many do have this issue. MTL had a bad run of couplers. Some of my recent box cars too. You'll need a new 905 coupler (but why should WE pay ?? ) First, they thought it was the spring as they had a bad run. Then some flash in the pocket. They wanted us to rebuild them (take apart, play or replace parts). Yeah. I want replacement couplers. Recent production in the past 1-2 months) have resolved the issue. If thus the INTITIAL release ones, they have this issue. If they are from the October/November releases, they should be OK (I am told). .
I have just today ( Thursday 29th ) received 12 reefers in 3 different RR markings and they all suffer from the uncoupling effect. I had to resort to twisting the coupler boxes ( body mount ) a few degrees to place the couplers past the centre line as that is the only way they will stay together. Unfortunately this makes it impossible to couple them up by just pushing them together. I might have a bit of a play with the "guard" that stops the opposing knuckle moving sideways too much, if i can reduce the gap then they might not come apart so easily. Bit of a shame really.
I just went out into my train room and tried a radical fix and it worked, i can grab one reefer and push and pull quite violently on the other 11 and they all stay together. I bent the guard piece of the coupler, thats the bit on the left when viewed from above and looking over the end of the wagon, as far as it would go to the right. You have to get the end of it inside the knuckle bit and up against the loop bit that the metal uncoupler goes through. It will spring back but the gap between it and the knuckle will be greatly reduced which will stop the two knuckles of the two adjoined wagons pulling apart. All my coupler boxes are straight ( see previous post ) and the wagons will couple up with just a gentle push together like all my other MTL wagons, they might be a bit more difficult to uncouple with the magnetic getup ( i dont use that myself ) but the "toothpic" system works well. Am happy now
It seems some old stock is still at the dealers. I just acquired #51800022, #51800031, #51800042, and #51800050. The couplers are not working on these four units. I also have all the meat-packers series... all their couplers work as they should.
I'm now having this problem with some of the meat-packers series. I'm studying the couplers closely. It seems the couplers are plastic. What is there to bend? Maybe I am not understanding some previous posts. Under magnification, it seems to me the coupler is not closing smoothly or is hanging up. The biggest difference I can find with the new couplers versus the old is the metal trip-pin. The old versions are round metal. The new version is squared. Seems the plastic of the couplers is slightly hanging up on the square trip-pin. I have thought about replacing all of the trucks and couplers with Bowsers, but even that is not so straight forward. The Bowser Bucklers' bolster pin is larger than the bolster hole. Plus, the added expense of replacing sixteen cars worth of trucks is not appreciated. :frustrated: Does anyone else have a preferred solution? hboy:
