Coupler Height Issue

[Irbricksceo]

Hey, so, I got my Athearn Streamlined Coaches running again now that I got new couples for them however I have an issue. They keep being separated from the locomotive every so often. The Locomotives that Drop them the most are my SY Mikado and F40, both of which have clear differences of height between the locomotive and the cars but all Locos have a small difference. Has anyone managed to alter the height on these locomotives?

[Doneldon]

brick-

All of the usual adjustments apply to locomotives as rolling stock except that you often can't shim or shorten truck bolsters. Once in a while you can with a diesel and you can certainly do whatever on a tender but most of your efforts will have to focus on moving coupler height with underslung or overslung knuckles.

First check the heights of your loco couplers. If you're lucky they'll be okay. That's good because it's much easier to adjust coupler
height on rolling stock than on locomotives.
                                                                    -- D

[rogertra]

brick-

All of the usual adjustments apply to locomotives as rolling stock except that you often can't shim or shorten truck bolsters. Once in a while you can with a diesel and you can certainly do whatever on a tender but most of your efforts will have to focus on moving coupler height with underslung or overslung knuckles.

First check the heights of your loco couplers. If you're lucky they'll be okay. That's good because it's much easier to adjust coupler
height on rolling stock than on locomotives.
                                                                    -- D

Get yourself a Kadee coupler height gauge and check the heights on all your couplers, locos, freight cars, passenger cars and then do as Doneldon suggests above.

As Doneldon suggest, adjusting heights on passenger and freight cars is much easier than on locomotives which, these days, are usually accurate.  Couplers on steam tenders can be adjusted upward and downward off-set knuckles as advised by Doneldon though I'd be surprised if the coupler height on the SY will be inaccurate. 

Couplers riding too high on passenger and freight cars can be adjusted downward by removing a cast on coupler pocket carefully with a sharp hobby knife or if screwed in place, by simply unscrewing and replacing it with a Kadee draft gear box and coupler and thin styrene to lower the Kadee draft gear box (Cheaper than off set knuckles) to the correct height.  The draft gear box and shims can be glued to the bottom of the passenger car with styrene glue.  It is usually recommended the draft gear box also be screwed to the car floor but I never bother and have had few, if any, problems over the past 40 plus years with draft gear boxes coming unglued.

Low couplers on passenger and freight cars can easily be adjusted upward using Kadee fibre washers sold for just this purpose.

These are dead simple adjustments and are very quickly learnt skills.  Once you've done the first car, the rest will be a piece of cake.

Cheers

Roger T.

[ALCO0001]

If the car coupler height is to low they make small washers that can be installed between the cars trucks and the body to raise the height slightly of the car to match the height of the coupler of the engines coupler also is a option to adjust if the car has body mounted couplers .If not then they should be installed.This is just one of many options.
Jack

[jbrock27]

These have all been topics of discussion here, oh, about a billion times.  Never mind out what's out there on da NET.

Anyone who is remotely serious about this hobby and odes not own a Kadee ht. gauge, is doing themselves a disservice.

[Irbricksceo]

The reason I was curious about the cars is, if anyone doesn't know, the reason these old athearn cars can go around tight curves is the trucks are Talgo trucks. While most would say Talgos look funny, I replaced the couplers with short-shank ones and so the couplers are partly under the body anyway, the result is they look faitly close coupled and about as nice as passenger cars can get on 18 inch. Granted, I usualy do freight as there is more to do but I still like to run these. and can do 18 inch radius. I'll look into the gauge later, see if I can spring and all that.

I took some pictures, it became immediately clear that the issue is the car's coupler is too high. I only would need to fix the front coupled on the baggage car as I always run them in the same order. I'll look into what you mentioned though how they would go on talgo boxes I;ve no idea, I'll have to ponder.

http://imgur.com/a/9Q1Gq

[jbrock27]

Not 100% certain it would be enough to do it, but have you looked into Offset couplers to replace the ones are too "low"?

[ACY]

For at least the front coupler on the lead car you will need to remove the talgo trucks and body mount a kadee using styrene to achieve the correct height. Will it still operate on 18" radius, maybe not...

[RAM]

You said you got the car to run again.  I don't know what you did to it, but did you change the wheels, if so did you use the correct size?

[Irbricksceo]

No changes to the wheels, just replaced the couplers maybe getting them to run was a bit inacurate in its usage. Now that I've discovered that the issue is that the cars themselves have couplers that are too high, I'll be looking into replacements, maybe look at overshanks or shims or something. I suspect its because these cars had X2F's originally. It was probably worsened by the fact that the new ones are McHenry Scale heads so they are smaller making the height difference more noticable. I'll start by looking to see if I have one with a larger head and go from there.

[Doneldon]

The reason these old athearn cars can go around tight curves is the trucks are Talgo trucks. While most would say Talgos look funny, I replaced the couplers with short-shank ones and so the couplers are partly under the body anyway, the result is they look faitly close coupled and about as nice as passenger cars can get on 18 inch.

Irbrick-

The issue with Talgo trucks is operation, not appearance. Granted, there are fewer problems with Talgos on passenger cars
than freight cars, but that's because passenger trains are backed and switched a whole lot less than freight trains.
                                                                                                                                                                         -- D