How to replace Kadee coupler on Kadee box car

[faraway]

I've got two new 40' box cars from Kadee (#4063/4064) with #58 couplers. Those smaller coupler don't couple as smooth as #5. Therefor I want to replace them with standard #5 couplers.
The problem is the way the couplers are mounted. I can't find a way to remove them.
I would be happy to get some advice how to open the gear box on that car (without a hammer or saw:-).

[scubaterry]

well I just went thru this myself yesterday. They are scale couplers. If you look closely you will see that the floor of the car is metal and as you look down at the coupler you will see a raised square of metal to the left and right of the coupler. There is black plastic in front of both of these metal squares. These plastic pieces are all connected to the coupler and have to come off together. what I did was pry against the plastic using the metal square as a rest. Work both sides evenly and the entire coupler package will slide off. Once off bend both plastic ends downward and the piece in the middle should pop off exposing the coupler inside. The problem you will have is that the existing coupler housing will not fit a #5 as is. The coupler that came with it has a differant type of shank. There may be a better way to do this but this is how I finally got the darned thing off.
Terry[8D]

[SROC99]

Hello farawy,

First, the couplers in our freight cars are "not" #58 couplers nor will a #5 fit into the box.
The couplers are especially designed for the narrow gear box used on our cars and have a different shank and centering system than our other common #5 style of couplers. We market a modifyed version of this as the #78 coupler and the #2100 as a scale head replacement for the larger couplers (#5 size of head) of our earlier cars, so we do have the larger head coupler available.
The best thing to do is to contact me off line at [e-mail] and I'll tell you how acquire a larger head replacement coupler and how to disassemble the car to access the coupler assembly.

Sam Clarke
Kadee Quality Products

[BobZ]

Wow!  I just got my first Kadee car with those "special" couplers.  I love te cushion acion in the draft gear.  My mistake was not knowing I needed to remove the spacers above the trucks.  When I checked the coupler height, the coupler was high so I proceeded to take off the draft gear cover to replace the coupler with a top offsett one.  It was then that I noticed the spacer above the trucks that needed to be removed.  By then it was too late as the coupler was out and the spring was ourt also.  After much trial and error, I was able to re-mount the spring and coupler.  Ouch!!!  Why isn't there any instructions with the car regarding this???