The Kadee Question AGAIN!

1. If you want to non-destructively want them off then you’ll have to pop out the springs and the side frame and unscrew that cage the coupler is connected to. Take the coupler out and reassemble. You’ll never want to repeat the process so just do yourself a favor and drill the couplers off.

2. Small tweezers or a pick. Some people thread dental floss thru the spring so they don’t fly off.

3. 2-56 or 2mm screws. Length depends on car.

if you want to modify stuff, most of the time you just have to figure it out.

Boilmaker1,

When you say drill off the coupler what exactly does that mean?

Dave

I dont have a car in front of me but I believe the couplers are riveted on (or they used to be). So you'll need to drill that rivet off.

When it comes To MTH trucks, they are not the easiest to disassemble to say the least.  Well built good coupling/uncoupling of the lobster claw but if you want Kadee I take the hack and slash approach.  I'll never convert back so what ever it takes to make the trucks fit with plenty of swing with body mount kadees.  Lots of times I completely disassemble with sometime truck springs go flying.  remove all unwanted hardware/metal and re-assemble.  I should do a video.

I don’t know if this works, but what I’ve done on other cars is simply turn the trucks 180 degrees around, so the lobster claws are facing the center of the car, then mount Kadees as normally on the body ends.

Artie

Thank you all for your replies.

Bill, the coupler is secured by two small screws but you have to basically take the entire truck apart to get to them. I didn't mind this part. The more time consuming/tedious part is that the springs come out and if you're lucky enough to keep all of them, they then have to be reinstalled.

Gary, a video would be great and if I figure this out I may do one myself. There are a couple of them on YouTube now but I believe they are for Lionel cars. I didn't see any videos for the MTH cars that are set up to receive Kadees. The videos I've seen pretty much take the "hack and slash" approach you speak of. I do not plan to put the original couplers back on but I was thinking about keeping them around for the day I have sell them. I may have to reconsider because one car took me almost 2 hours.

Artie, when you do this do you just leave the original coupler in the center of the car or remove it after installing the Kadee couplers?

I just looked on YouTube again and saw where Eric Siegel made a video 12 years ago on the topic. He took the long route that I did for the same reason. Though this is not the same mounting pad on the hopper cars I'm speaking of it does address taking the truck apart to remove the original coupler.

Eric's Kadee Coupler Video

Hi Dave, I just leave the couplers on, then when I want to run them with the Lobster claws, I just take the Kadees off, and turn the trucks back around. I’ve done this mostly with Atlas cars which have holes drilled and taped for 2mm screws. I use 10x2mm most of the time to mount the Kadees. Easy peasy!

There is a string of saved forum instructions in the 3 rail scale forum for mounting Kadees. I believe it’s about four pages long, and gives some alternatives and good info.

@luvindemtrains posted:

Thank you all for your replies.

Bill, the coupler is secured by two small screws but you have to basically take the entire truck apart to get to them. I didn't mind this part. The more time consuming/tedious part is that the springs come out and if you're lucky enough to keep all of them, they then have to be reinstalled.

Ah, I see. I didn't realize that's how they were assembled. I was picturing the old truck styles from when I was a kid.

Bill,

I am experimenting with two different types of MTH wheel sets. The ones that come with their 4 bay hoppers are easier to deal with but they didn't make provisions for mounting kadee couplers. I will have to create a base on which to mount the kadee couplers. I'm sure the modelers who have experience with kadee conversions are very aware of having to do this on certain models. It's not difficult just time consuming. Makes me wish I didn't wait until now to start doing this.

Dave

Is that something that could be 3D printed? Or is it more of a shim that's easily cut?

I probably should weigh the pros and cons of keeping the giant couplers before I get started.

Here is a link on YouTube to Kadee O scale conversions.  This is part 1 of a series.  NH Joe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...OyBcn2ASztDfLRA#t=16

Bill,

It's simple enough to make out of styrene. Depending on the car you may have to have different sizes and in some ways it could serve a dual purpose of base and shim.

Thanks New Haven Joe. I watched this a few times and it helps. He is working on Lionel cars.

Gotcha! I guess it is just a flat piece haha