Coupler question: HO Walther's Passenger Cars with Athearn and Proto Locomotives

[AntonioFP45]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CP5415

I agree with Antonio, Don has come up with several good ideas.

The only thing i need to do now is work on my IHC cars, get them up to a decent weight & my Athearn GO cars to work on the couplers on them
Gordon

10-4 on that CP5415.

I've been loading BB shots into the open pockets on the floors of my Rivorossi cars. Once the BB shots are in place, I dump White Elmer's glue on them. It does add weight to the cars but I would prefer to make them a little heavier.

I'm going to take some "1 inch wide x 1/8 thick flat steel bars and cut them to "3/4 wide to fit the passenger car floors. ( Have to be careful as I'll be installing the IHC interiors--they're cheap but with paint and interior lighting they really make passenger cars stand out!

Cheers!

[Don Gibson]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CP5415

I agree with Antonio, Don has come up with several good ideas.

The only thing i need to do now is work on my IHC cars, get them up to a decent weight & my Athearn GO cars to work on the couplers on them - Gordon

GORDON: With IHC cars a few choice words and going to church helps.

There are two ways to go:
(1) plug in McHenry's and let them go forward - literally.
(2) bring them up to NMRA Stadards:

TALGO trucks - Body mount KD #46 couplers + JB#110 pads
31" wheels - need 36" + Cut away plastic 'brakes'
Add Teflon grease in journals
Add weights to NMRA 6.75 oz.

They'll now roll better, stay on the track , and allow you to back up, and match with better cars. YES, The paint job looks nice (but did the real RR use it?). Santa Fe never had Blue cars, D&RG didn't have Yellow.

[CP5415]

Thanks Don.

I just finished adding about 3.5 oz to each car & what a difference it made towards rolling!
WOW.
I already had added IHC metal axles & McHenry couplers.
No choice words, yet. & I had gone to church this morning.
I bought these suckers on sale $14 ea Canadian so I'm not going to complain about them.
I'll have to wait until I can try these out on the layout as my daughter just went to bed & the layout is just above her room.
Again, thanks for the info Don!

Gordon

[AntonioFP45]

CP5415,

What method did you use to weigh down your IHC cars?

Thanks!

[CP5415]

I used self-adhesive wheel weights.
I took the roof off of the IHC passenger car & placed the weights right above the truck.
1.75oz per side or 3.5oz per car.
I plan on trying them out tomorrow at lunch when I'm home to see how well it worked.

Gordon

[CP5415]

Ok, I cheated this morning & tried the cars out on the track this morning.
An improvement from stock but not as good as the Walthers cars or my modified Rivarossi cars.
My quest for even better rolling capability continues.

Gordon

[rexhea]

I hate to bring this forward, but I have an update to pass along.

From the man who designed the Budd cars. "All you have to do its remove the trucks and pu***he electrical contacts up towards the bottom of car. This should be enough to take care of the coupler height."

BULL ....! I think I will stick to replacing the coupler. [:D]

[Don Gibson]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BRAKIE

The best fix for the Athearn coupler is to body mount the couplers.Sounds hard but is quite simple to do.

I disagree. Since there are complaints here of the couplers are too high, this raises them even higher, and reduces coupler side / side play as well..

[Don Gibson]

UPDATE: Budd Cars and what KD's to use.

KD recommends #46. Some here find those couplers too high when used with Athearn engines. QUESTION: are the Walthers too high - or the Athearns too low?

ANSWER: Could be both.

1. Based on MY four Budd cars, 3 were right on and ONE was high (1/4 the coupler face)

2. The one that WAS high - became too low when a KD underset (overset shank ) coupler was used (#42, #49) What to do?

3.We KNOW Athearn's coupler are LOW -so that might be the easiest solution - since only 1 in 4 of my Budd cars are off. ANSWER?

(Depends on each car). SEE my new thread: DG

[Don Gibson]

Tampa Tonio, Chuck Walsh, and ALL:

NOTE: Since this complaint is concern's a mis-match between Walther's Budd cars and Athearn engines, I went to check out my new Athearn RTR GP-60's and CF-7's. Oui!

The Athearn engine's are all low, and only a few of the Walthers product's high.
What does that tell you???

[CP5415]

Don, I have 42's on my Dome car & 5's on my Athearn P42.
Sitting together, the couplers sit properly & after testing both of these, I find out that they run rather well together.
True, the Athearn couplers do sit a bit low but so does the couplers on my Proto 1000 RS11. So it's not only Athearn.
I will say that I don't have a coupler height guage yet so I'm only going by what my locomotives & rolling stock are showing me. The gauge is on my Christmas wish list.
The only locomotive that I have in my fleet that worked right out of the box was my Proto 2000 PA. Exact same coupler height.

I do plan to investigate this further.

I'm not trying to say that some ideas are better than others, please don't take it that way, I'm only saying that the 42's worked for me as they allow for close coupling that the origional couplers were set up for & still allow the cars to go around 22" curves at mainline track speed.

Gordon

[Don Gibson]

YOU are making Athearn's coupler height. your standard. OK, but putting a KD #47's in your Athearns is easier - and costs less when your cars ounumber your engines.

... back to lowering the cars to match the engine....
It works, as far as it goes, but ....Ever hear the expression about two wrongs making a right?

QUOTE: An improvement from stock but not as good as the Walthers cars or my modified Rivarossi cars...(Of course not) ... My quest for even better rolling capability continues.

The ONLY way these IHC passenger cars will run really well is by replacing the trucks @3X the MRSP of the car. IHC's roll pretty well. They're superior to the car. (I have some). When you get tired of couplers letting go. you'll pay more attention to the the coupler mounts..
D.G.

[CP5415]

Excellent point Don. I know what you are trying to say.
You are right, two wrongs don't make a right.
But on my railroad, 90% of all my freight cars are Athearn, Roundhouse & Walthers.
None of these cars have a problem with coupling up to any of my freight locomotives.
Since my passenger trains will not be broken up & each passenger consist will stay with the same locomotive I felt that I needed the coupler height on my locomotives to be the same height & that the Walthers cars had to be adjusted to fit the locomotives & only the car coupled to the locomotive will be changed on one side only hence saving me time & money.
My Kato business car has the same coupler height as my Athearn P42. It has problems coupling to my Walthers cars.
I guess I'm going to see if my LHS has a Kadee coupler gauge instock & get one.

Gordon

[CP5415]

As for my IHC cars, I tested them out in a train this evening.
Both were coupled directly behind the Athearn P42 & in front of both of my Walthers Budd cars.
Neither of them had a problem going forwards or backwards in this train.
I guess by changing one car vs 45 locomotives i figure I've save close to $30.

Gordon

[jrbernier]

Rex,

ISO9000 is not 'new' - Something the French developed, was run down everyones throat, and then the French exempted their own manufacturers if the product was only sold in France! The idea of ISO9000 is very good(standard set of closed loop processes) to insure a product will ship the same with each batch. The 'reality' is that marketing pressure always seems to win over any quality control.
I worked on several ISO9000 certifications in my job. Just another 'quality' item in the trash barrel(ISO9000, Malcom Baldridge Awards, Qaulity Circles, Qaulity Plus - I have put in a lot of hours on this stuff......

As far as model trains - I can 'fix' anything the 'Pacific Rim' sells. The couplers seem to have to be thrown away on most models anyway and replaced/remounted. I used to use the 'living spring' couplers until they failed. Now I pull them and put a 'coil spring' coupler in it's place; and usually wind up adjusting the mounting. While it would be nice to see 'perfect' coulpers/mountings - It is far better than the situation we faced 20-30 years ago. Progress has been made!

Jim

[TomDiehl]

The earliest advice on this thread was right. USE THE GAUGE. Recently, I bought several Walther's Superliner models. These took either #5 or #42 couplers, depending on how it met the gauge. There is no such thing as "this brand car ALWAYS takes this number coupler." Since I operate on a club layout most of the time, the standardization is a necessity. On your home layout, this will put an end to the question of which coupler is at the right height. All HO couplers are supposed to be centered 25/64 inch above the railhead.

[BRAKIE]

Again I highly recommend body mounting the couplers or use the KD coupler box mounted on Athearn's coupler pad..Both are easy to do if you have basic modeling skills and will be at the CORRECT HEIGHT..

[okiechoochoo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by twhite

You're right, Don, Athearn's couplers have always been on the low side--with the exception of some of their newer RTR cars from China, which are proving to be on the HIGH side--at least as far as I've found. But there is a problem with the Walther's passenger cars, and not only coupling with Athearn or Proto locos. I bought a set of the new 'shortie' passenger cars to go with my PFM Rio Grande Pacific--which is at the right coupler height--and low and behold, they are too high! Ended up replacing them all with the lowered head Kadees and they work just fine. The Walther's cars are body-mounted, so shimming them just isn't a possibility. Oddly enough, I just acquired a set of their Troop cars, and the couplers are fine. So I don't know what's going on.

I have just gotten into HO and have purchased a few Athearn RTR boxcars but not checked the coupler height with a gage yet.. What KD is the best replacement for the Athearn RTR cars to get them to the correct height. The LHS told me that replacing couplers on Genesis locomotives with KDs was almost impossible, is this true. I am talking about the F unit series. Thanks

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Don Gibson

OK Tonio (and Chuck Walsh):

. I used a NMRA Mark IV gauge since it's 'nuetral'. How many guys do you know that have a coupler installed in their NMRA gauge?

I can't say I do. I've stayed with the Kadee gauge and recommend it to anyone, even if you decide on using a different brand of coupler. The problem with mounting one in the NMRA gauge is that for accuracy, it has to be perfectly perpendicular to the railhead, otherwise the coupler you're using for a standard is going to be high (gauge tilted away from the car) or low (gauge tilted toward the car). And it don't take much of a tilt, remember your high school geometry. The base for the Kadee gauge hold it rigidly in the right position, and we're only talking $4.00 for one folks.

The whole line of this thread really baffles me. There's no consistancy in the coupler height (or wheel gauge for that matter) to say that any manufacturer's product has the right coupler height or wheel gauge right out of the box. NOT checking these things against an accepted standard is just asking for trouble down the road.

[bogp40]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BRAKIE

Again I highly recommend body mounting the couplers or use the KD coupler box mounted on Athearn's coupler pad..Both are easy to do if you have basic modeling skills and will be at the CORRECT HEIGHT..

I agree with Brakie on body mounting the BB couplers. Shimming a #5 or #30 box to the "EXACT" height will also allow you to permanantly add any pilot details you desire. Shell removal is now only a matter of coupler removal. Plows, footboards etc remain undisturbed. Many times you will notice that to origional cutout(buffer plate) of the pilot will need to be filled or just add a buffer plate to conceal. Note: when you body mount the cast frame lug needs to be removed.
As to the coupler height trouble that many seen to be having, all the Walthers cars I have are Pullman sleepers and heavyweights. Before they even see any track, the couplers were changed to #5s, grabs and other details added, and the axle journals oiled. Don't know if the origional plastic couplers supplied would have caused a height problem or not. Maybe the most discrepancy is w/ the Budd cars. If so Don has definately covered the bases as to a solution.
Bob K.