I may have missed this earlier, but do any of you have any thoughts on mounting Kadee 803's on the On30 Climax. I've converted the engine to On3, and the couplers need to be mounted in the top slot to match the other On3 rolling stock. I think I can chop apart the shank and file it down to fit in the slot, but I'm wondering if someone has a better idea.
Check this site:
http://www.foothillmodelworks.com/ (http://www.foothillmodelworks.com/)
The first page that comes up might have the solution to your problem.
I have a pair on order to address a similar problem as I raise all of my couplers to the On3 height as well.
It seems like a reasonable solution at a low cost and less work than carving up a casting or filing down a shank of a 803 KD - both of which I have done.
KC: Thanks for the link. That looks promising, though the conversion is for the HO couplers rather than the 803 On3 couplers. Maybe I can adapt the casting to suit.
Actually, while the castings are for HO scale couplers, it is meant to be used to aid in the process of raising couplers to On3 coupler height on models where this is not quite possible.
The Rio Grande used really large couplers but most narrow gauge railroads did not. Many had different coupler heights due to a variety of reasons. The prototype used these kinds of knuckles to resolve the problem.
This little kit/adaptor, is meant to do the same thing. If you look in one of the photographs you can see how much lower the coupler is mounted on the Bachmann tender yet it is able to couple with a coupler mounted at the On3 coupler height.
Should have explained things better.