Hi everyone. Hope you and your families had a safe and Happy Thanksgiving. My adult daughter has expressed an interest in having a N Scale train around her xmas tree in Hawaii. So I pulled together some Kato unitrack, an older Troller transformer and MT cars. I have an older Atlas Classic Rock Island (for Hawaii ) U25B still in the box but with Rapido couplers. It has a full pilot so no pilot conversion is necessary. I am trying to install a pre-assembled MT 1015 into it. Which the MT website says is the correct coupler. It was easy enough to remove the retaining clip. But after installing the MTs, they droop noticeable. The shims included in the package are too thin to improve the situation. I have done dozens of MT conversions in the past and never experienced this before. That are usually easy peasy to do. What am I missing? Do I just need to fashion a thicker shim out of some styrene? Anyone else experience this with the U25B?? Would like to get this pkg mailed today so it has time to get to Hawaii for xmas. Thanks! Mark
You will need a thicker shim. If you have thin styrene you can try that. You can also find some other household plastic "stuff" that you can use for shims. Some examples are take out soup lids, expired gift/credit cards, blister packing, etc. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Mine was an Atlas SD50.
Thanks for the reply folks. Hi John I did try the double shims but they weren't thick enough. Thankfully I have a supply of various Evergreen strene stock. After trying to slide in a piece of .060 styrene and realizing that I would need to drill a hole for the center peg and then touch it up with paint, I had the idea to look at how the newer Atlas locomotive mount their couplers. The new couplers are just screwed into the running board. So I cannibalized a couple screws off a newer Atlas unit and just screwed them in. I'll order a couple replacement screws from Atlas. My train package is ready for shipment to Hawaii in the morning! Thanks again!
Glad it worked out and was an easy fix !!! Grew up with the Rock Island in Joliet / New Lenox, IL. They had a hot shot train known as the "Salad Bowl". Endless PFE reefers with lettuce, etc from the West. Guess it will have pineapples and coconuts now, also !!! They were the first to bridge the Mississippi, so why not be the first to build a bridge to HI ??? You chose a very good locomotive. I have 4 for CRI&P and 2 for BN !!!
