OK, My P2K switchers arrived, along with 2 packets of Kadee #5's, so I sat down to fit them to my bachmann rolling stock. Good grief! After much messing around, cussing, and throwing out those little copper spring clips, I got one to work kinda sorta. Roght on the mark for the height guage, BUT, I found it was striking the magnet uncoupler. DOH! Checked the height and everything seemed fine. Off to the LHS here in Bendigo (regional Australian LHS's are rare, and good ones are even rarer. Wifey even came along (wonder if the dress shop across the road had anything to do with that??). Well, Charlie was a great help...he told me not to use the #5's and to go with the special 'spring clip' metal couplers. Rather than buy one outright, I decide to go home and bring in an example...off I go, with absolutely nothing except 2 dresses that got slipped into the backseat somehow..... Go back with ALL my Bachmann and kadee stuff (wifey didnt want to come this time for some reason). Spent an hour there with Charlie diagnosing just what the heck was wrong with these things and eventually decided to cut the truck mounts off the whole lot of em and convert to body mounted. This is all using stuff I already have (also have a lot of kadee box sets). Charlie was a great help, and I ended up spending the princely sum of $30 (sheet PVC and ABS). What I'll do in this thread is take photos along the way of my conversion. So far I've done one end of one cr and it works an absolute treat. I'll do one end of each car and show the 'before and after' shots with a couple showing the parts I cut and how I attached them. Can anyone tell me how to post the images here? LMAO
disisme, A word of warning, if you are using the Bachmann trucks and body mount the couplers you are going to find the #5's too high . The Bachmann truck has a higher bolster center that gave the truck mounted coupler clearance from the car but put it at the right coupler height. If this happens you will either have to go to an overset coupler or change the trucks. I use MDC trucks when I convert cars like that to body mount couplers, I just fill in the hole, drill and tap for a 2-56 screw.
Ahh, most of these are a pretty good height, but I will have to 'cheat' a little on some of them. I am using the kadee draft box, and will 'layer up' some ABS plastic beneath the box to get the right height. I jsut finished the first car and it went surprisingly quickly, and pretty damn well, if I must say so myself. Pretty good for someone who totally lacks creativity. Now, since I rebuilt my puter, I have to download my entire domain from the net before I can post the pictures....<sigh> 10 minutes to rebuilt the couplers, 3 hours to post the pictures.
woohoo...ok, pictures are up. bachman trucks - kadee body mount conversion Page may take a while to load all the pics... I put em all on one page. This is a 40' hopper. The box cars etc are all pretty much the same, but I have a tank car and a Cabbose that are going to require quite a bit more work. I'll do seperate pages for those guys.
Disisme, I don't want to sound like I'm telling yoiu what to do but,,, I f you spend a dollar or two more and buy better cars, like Athearns, MDC or Accurail, you wouldn't have to do all that extra work. The only thing I use Bachman or Model Power cars for are background scenes or cut them up to Bash something. Just a thought!!
Disisme, I'm glad that one worked out good I hope the rest are that easy. I got a bunch of Bachmann, Tyco, and such type cars at a flea market for 5.00 and some of them are good models nee the trucks and couplers, so I did just that to them and they are fine additions to the freight car pool. Look just as good as Athearns.
Andy, I agree whole heartedly that it would be easier to buy new cars, but not only is my wife the household accountant, she is a 'real' accountant too....makes it about 10 times as difficult to buy new stuff. After buying 2 new P2K loco's, you think I'm gonna get new rolling stock? LMAO. I took her into 2 railroad stores yesterday and she was extraordinarily disinterested in anything that cost more than $5..... Brian, I'm halfway through what I think is the trickiest of them all...a Shell tank car. The underframe is fairly intricate in regards to steps and various bits and pieces, so I've effectively 'carved' a new undertray for each end. Beause it required 60 thou for the undertray, I made a template out of 10 thou ABS, then carved the 60 thou ones from that. I then 'layered' a 60 thou section that matches the size of the kadee coupler box onto the undertray using MEK. The coupler box housing will then be MEK'd to that piece. I've done half of it and it is perfect for height again..... just luck that it happened to be 2 x 60 thou. Its when I get one thats 30 thou that I'll have to be a little more intricate and multi layer my ABS sections (I have huge sheets of 10, 20, 40 and 60 thou) so I can just about match any thickness. A coupler thats less than 10 thou high or low sure isnt going to kill anything. One thing of particular note in regards to my #5's. The lower arm that goes down near the track tends to be too 'straight' on the majority of them. This means, if the coupler is a perfect match for the height guage, the arm strikes the guage base or delayed uncoupler magnet. I have had to do a little judicious bending of the arm, just at the tip, to 'round it off' some so that if it DOES just touch, it strikes with a curved section rather than the blunt end of the shaft (car insta-stops if it strikes head on, but just makes a 'sssh' nose if it strikes with the curve, without a derail). Yes, I am running code 100, so the height guage SHOULD be correct. Either way, I am trusting my own judgement and making the modification to the arm rather than the coupler height. Will take more photos and post the tank car conversion in a while...batteries charging on the digital camera... [ 22. August 2004, 02:51: Message edited by: disisme ]
Disisme, I hear ya on the WATCHER OF THE PURSE STRINGS!! I have one here too. On that lower arm, It got to the point I was adjusting those all the time so now I do it before instalation no matter what. I think Micro-Mark even sells a special pair of pliers to do it!
muahahahahaaaa, I am soooo bad. The wife went in to hospital for surgery on Monday, and being a caring sharing person like I am, I bought her a gift...some very nice decorative jugs for her display case. Well, she needed to nap, so I said 'ok, I'll jsut go to the train shop to fill in some time'.....and bought myself 6 Proto 2000 box cars. Then I just told her they dont give refunds, just credits, and I'd probably buy the same things with my credits anyway, so I might as well keep em.... and they WERE $70 cheaper than her jugs......LMAO. Got clean away with it too. Anyhoo..... That means I still have to convert all these cars anyway, because now she can use them on her christmas train Heres the 8000 gallon tank car link : 8000 gallon tank car conversion Now, onto the caboose! [ 25. August 2004, 10:04: Message edited by: disisme ]
