rrinker
Those are older than the Geeps.
Acknowledged in last post.
The SD7 I added DCC to, it was the older one with the big board with no DCC socket, one of those "cut here" types of boards that I just tosss anyway. I don;t recall any coupler issue -
--Randy
Mine has a DCC socket; must have been a later run than yours. But it still has the Athearn frame coupler mount which is that hunk of metal that a plastic cover simply clips over the horn hook coupler it comes with; it works with the horn hook but only nominally.
I dislike those Athearn type coupler mounts that are same as the old Athearn blue box kind - and back when I bought those SD's it was most definitely an "issue" as I was pretty much a noob and didn't have specialy skills that some here take for granted.
One article in a magazine back then, possibly MR, recommended filing a lot of the metal off the bottom of that metal coupler "post" so that it's even with the Kadee height guage and then drill and tap it and mount Kadee's in the traditional #5 box. Not a user friendly solution as really you would need to remove the motor and gears or wrap them well to keep metal filings away, where there would be a lot of it. Expect manual filing would be a lot of work or speed it up with a Dremel and the file it nice and flat - good dexerity required. Not my idea of fun hobby time really.
There are probably other solutions but for beginners "user hostile" lets be honest. Of course all the mechanically inclined can over come it but it helps to be "handy". A good model RR engine shouldn't be sold this way and of course LL did change coupler mounts after that and rightly so.