Kadees Too High

[BNSF4ever]

Hi there

I'm afraid this falls into the Model Railroader 101 category but I still need help on it.

I have been converting my HO rolling stock to Kadees. I have the gauge but a few ilocos/cars are too high when mating to that gauge. They are Athearn Genesis SD70MACs, GP60M, and Horizon passenger cars. Mind you, not every one has this problem, just some.

What can I do do get the coupler lower to mate to the standard level?

Thanks!

[Javern]

they make various Kadees for this purpose, or you would have to shim it.

[Don Gibson]

ALL the ATHEARN product's I' ve ever seen have low couplers. If you have some that are high I'd suggest double checking your angle of view (horizontal) or your KD guage for being level.

SOMETHING is wrong. Sorry.

[Virginian]

KD makes over slung, underslung... they may make side slung, but anyway if you go to their site that can give you some direction on which ones are which way, and how much. You can also shim down the whole mounting box, or relieve the bottom of the car/engine to raise it.
I believe McHenry is also making some variations now too.

[Anonymous]

Take a look at some of the optionals available.
http://kadee.com/html/20serh.pdf There's also the 30 & 40 series. Just substitute the # in the URL

[bogp40]

Before you assume that so many of your cars have high couplers, I would double check your Kaydee gauge. Also as Don suggests watch the viewing angle. Many of the gauges can have a slight droop as mine did. make sure that your gauge shows that the center of knuckle is exactly 25/64 from railhead. A previous poster weeks ago was showing that his Atlas, P2K and others all had high couplers. I bet his reference was off, as those are usually dead on.
Bob K.

[Anonymous]

[#ditto]
Also check to see if the center spring is on the top of the coupler shank. If it is not, switch it to the top. If it's still too high, use a undershank coupler.
Have you read the article in Model Railroader Fine-tuning HO knuckle couplers by Jeff Wilson ?

[jsoderq]

One thing I ran into years ago at the shop was a guy trying to check height with the loco and the guage setting on the table instead of on a piece of track. Same results.

[Anonymous]

Also worth making sure the track you're using is level - I make sure to use a piece of track that I know to be flat - if there's a slight change in gradient the loco or car you're checking coupler height on won't be level compared to the gauge, and although it'll only be a millimetre or so with Kadees this can cause problems.

[cwclark]

if the coupler is too high, you'll have to shim the coupler to the body with a piece of sheet styrene cut and glued in as a shim..if the coupler is too low, you'll have to shim between the truck and the car body...Chuck

[Anonymous]

Usually my ATHEARN cars drag on the track with kaydees too low.

I suspect your coupler gauge. Check and measure your gauge as exactly 25/64 from railhead.

[jrbernier]

Check the Kadee coupler gauge. My old one(30 years old) is perfect. A friend bought a new one and the coupler mounting is different. The coupler was 'cocked' and the poor guy was adding washers to all of his cars to make them match the gauge! Of course when he brought his cars over, they were all too high and he had to start removing the washers. A look at his 'gauge' revealed the problem, and after a little file work, we had it holding the coupler 'square'.

Jim Bernier

[Anonymous]

Bob Knapp has good advice about the gauge. Personally, I use a "reference" freight car with couplers that I have verified by measurement to be at the correct height.

[jfugate]

I agree with the advice given here.

When the coupler is too high, the easiest thing to do is to get a #40 series coupler with the shank offset high, causing the coupler face to be lower. Alternatively, shim the coupler box to lower it.

I recommend against the 30 series couplers. They use a plastic shank instead of a metal shank, and I've stopped using them because we've had the plastic shank fail. The 40 series couplers have a metal shank, which is much better.

[rrinker]

Unless you have an Athearn or other unit where the frame is grounded to a rail. Then it's either a 30 or a 40 series and a plastic screw. One way or the other, some plastic has to be in there with those locos, otherwise if you couple two up back to back, they will create a short through the couplers.

--Randy