"Is there a way"

  Those old couplers were an attempt to standardize the HO scale coupler in the days when manufacturers had many different types.  Turned out they were not a long term solution as Kadee made a better coupler that eventually became the preferred coupler of most experienced modelers. If you like the old cars it's possible to cut off the truck mounted couplers and body mount Kadees , it takes some experience to develop the skills needed to make it easy but it is interesting work. The other option is make a few transition cars with Kadees on one end and the old couplers on the other then run the old cars in cuts with the transition cars on each end of the cut. Some of the cars like reefers and hoppers would often be run in cuts of the same type so they would look realistic running this way. The easiest option is probably to sell the old cars and replace them with old Athearn or other cars that had body mounts designed for Kadee couplers. There's lots of cheap older cars at swap meets and garage sales that will accept Kadee couplers as is so you might want to consider your time converting couplers on your old cars versus the time it would take to swap them for different cars. One last thing to consider is that body mounted Kadees work much better when backing up trains so there is a mechanical advantage to the effort..... .DaveBranum

Case by case coupler conversions...

Drop in conversions available

Look at the Kadee website( http://www.kadee.com), or in a Walthers catalog (I assume the conversion chart is still there).  There are a lot of different couplers designed for most of those cars you have.  Many come with a plastic insert designed to fit over the tiny pin on the cars, so that you won't have to modify anything.

While you can simply replace the couplers, I believe you will find that the cars are more reliable and less derailment prone if you take the time to learn to body mount the couplers.  You'll also gain some useful modeling skills which will help in the future.  Not only will you be able to convert older cars to body mounted couplers, but it will also give you more confidence to tackle other projects as well.

It can be done...

Take a look at these

I had picked up a grab bag of life like and various old rail cars with the similar set up that you had.  The guys at my LHS suggested giving these a try:

http://www.caboosehobbies.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=82697

They have worked well so far, and for only $8 per 10 pack, it is worth a try versus the $5 per pair of the kadee's.

There is a tool

There is a tool that can be used to drill and tap coupler boxes so 2-56 screws can be used to mount the lids and also secure the box for the couplers to the frame it comes in a kit and includes taps as well as drills and 2 nice brass alignment jigs one for the clearance bit the other for the screw hole. They work great, and can really make body mounting couplers easy, as well as allowing for maintenance when needed. They also do a good job of tapping the pin so a screw can be added to those little metal lids on the older Athearn cars thus preventing them from falling off.

After you have one of these little tools you will use it a lot as well as your truck tuner on your rolling stock and you will be amazed at the difference it makes.

I don't think that you will be damaging the cars value wise if you cut off the old coupler box and body mount the couplers as I see those things in the less than $5.00 a car bins at train shows all the time. With some work one can turn a lot of those very inexpensive cars compared to todays ready to run cars into some nice models.

I would initially see if KayDee makes a drop in replacement and if so try that, if the car functions on your layout the way you want you're done. If more work becomes needed you may still have not wasted your earlier efforts. You could also use accurail trucks with the addition of metal wheels and body mount the couplers and turn out some real nice models. The big hole from the removal of the other trucks can be filled with a piece of styrene rod and then drilled for the replacement truck screw.

Lots of ways to go about it but you may find that you end up using several methods to accomplish your objectives due to the variations in the freight cars.

Rob

Leroy

Kaydee makes bulk packs that are cheaper I think I am paying about $2.00 per pair when I buy them in bulk boxes and they also come with extra springs in the boxes as well for the knuckles. I am referring to the Whisker type with out boxes. One can also buy boxes by themselves as well as shims when needed. My local hobby shop discounts everything to some degree as well. If your in the Dallas, Texas area stop by Discount Model Trains ( in Addison ) the guys there are very knowledgeable and helpful as well and they have always stood behind their merchandise when ever there was a problem with anything. The price will draw you to their business the service will keep you as their customer.

Rob

If you do make the change

I have converted some cars and had good success. It can be a two step process and the results is a better rolling car and couplers that are worry free.

Often there will be a place where you can glue in a styrene strip to mount the kadee box. Carefully file the paint off to allow the glue to stick better. Then you can paint the new styrene to match the car or make it flat black. Mark the hole and tap, a 2-56 screw works good.

I take off the old truck and toss. Depending on the car, youll need to fill in the hole left for the truck to mount. I file off the plastic till its down flush with the frame then glue on a styrene strip to create a flat mounting area. The thickness will depend on the height needed for the coupler. Trial and error will give you the right height ( before glue, just stack a shim on top of a Athearn, Bowser or like truck ) Mark the styrene, drill and tap the hole, 2-56 screw holes the truck. Depending on the car depends on if I paint the truck mount, it cant be seen normally.

Ive converted covered hoppers, coal hoppers, boxcars and some tyco flats with good success. The cars have decent detail and once you get started converting them they can be done pretty fast. Granted they are not the detail as the new ready to run stuff but I bought some of mine for $1.99 years ago.

You will notice a huge difference in how they roll and operate. Well worth a few minutes work to convert.

Easy solution

Coupler Conversion

Stephen,

There have been some very good suggestions here and if you really want to keep some of these lower quality cars, then that is your pleasure.  It's great to know that people are still getting fun from these.  However my advice is for a further improvement to these cars, to make sure your fun continues by stopping them making your locomotives unreliable, or constant track-cleaning (which I guess you have to do all the time!).

My advice is that you either change the trucks to Kadee ones, or replace the wheel-sets with metal-wheeled ones (Kadee/Intermountain/Proto2000/Athearn etc.).  The reason behind this, is that plastic wheels create static electricity and this attracts all the gunk to stick to the wheels, which then gets transferred to your track and on to your loco wheels, making you locos stop and start without obvious reason.  If all you stock has metal wheels, you will find you will not have to clean the track so often (or with abrasives - as this also causes more places for the muck to gather).  This investment will result in more fun and better running locos (especially if you have any with sound).  

Have fun

Keith

Update.... On to Plan B....

Thanks again for all the suggestions... 

For my first attempt, I elected to tryout the "Scene Master/LifeLike Knuckle Couplers"  I have mostly LifeLike boxcars so I went this way for hopefully a quick fix for a couple cars to just get me running since they supposedly can be inserted into the old truck mounted coupler boxes without any modifications to the pivot pin...  Unfortunately the whiskers are too long and I had to cut them shorter so they would work even marginally well.  I put these in one end of two cars and I absolutely hate them...   They don't stay coupled very well to each other or the stock/Kadee couplers that are in our newer rolling stock..    With any weight behind them, they just won't hold, I have to limit the rest of the trailing rolling stock to just three or four cars or things become unreliable...

I am going to try the Kadee Talgo adapters before I start cutting and gluing, but that will be next if this also ends badly...

I also plan on installing metal wheel sets in these cars, so thanks for the suggestion there...

-Stephen

Kadee #5's work in old life like & tyco trucks

Budget, Time and Skill

I converted some of my old Tyco and Life-Like cars but the method differed depending on how much I liked/loved and how much money and time I wanted to put into each car.  I think the first thing to do is make sure the car is up to NMRA weight standard.  Another thing to consider is that you laid your track for fail proof operation.

The cheapest and fastest is to use the Life-Like Magnetic Knuckle Couplers, you might have to trim and sand/ cut plastic for them to work good. http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/lif/lif1427.htm You could also change to metal wheels, Kadees are good.

As mentioned here is where you have to think of how much time, money and skill you are going to put in to make the car work good.

Another option is to swap for Kadee Trucks w/Coupler, by taking out the old truck and filling in, drilling and taping for the new screw.

And finally if you feel comfortable is to add the coupler to the body and change the trucks for Kadee.  This IMHO is the best solution and a great dad/son activity and the most expensive and time consuming to get it right.

Experiment and let us know the outcome. Scott

New wheels (intermountain),

New wheels (intermountain), talgo adapters and a few pair of Kadee#148's are on the way...   We'll see what happens when they arrive, hopefully in a few days.

I am going to start with just one end of a few cars and then decide if I want to swap them all or just use the transition cars. 

I am going to replace all the wheels of the cars we run regularly and look at adding weight to them as well.  alot of them are fully glued shut, so those will require a little more effort to open up.

Our track is still a sectional track on the dining table.  Negotiations have started, but it's going to be a while....

light cars

I had a few light weight cars that would not come apart. I drilled holes in the bottom, pumped in some white glue and lead shot inside. Let the car sit level until the glue dries so the shot levels out on the bottom. I also have a bunch of horn hook equipped cars but will be body mounting new coupler boxes on them soon.

You don't want "talgo adapters"

You want to forget talgo all together and body mount all couplers.  With body mounted couplers, weighted car, and free rolling trucks, you can push the cars all over good track work almost as easily as you pull them.  Talgo mounted couplers always introduce side forces when pushing cars that tries to derail the train.  You also can't mix the 2 types except with transition cars with body mounts on one end and talgos on the other.  The couplers on a talgo equipped car will stay to the center of the curve while body mounted couplers will swing to the outside of the curves.  Building a transition car and then gradually changing over your fleet to body mounts until finally the transition car also gets changed over will allow you to continue to run all of your equipment for long trains without having to "break the bank" all at once with new coupler purchases for an entire fleet of cars.

It will work

The Good and the Bad...

... I received the new wheels, talgo adapters and Kadee#148's yesterday...

Good:  The wheels are fabulous.  They roll really nice except for a couple cars that I just need to clean out the truck a bit so the wheel spins better.  I swapped out two cars last night and my son immediately noticed them this morning before school..  Tonight I swapped out most of the others.  I'm very happy with this decision.

Good:  Talgo adapters and Kadee#148.  I just got one pack of the 148s, so I took 4 boxcars and changed one end of each.  I took the two cars I had used the LifeLike knuckles on and did them first, and then chose two other boxcars.  What a difference!  They stay together great, they spring side to side great.  They couple just fine on 18" curves.  Yeah, body mounted would probably be better, but for a couple bucks, I have some good cars to allow me to slowly upgrade.

So-So:  While the Kadee-to-Kadee couplers are great, we a few new Athern/Bachman cabooses and those couplers are not as nice to couple up to the Kadees.  They work, just not 100%.  I may eventually swap those out as well...

The Bad:  Changing all the couplers with the adapters, I realize I really need to get some glasses.  It was a balancing act between too far away and clear, versus close and fuzzy...  Argh!

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

-Stephen

Coupler Conversions

Howdy to all great model railroaders,

I am in the process of converting some 75 to 100 rolling stock to body mounted Kadee ¨whisker¨ couplers #118 (kadee stated these would replace the #5´s I´ve used in the past).  I have several Life Like and Tyco locos that have talgo trucks.  I want to change these to body mounted as well as the rest of my rolling stock which many have talgo trucks.  i have converted about 10 to 20% of my rolling stock to Kadees of which only a few have body mounted couplers.  The Tyco and Life Like engines have quite a space to fill in to take them down far enough to align with my Kadee coupler height gauge.  What I plan on doing is cutting off the talgo part with my Dremel tool and glue the part I cut off to the bottom of the frame and then mount the Kadee coupler draft boxes to that to align with the height guage.  What I understand is to glue the draft box lid on first with the little ¨lip¨ piece that will protrude upwards against the frame.  Then drill and tap for the hole for the screw.  I hope I´ve got this right.  I learn from reading especially posts from other successful model railroaders.  I know from experience that backing cars with talgo trucks is a nightmare.  One of the railroad clubs won´t let me run on their tracks unless all couplers are Kadee (and have to be body mounted) and only with metal wheel sets. 

So, I will have to purchase another bulk pack of Kadee #118s, some more draft boxes and lids (Kadee #242s) and a myriad of metal wheel sets.  I´ve looked at Intermountain, Atlas, Accurail, Walthers and Kadee and a few other wheel sets.  Now my question is what type (manufacturer) is the most economical ´cause I´ve got so many to purchase to retrofit all my rolling stock???

For all that I have gleaned from my reading, metal wheel sets don´t attract a lot of goo because there´s no electrical static built up on metal wheel sets as plastic wheel sets.  I hope I´m correct in stating this.  Also metal wheel sets roll better than do plastic ones.  Since I am retired I will have to save up for metal wheel sets because they´re cheaper by the bulk (say 100 wheel sets @ $69.99 plus shipping).  That´s a lot of $$ for 25 cars.  Almost all my rolling stock is either Bachmann, Tyco or Life Like with a few Revel and other off brands included.  I think I have only 4 Athearn engines and they all have body mounted couplers.  I have successfully converted a couple of my AHM locos to body mounted instead of talgo mounted couplers.  Actually this was easier than I thought.  When you cut off the talgo part, you must leave a little plastic to be able to clip the cover back in place.  That I found out when I converted my first one and did it quite successfully much to my surprise!

Thanks to all who post important information on sites such as these.  I read a lot so I learn a lot!

W Rusty in eastern Tennessee (modeling the Central of Georgia Railroad) ´cause I used to live in Georgia