Well, im going through a few of my past relics that havent seen the light of day in 20 years or so (and a nice dust layer on the box to boot!). I brought out an old Mantua SP F7 that seems to be a good runner but has truck-mounted couplers. I have some Kadees and would like to body mount the couplers but dont seem to have a lot of clearence between the truck itself and possible space in which to body mount said coupler (both in the front and rear of the engine). Does anyone have any experience in upgrading an old unit like this with body mounted couplers? I'd love to get some tips/tricks or advice on how to proceed. Thanks! :)
-Jon
Common problem on many F units, which is why Kadee has the #35 which has a very short draft gear box, this is recommended for the Stewart F units. There are other Kadees that use this short draft gear box as well. You will need to cut off as much of the draft gear part of the front truck to get as much room behind the pilot as possible. You will then need to construct some sort of a platform with styrene bits to provide a place to attach the coupler to. Even a straight conversion to Kadees doesn't look all that straightfoward - Kadee has a PDF instruction on their site.
---Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
The Kadee conversion chart lists the #28 TM. I just figured out that means to mount it on the truck. hmmm not quite what you wanted to do but maybe in this case the wheel can't be reinvented.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I think body mounted couplers are much better than truck mounted couplers.
Run an A-A pair since the front coupler is body mounted. At that point for the truck mounted coupler, what does it matter?