Kadees on Lionel 21” Cars and Minding the Gap

Nice - For the UP cars We have a larger challenge - to bring the cars in much closer and make it around an O72 radii is going to be a task. 

Which Kadee coupler did you use?

Good. Now my passengers don't have to go all George Caldwell to switch cars.

Steve

J Daddy posted:

Nice - For the UP cars We have a larger challenge - to bring the cars in much closer and make it around an O72 radii is going to be a task. 

Which Kadee coupler did you use?

 

I used 746s for swing and pushed them back under the car. 

The tube diaphragm cars... I don’t think the diaphragm is right.  There should be a box frame structure welded to the end of the car, and the tubes should be mounted on that, NOT flush to the end face of the car. It’s not going to make up the whole gap, but it’s another chunk of car missing that’s adding to the air space in there. The accordion ones are probably oversized, but for the sake of 3 rail curves, it does help. I didn’t buy any of the tube cars, so I don’t have anything to mess around with. My guess is no matter what you did, on O72s, the corners of the car will touch before the gap closes.

I was looking at mine tonight I plan on searching through Lionel and mth parts to see if I could come up with a scale coupler alternative.   I took the knematic setup off my generator car tonight to see what I've got to work with.   Let the mods begin.   

J Daddy posted:

Nice - For the UP cars We have a larger challenge - to bring the cars in much closer and make it around an O72 radii is going to be a task. 

Which Kadee coupler did you use?

 

Your spot on with the poorly designed diaphrams close is going to have to be good enough.  Plus they still have to function.  

Looks good. Atlas nailed the diaphragms on the CZ. Wish the others would catch on. 

I havent used a CAD program in years, its a bit of a learning curve back into it. I finally got the final version back from 3D printing.

The conversion is pretty simple to do, remove the kinematic, screw the spacers in, add Kadee and go. I've been doing it in about 10-15 minutes per car.