Adding a Screw to Athearn Coupler Box Clips
#1
(03-14-2022, 07:28 PM)BR60103 Wrote: Tom:  Could you do a description of how you modify the Athearn cars to put screws in the couplings?


Here is the promised thread.

Over time I have grown frustrated with the Athearn Blue Box kits and their coupler box clips. I have had them fall off numerous times during operating sessions. I find couplers loose in the box. I have even had a couple of cars lose their couplers just sitting on the layout.

As part of my tuning up program I have begun adding a screw to the coupler clip to keep it from falling off. The following is how I go about doing it.

Here is the car I am going to modify. An undecorated box car I painted and used dry transfers to make it a New Haven boxcar.

[Image: XC48rNv.jpg]
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
My Rail Images Gallery
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#2
Before the conversion begins

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First remove the truck

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Remove the coupler clip and coupler

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For the drilling I am going to use a No. 50 Tap Drill

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I am also going to use the A-Line Bulls Eye Drill Jig to guide the drilling. This jig was made especially for this purpose

[Image: mcZBtVa.jpg]
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
My Rail Images Gallery
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#3
The drilling begins

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Drilling is complete

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Now I am going to a 2-56 Tap to tap the hole

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Tapping the hole

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Insert coupler and flat spring

[Image: IFDzR5s.jpg]
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
My Rail Images Gallery
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#4
Put the coupler box clip on

[Image: sb2zjrm.jpg]

These are the screws I am going to use. A-Line 2-56x1/8. These are recommended by the jig instructions

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Screw added and coupler checked to make sure it moves freely

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Put the truck back on

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Check coupler height

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Conversion completed
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
My Rail Images Gallery
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#5
Nicely done, Tom, but I don't think I've ever had an Athearn clip-on cover fall off. 

Most of them ship with the open portion spread just a little too much - the cover will sorta clip into place, but if subjected to a little rough handling, either in a train or in the box, it can easily drop off. 
Once I realised that the sides of the clip-ons were not at right-angles to the cover, I used small smooth-jawed pliers to adjust them properly.  Once they're squared-up like that, the cover needs to be pushed onto the coupler pocket straight down (not one side , then the other) as that often re-spreads the sides of the clip-ons.

There were similar problems with the early Accurail cars, too.  The cover for the couplers was a flat piece of black plastic with a pin (part of the plastic cover) that was supposed to fit into a hole in a nub in the coupler pocket.  It often wouldn't seat properly, leaving a gap between the cover and the coupler pocket, and with the car either in a train or in its box, it didn't take too long for the lid to drop off.  After a couple of incidents like that, the cover often simply dropped out, as every time it was inserted or removed, the hole simply got looser and looser.

To fix it, I cut off the mounting pin, then drilled a hole where it had been located.  I used the same drill to enlarge the hole in the nub inside the coupler pocket, then tapped it to accept a 2-56 flathead screw. 

Later, I began using a larger drill bit (usually the same size or a little larger than the diameter of the screw's head) so that the screw's head was mostly countersunk into the coverplate, making it a lot less noticeable.

Wayne
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#6
Interesting thread and good modeling technique.

But I agree with Wayne.  After two or three fallen cover, I learned to adjust the sides of the cover, either with a plier or more simply with my fingers, so it won’t fall anymore. For plastic or resin covers I use small tabs of "Canopy Glue".  The cover will stay in place but the glue can easily be broken if needed.

By the way, I like the finish on this car. Nice weathering.
Guy from Southern Quebec.
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#7
interesting I've learned like Wayne that the clips needed to be at 90 deg.  did have a couple of Athearn cars that the casting on the coupler pocket  were bad so i just drilled the center pin out till i could put a small wood screw in it.
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#8
Wayne you stole my thunder. Icon_e_biggrin

I was going to do a post on the Accurail coupler box cover because I do the same as you described.

The other thing I do with the Accurail cars if they use a pin to secure the trucks is I tap the hole and use a 2-56 screw to secure the trucks. I think it is 3/8 long. Accurail sells the screw for this purpose and for the coupler covers.
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
My Rail Images Gallery
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#9
Thanks, Tom. The first Athearn kit I made had screws in the coupler boxes. (It also had those rubber plugs instead of truck springs.) ca 1957-58.

I found that the metal clips liked to scrape off the plastic nubs on the side of the box.
David
Moderato ma non troppo
Perth & Exeter Railway Company
Esquesing & Chinguacousy Radial Railway
In model railroading, there are between six and two hundred ways of performing a given task.
Most modellers can get two of them to work.
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#10
My first HO scale trains came from a variety of makers:  Globe F7 diesels, a Varney metal boxcar, two plastic Varney hoppers, one covered, one open, and a plastic Varney tank car, along with an Athearn all-metal 50' flatcar, an MDC cast metal low-sided gondola, an Authenticast depressed-centre flatcar, and a Silver Streak caboose.

All of them had Kadee K-type couplers, in metal draught gear boxes with rivetted-on cover-plates....

   

Most of the draught gear boxes were held in place with Pliobond contact cement, and/or cut-down straight pins in drilled holes.  The one exception was the Athearn flatcar, which was stamped metal with a balsawood underbody.  It too had the Pliobond, but the cut-down straight pins were simply pressed into the balsawood.
I still have all of those cars, although the flatcar and caboose are not in use.  The A-B-B-A diesels, originally in Santa Fe "Warbonnet" colours, were later painted in CPR grey and maroon, and then later again, re-painted in EG&E double grey and green, now all long gone.

Wayne
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