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I've got 3 cars that have the old style horn hook couplers on them that are attached to the plastic trucks. 2 are lifelike gondola's. and the other is a PRR 6 axle crane. I want to convert them to kadee's, well maybe the to lifelike's I can do without but the crane is a must. What are my options in converting the truck to use kadee's? the crane is a bachman model.
Try this. I did it with a Tyco crane car back in the 80's. I removed the horn-hook put the Kadee centering spring and #5 coupler straight into the truck mounted coupler pocket. I put a small dot of Super Glue gel on the bottom of the centering spring so it would stay in place in the pocket. Failing that, you could always cut off the truck mounted pocket and body mount the Kadee draft gear box. This involves a bit more work and isn't something I would do on a cheap car.
I would really cut off the truck mounted coupler on the crane, making sure you don't damage the trucks. Use the draft gear boxes that come with the Kadee coupler kits. Checl that you can mount the draft gear box with the top lip at the edge of the frame of the crane and then check to see if the couple height matches the Kadee coupler height gauge. If you don't have one of these, get one before you do anything else since couplers that are too high or too low will cause constant problems. If needed, either shim the coupler box with thin styrene if the coupler is too high or try trimming down some of the end frame material on the crane if the coupler is too high.
There are two ways to attach the coupler. One is to assemble the coupler pocket with coupler and centering spring and hold it together with a few tiny drop of super glue. Once it's dry, you can then super glue the coupler box in place. The preferred methd is to drill and tap a 2-56 hole in the crane underframe and use a screw through the coupler pocket to hold it to the frame. Either method will work but a screw is a lot more secure, especially on a large item like a crane. The reason I'd recommend body mounting the crane coupler is that it will get backed a lot as part of a work train. Truck mounted couplers and long, heavy cars just don't mix. You'll be spending a lot of time getting your wrecker back on the track with your 0-5-0 crane.
What UP2CSX wrote is the best method, but for the Lifelikes I'd just use Kadee with the Talgo truck adapters. Look at a Kadee chart and it will tell you which coupler set to use on the cars.
I put a bunch of McHenry's and Intermountains on The Kids cheapie rolling stock when he was younger, using the Kadee talgo adapters.( I think the part number is #212 ) It may not be as good operationally, or as realistic as body mounting, but it's way easier. But they worked just fine!
Rotor
i'll try jeff's way first. I really dont want to hack up the crane. If I go with the draft box i'll definitely need to add a stack of styrene to it. But now i just need to figure out what the crane arm wont stay up when wound up that way. Keeps dropping when raised. Never did this before.
I have used the talgo truck adapters like rotor suggested with great success on several of my old LL and Tyco cars.
One problem I have run into when I have tried to add the draft box to the car body is I have found that after I install the Kadee coupler; the coupler rides too high. I have switched the #5 with the appropriate 30 series and that did not help. What I found is that the bolsters are too high so then I have to do surgery to the bolster and install new trucks.
Indeed, the talgo truck adaptors will work fine....as long as the train is going forward. If you have to back the work train with the crane and talgo trucks, you'll see why I recommned body mounted couplers for the crane.
This is a crane with six wheel trucks. It's relatively heavy and relatively long. It's much more akin to trying to back passenger cars with truck mounted couplers than freight cars. A 7-10 car train with 40 or 50 foot cars wouldn't be a problem for most talgo truck cars unless you're going through a switch. The crane will be a much bigger problem backing around a curve and will have a hard time even making it through something like a #6 switch. If you haven't expierenced problems with backing talgo truck cars through a switch, you either don't have any switches or you're the luckiest guy in the universe.
here is a pick of the crane. its not that long. I really dont want to hack up the train. Im going to try my best with the kadee talgo conversion. I bought a kit, i just dont remember which one. I wish I had brought it to work with me now so i could work on it.
Love the crane but that background is really cool !!! I would use the talgo conversion for the crane . It's just a work crane and I don't think your going to run a whole lot of rolling stock with it .
yea the background took awhile to laydown. all custom work lol!
the crane i do love. I had fixed the rope that is used to simulate the cables, but now the stupid crane arm wont stay up when the wire is wound up. I need to figure out a way to stiffen it up.
Try Viagra !!!! Just kidding Lol
yea the background took awhile to laydown. all custom work lol!
the crane i do love. I had fixed the rope that is used to simulate the cables, but now the stupid crane arm wont stay up when the wire is wound up. I need to figure out a way to stiffen it up.
Did it have a knob to run the crane up and down? My kid got a Tyco overhead crane, and it wouldn't stay up unless the knob was squeezed tight.
Rotor
I do have a knob in the box. But's stayed up without the knob. I'd have it up and use the knob to wind up the hook.
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