K LINE ALUMINUM HOPPERS

I have never done a K-Line car but Lionel has similar 4-bay Aluminum extruded hoppers and they are excellent cars with etched metal roof walks and fine detail all around.  They are convertible to 2-Rail and they have a die cast area that can be drilled and tapped for Kadee coupler mounting screws.  A few shims may need to be added to get the coupler at the correct height.  My conversion used NWSL 36" China spinner wheelsets installed in the Lionel die cast truck (I removed Lionel lobster claw truck-mounted coupler assembly with a Dremel cut-off wheel). 

Scott

@Scott Kay posted:

I have never done a K-Line car but Lionel has similar 4-bay Aluminum extruded hoppers and they are excellent cars with etched metal roof walks and fine detail all around.  They are convertible to 2-Rail and they have a die cast area that can be drilled and tapped for Kadee coupler mounting screws.  A few shims may need to be added to get the coupler at the correct height.  My conversion used NWSL 36" China spinner wheelsets installed in the Lionel die cast truck (I removed Lionel lobster claw truck-mounted coupler assembly with a Dremel cut-off wheel).

Scott

Hi Scott,

I like how you did your conversion to the Lionel ACF extruded aluminum hopper. Your conversion is very similar to how I converted my Lionel aluminum hoppers.

My question to you is how did you manage to add the second screw to your Kadee coupler boxes?

Lionel provides only one screw attached hole at the ends of these hoppers. I had to open those holes with a Dremel 5/64th drill bit so I could fully attach the 2-56 screws. I added shims with a drop of glue between each shim to keep the coupler box and shims from moving out of place.

I have a couple of them -- SP and ATSF. The ATSF is 2-railed (bought it that way). The conversion is fairly straightforward -- drill/tap for the Kadees and shims and swap out the wheels or the trucks.

My K-Line covered hopper came with Kadee mounting pads... It's the silver Union Pacific car in this picture; I've taken the cover off to make it a hopper.

More details here: https://ogrforum.com/...per-kadee-conversion

@Curtis1983

I just marked and drilled a second hole in the hopper frame for the second Kadee mounting hole.  I then tapped the hole for a metric M2 (2 MM) screw as I get them from NWSL in bags of 100.  Be sure to use the correct tap drill size and also use a sharp drill bit.  I like the M2 screws as they have a little smaller head profile than 2-56 screws but a 2-56 screw would work just as well.

Scott

@Scott Kay posted:

@Curtis1983

I just marked and drilled a second hole in the hopper frame for the second Kadee mounting hole.  I then tapped the hole for a metric M2 (2 MM) screw as I get them from NWSL in bags of 100.  Be sure to use the correct tap drill size and also use a sharp drill bit.  I like the M2 screws as they have a little smaller head profile than 2-56 screws but a 2-56 screw would work just as well.

Scott

Thank you.