breaking off. Sure hope they solved that problem.

Atlas solved the problem in 2012 as I posted on the 3rs section of the forum.

 

In that bad knuckle era, Atlas had a bunch of bad castings along with the couplers, like car bolsters. and trucks.  From my experience, anything that came in the boxes with the Adjust-a-Coupler stickers are suspect.

Right, the "Adjust-A-Coupler days. Those were the real problem ones. On the other hand, I still don't care for that overly stiff coupler centering spring that Atlas uses.

Interesting to see this about bad castings. Even before the Adjust-a-Coupler days, I experienced a problem with several coupler sections of RailRailer cars, where they just broke apart due to bad castings. I'd mentioned this to someone at Atlas when asking (to no avail) if they stocked any replacements, but he indicated they'd never heard of this before.

They might just fit and fill in the sill, I'll have to check.

 

Thanks!

Mario

Hot - you are correct in that the stiff centering spring slightly reduces the gathering range on curves, and prohibits delayed action uncoupling.  I've decided to retain the stiff centering springs to reduce slack action on my 30+ car trains, and haven't had coupling issues as long as the knuckle spring has been replaced with a softer one (available from Kadee). I also put stiffer centering springs in my Kadee pockets (we don't use delayed uncoupling in our operations).  

 

I don't like the force it takes to pop the Atlas lid off the pocket but I live with it rather than mounting a Kadee pocket in a way that compromises the appearance of cars with cast end sills like H21's and USRA design cars.  I think CentralFan197's adaptor plate is a neat solution for most AtlasO cars.

 

Ed Rappe

but he indicated they'd never heard of this before.

Right

 

 and haven't had coupling issues as long as the knuckle spring has been replaced with a softer one

That's a really great tip Ed!  I use a softer centering spring, but now I'm going to also try using a softer knuckle spring.  I always thought that action was a bit too stiff to allow for good coupling action.

Mario, I'm not sure that adapter would work for these. As you can see in the photo I posted earlier, the center beam is flat.