Hello everybody. I have an interesting question. I recently bought a store display "dummy" Anniversary Edition 4-6-0 loco(no tender) on Ebay to strip for replacement parts for my other two Anniversary Edition 4-6-0 locos( the cow catcher as two of the stupid, flimsy pins that hold the brake bar on were broken and the bottom of the chassis-don't ask about that as it's a rather embarrassing story about a hot soldering iron and me not paying enough attention to where I placed the bottom of the chassis when I was making a repair to the chassis wiring!) I stripped off the parts I needed and interchanged them with the other locos. The dummy still looks great even with the broken parts on it and , since it rolls easily, I want to convert the front dummy coupler to a functional coupler so I can double head the dummy with my other locos. The problem is that once I modified one of my spare couplers to fit in the pocket where the dummy coupler was, I found that the coupler was mounted much too high to mate with any other of the other rolling stock that I have. I can only seem to find offset couplers that would have to be mounted on one of my other cars, which would do the trick, but that means I could only use that one car when I wanted to double head one of my trains. I currently have seven working locomotives (8 counting the non-powered dummy) and it would be cool if I could get this to mate with all of the other locos. Any suggestions for a universal coupler mount to solve this issue?Or maybe an offset coupler that hangs down instead of up? Any help would be appreciated!
Hi
Here is a link to pictures of how I did it!
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,23753.0.html
Here is a rough video showing how it worked ot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaKoGZwCPpc
Good Luck,
Bill
Has anyone fit a kadee coupler to the front of a big hauler?
Mark,
I have not done it but if you get a kadee with the pocket on it the procedure will be the same as I used on the Bachmann coupler with the pocket. I am thinking that you might not need as large a hole in the pilot with the kadee. If you do it please post some pics of how you did it.
All the best
Bill
I have used Kadee #791 on my LGB Mogul pilots. I don't have access to a Bachmann BH, but it might be worth checking out.
Chuck
Thank you for your reply Loco Bill. I've ordered the part from Bachmann and have already started the conversion work. It should be ready to go as soon as the part arrives. Did you cut off the part that normally mounts by sliding into the mount on the truck and acts like a spring ? If so, then how is tension maintained to keep the coupler from disconnecting during operation with other trains?
Not exactly sure what you mean , but I did not cut off any of the tabs that provide the tension to keep the coupler centered.
Bill