Kadee Couplers?

Are you a 2-Rail modeler or a 3-Rail modeler? It makes a difference whether you use a plastic gear box if you are a 2-Rail modeler, or a metal gear box for 3-Rail modelers. The various versions depend in the height of the car or, for passenger cars, the longer shank may work better.

Hot Water,

 

2 rail. Would I have to measure the height of each car that I wanted to convert? 

 

Thanks

Chris

Well, you should, in order to make sure that the cars are the correct height to scale. You should also have an NMRA O Scale standards gauge, plu the Kadee O Scale coupler height gauge, in order to make sure that all your couplers are at the same correct height, and thus ever car will couple to every other car and/or locomotive.

I have the coupler height gauge and getting the NMRA standards gauge tomorrow. In HO, #5 was the common conversion. Is there not a coupler like that for O?

 

Thanks for answering my questions.

804 and 805 are the most popular Kadee couplers. ncng

806 are the shorties, you will rarely use them. ncng

Your best investment with Kadees is the Kadee height gauge. You can use it to verify the coupler is at the right height, and the trip pin isn't too low.

 

I have a preference for the Kadee 700 series couplers and prefer the 740's when possible.

I have never used 700 or 740 new couplers, so I cannot comment,

 

but I agree with AGHRMatt 1000% your first purchase is the Kadee height

gauge, you will need to adjust 90%+ plus of your couplers, like AGHRMatt

said the trip is always to low, plus I use Micro-Mark or homemade shims

on most cars, the more grades and track transitions that your layout has

the more important this is.

 

ncng

Need tap/drill bits, various types of screws and lengths, styrene of different thickness for home made shims, Micro Mark shims, and of course a variety of couplers to experiment with. I personally don't like the over set and under set shank couplers. I would rather adjust the height with shims.

Huh?  What does the number of rails have to do with this?  I use them - 804 or 8-05 - interchangeably w/o any concerns or worries regardless of what the car is made of or number of rails for that matter.  The only time I might care is to add a bit more weight to a wood car and then grab a pack of 805's.

To give an example of what Laidoffsick is talking about, look at this photo.  I took a 3-rail Lionel 89' autorack right out of the box and drilled one hole at the end to attach this 742 Overset coupler.  No shimming or any other provisions.  I drilled one hole, used a #2 screw and I was done.  In this photo it matches up exactlu with my MTH ES44AC -2 and its center-set coupler.

 

You may be like Laidoffsick and prefer to install shims, but I chose to skip that step with the overset.

A lot of information in this thread on the 3 rail scale forum.  Click on the underlined phrase to link.

Four pages of posts.

 

I posted this a year ago.
Helpful diagrams from the Kadee site. A lot of information on this page. 
Added 745 and 746 diagrams. 4/3/13

Kadee 805

Kadee 806 short

Kadee 847 Underset shank. Coupler center and mounting height are the same.

Kadee 742 Overset shank Increases mounting height.

Kadee 745  Plastic #817 draft gear.

Kadee 746   Longer coupler shank noted.

I have several Weaver Ultraline diesel engines in which I had to use the Kadee 747 underset shank coupler.  It was the only way I could get the coupler height correct.

Because metal boxes with metal frames on 2 rail track equals a dead short...hence the purpose of the plastic boxes.

Only if you let it happen,   Not a problem I've ever run into with metal cars.

some wheel sets prevent this from happening. Maybe U have those? Most NWSL wheel sets that I have, are only insulated on one side. So if the car happens to be put on the track a certain way and hooked up to the next that's on in reverse,...... snap! I've gotten shocked playing the switching game by hand!

 Now, all my equipment gets plastic boxes! Don't want to loose any electronics over stupid stuff like this.

I think that may be why some manufacturers -- Atlas and MTH come to mind -- use double-insulated wheelsets on their trucks. Keeps a metal car from becoming a conductor.