Horn Hook Question

[JeremyB]

Hi Guys

I use Horn hook couplers ( sadly ) and as you all know there very unreliable I have a problem with them uncoupling when going around curves does anybody know how to fix this? I would love to switch to Kadee but I have about 120 freight cars and that would be quite expensive and take a very long time to convert them all.

Hope to hear some feedback

Jeremy

[Anonymous]

There are many less expensive alternatives to Kadees. Accumate, for example. Often less than $2 a pair. Take a look.

[eastcoast]

On many older models, knuckle couplers are not possible
without reworking the car extensively. I still have hornhooks
on many of my pre-90's rolling stock. I keep a good supply
on hand to replace and fix problems as they arise.
No shame in having any product,old or new, on the
equipment you run. JUST HAVE FUN, and enjoy.

[JeremyB]

are they compatiable with each other

[eastcoast]

Hornhook and knuckles ARE NOT compatible together.
Most knuckles are mnra standard and fit each other.
Same for the hornhooks.

[swknox]

Can't really answer the question unless I'm there to see the problem... It could be any number of things. But you said you could not convert to knuckles because of price... McHenery offers a huge pack of knuckles ( I think at least 30 per pack, but could be more or less as its been a while since I have bought them.) for around 20 bucks. If you have cars with the standard pocket for knuckles and hornhooks (also known as X2F.) this should not be a problem and the rewards would out weigh the price. But if you have the cars with the hornhook attached to the wheel set than you can't convert with out major reconstuction.

[Trainnut484]

Alot of factors come into play here. How long are your trains? If you can outfit just some of your cars with knuckle couplers, and then have one car be a converter car (horn hook on one end and knuckle on the other), that may solve the problem. Also the converter car will help ease (financialy) the transition from horn hook to coupler by allowing you to use locomotives and rolling stock that still have horn hooks, while you outfit more with knuckles.

Hope that helps[:)]

Take care

Russell

[Anonymous]

Check to see if the coupler's return spring is working properly and the coupler moves freely. I would guess that that's where the problem is.
As with any type coupler, if the return or centering springs are working properly and the heighth is correct, it will opperate reliably.

[Anonymous]

You don't have to convert all your cars to knuckle couplers at once. You can do it over time and spread out the cost. I was in the same boat as you about ten years ago. What you do is to create some transition cars that have a hook-horn on one end and a knuckle on the other. Then you can run cars equipped with both types of couplers together until you get all of your cars converted. Once I started converting cars, I established a rule that any new cars I add to my car fleet would immediately be converted to knuckle couplers when I built that car kit. That way I wouldn't be adding more hook-horn coupler equipped cars to my fleet.

In short, to convert a car with truck mounted hook-horn couplers to body mounted knuckle couplers involves cutting off the hook-horn couplerboxes from the trucks (the trucks can then be reused on the car). Remove the car bode from the frame/floor. Then mount a Kadee #5 coupler box (comes with the #5 couplers if you buy the individual 2-pair packs of #5 Kadees) to the frame of each end of the car (Note: when I converted my fleet to knuckle couplers, Kadee was the only manufacturer of working knuckle couplers). I used one of the Kadee #5 coupler boxes to position and drill a hole for the 2-56 screws that I used to mount the coupler box. Sometimes I had to put a notch in the end of the steel weight to allow room for the 2-56 screw and nut. Always use a Kadee coupler height gauge to vertically position the coupler. On most of these cars the coupler box will have to be raised or lowered. How to do this on each individual car is the tricky part as you will have to use different methods on different cars (I won't go into further detail, as it would take too long). As a help, Kadee's 20 and 30 series couplers includes overset and underset shank couplers that will fit into a #5 coupler box. The 20 series couplers also include a talgo truck mounting kit, which will allow you to mount a knuckle coupler into one of the truck mounted hook-horn coupler boxes (I would only do this as a last resort, and this only works on certain designs of hook-horn coupler boxes).

For Athearn (and others) that have body mounted hook-horn couplers, simply drop a #5 into the same coupler box. Always check coupler height as it often will need to be adjusted.

Finally, use a trip pin pliers to adjust the trip pin height per the coupler height gauge.

While I had the car apart for the coupler convertion, I also painted the steel weight black to keep it from rusting and to camoflage it. In addition, I installed metal wheelsets, and weighted the car per NMRA Recommended Practices. I used automotive self-stick wheel weights obtained in bulk through mail order from JC Whittney.

[rogerhensley]

The NMRA has a Beginner section that has a page on installing Kadees that might help.
http://www.nmra.org/beginner/couplers.html

The previous message has some very good advice. When I converted I had a couple of conversion cars and cabooses and took several years to make the complete change over.

[BRAKIE]

Jeremy said:I use Horn hook couplers ( sadly ) and as you all know there very unreliable .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy Nothing is farther from the truth concerning the X2F coupler then that statement..You see I used them for years as that was the common coupler during that time period..
The X2F (horn hook) coupler will work..They must be adjusted to the correct height just like the KD coupler..They must be body mounted for them to work right..Truck mounted X2F coupler like you would find on train set cars is doom to fail from the start..The X2F coupler are far superior to the KD wanna bes you find in todays car kits as those coupler will fail with little or no use.I have had the coupler plastic spring to fail just by testing them lightly with my finger..

[BRAKIE]

I forgot to mention..You may want to try the Mchenry couplers that has the coupler knuckle spring like the KDs. As for uncoupling the X2F there is a old trick we used.
We would use a small flat tip screw driver to uncouple the cars by lightly twisting the screw diver between the couplers ..I still used this method with my KDs.

[cnw4001]

Hi,

My exprience in switching from Horn-Hooks has been mixed. Some cars work very well but others are a disaster, My Con-Cor MHC's won't stay coupled with the KD's despite shims and other efforts at getting the couplers to align. They tend to ride up and over the car to which it is coupled because of "play' in the coupler pocket, even with shims. When you shim enough to get rid of all the "play" the coupler itself is rigid. The new Mchenry couplers for passenger cars makes converting them easier than all the complex mounting hardware of KD's.

I could go on and on but here's what I do, I convert strategic cars as "conversion cars" and then run the others in fixed blocks with horn hooks. Drives other club members nuts but guess what, the trains stay coupled as opposed to the constant uncoupling of the knuckles.

Dale

[michaelstevens]

JeremyB,

I also have a large collection of HO cars and locos, which came with (original equipment) horn-hook couplers, have #8220;talgo#8221; trucks etc.. No matter how well adjusted and lubricated, they may be; there is always the chance that they will disconnect and usually at an inaccessible location, on the layout.

Here#8217;s a solution (perhaps I should patent this) which I use to lightly and loosely #8220;lock#8221; a pair of couplers together.

Take light gauge (e.g. 14) malleable wire and a ¼#8221; wide pair of needle nose pliers.
Grip the last ¼#8221; of the wire and bend to 90 deg.
Grip up side of the bend and bend again.
Keep going until you have completed a ¼#8221; square #8220;link#8221;, then cut it free.

Hang the link on the horn of one coupler.
Manipulate the second coupler (by picking up the car) so that the horn passes thru the link and the two hooks become engaged.
Re-rail both cars and you are in business.

Uncoupling, of course requires picking up at least one of the cars, to reverse the process.

I find this system especially effective on a push-pull passenger consist or on loco lash-ups, where I may want to keep locos paired together, for extended periods.

Good luck.

[michaelstevens]

Does anybody know why those numbers sometimes show up, when you "copy and paste" your message in here from "word" ?

[Morpar]

The trick I used to do was cut the horn-hook up so it would hook up to the Kadee coupler. If you cut the "horn" off, the will mate up and not need a "coupler car". The only thing you are losing is the ability to just couple the horn-hook to the Kadee. In other words you will need to use a small screwdriver to get the two different types to mate, or to get two horn-hooks to mate. Good luck

[michaelstevens]

JeremyB,

I've been itching to hear, since Sunday -- did you try my suggested solution ?

[Anonymous]

michael...

I would think that if the MSWord document contains characters that can't display here, or aren't available, you will get the "character code" instead. Sometimes, you might get an empty box shape.

Andrew