Has anyone found a way to bring these cars closer together?
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Adding Kadees would do the trick.
drgwdavid posted:Has anyone found a way to bring these cars closer together?
I think there have already been a few threads on that subject. Have you tried the SEARCH feature?
Kadees do not change the separation on these as noted in another thread.
Surefire posted:Kadees do not change the separation on these as noted in another thread.
They will if you body mount them or make your own mount.
Pete
Hot Water posted:drgwdavid posted:Has anyone found a way to bring these cars closer together?
I think there have already been a few threads on that subject. Have you tried the SEARCH feature?
No, there has been no thread on this specific subject only. I think it would be helpful to have this info in its own thread with examples of how to do it. The other threads are full of speculation. Has anyone actually closed the gap successfully and how?
drgwdavid posted:Hot Water posted:drgwdavid posted:Has anyone found a way to bring these cars closer together?
I think there have already been a few threads on that subject. Have you tried the SEARCH feature?
No, there has been no thread on this specific subject only. I think it would be helpful to have this info in its own thread with examples of how to do it. The other threads are full of speculation. Has anyone actually closed the gap successfully and how?
I'm sure the whole subject would primarily depend on just how big a diameter your curves are. By up-grading to body mounted Kadee couplers, I would think you could get those cars VERY closely coupled, but then they would NOT be able to negotiate even 072 curves.
I just set these up after picking up from my dealer at York and I'm extremely disappointed with the spacing. I understand they may be the correct bolster/diaphragms but the close coupling feature is wasted as these cars are still too far apart on the straightaways. I made the assumption based on the catalog picture that these would couple closer. My Penn Central set looks better (not perfect) because of the convention diaphragms. I'm going to return the diner as I thought it would have the vents like the catalog (I know I'm being picky) but to me it just looks like a regular coach and I preferred these be made without station sounds. I have the theater car ordered as well. I really appreciate the effort to bring the trucks closer to the body but my flag car trucks get caught on knubs at the bottom of the body even on 108" curves!!. Some couplers on some cars are very stiff and don't center or are bent upward.
I hardly return anything but I sold 70' MTH UP coaches expecting the scale length and closer coupling.
Any suggestions to bring these closer other than the kadees? I appreciate Lionel doing these new couplers that create space on the curves but Lionel should offer shorter couplers that do the same thing for those who want even closer coupling on the straightaways and have larger curves for these to traverse.
Contacting my dealer and Lionel tomorrow.
All my K-Line 21" cars couple so that diaphragms touch on straight track. All it takes is 74" radius curves and careful placement of Kadee draft gear bolts.
I mostly pitched the K-Line underbody detail and fabricated full length center sills. Not a big deal.
The kinematic mechanism they used on these cars is grade A junk. Kadees are the answer. If you want them closed up, then you need a custom mount, not the Lionel one.
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What specific Kadee part # of coupler should people use?
Do you use the Kadee coupler box and throw the Lionel box away?
Which Kadee Coupler # works best?
Boilermaker1 posted:The kinematic mechanism they used on these cars is grade A junk. Kadees are the answer. If you want them closed up, then you need a custom mount, not the Lionel one.
I think the cars with the traditional diaphram look very nice with the scale couplers. Unfortunately the UP cars will never look this good. the gap can be closed but unfortunately I'm afraid this look will be almost impossible to achieve without modifying the ends of the cars with a more traditional diaphragm. Or running like 0-200 track lol.
John Rowlen posted:What specific Kadee part # of coupler should people use?
Do you use the Kadee coupler box and throw the Lionel box away?
Which Kadee Coupler # works best?
Throw the lionel spacer away. You need to use the Kadee box, but you need some kind of spacer to lower the coupler down from the floor of the car. Lionel's spacer is .24" thick so that the coupler can clear the bottom of the diaphragm.
After much fiddling, I 3d printed my own spacers and used Kadee 746s to the result you see above.
It probably won’t close the gap on the tube diaphragm cars but it would remove all of the slack action in the kinematics (if you pull on the rear end of the train using the locomotive to anchor the front end, the 7 car train has about 5” of slack in the coupler mechanisms). I don’t have any of the tube diaphragm cars to mess with to see if you can completely close the gap and keep the cars capable of running on a reasonable track radius.
