I have now 2 Aristo box cars, and they both have plastic wheels and Aristo couplers. Since the Aristo couplers do not play well with the USAT truck mount couplers on other cars and on my USAT locomotive ( no I don’t mean my loco has truck mounts), What would be the best way to replace the wheels and couplerS? Would it be easier to get some USAT trucks with couplers or should I start convert the 2 Aristo’s to body mounts? Begin the switch everything to Kadees now? Looking for ideas, thoughts and suggestions, besides the sell me the 2 Aristo’s. If nothing else I would like to switch to metal wheels, since I live in AZ and the plastic ones would probably melt to the track in mid summer.

USA 50’ boxcar on the left, Aristo boxcar on the right, obvious problems #1 USA coupler droop, any quick fix for that?

#2 Mismatched size and heights, first non flat area will have un-coupling problems. The actual bodies look to line up well if I decide to make a switch to Kadees. Which Kadee coupler works best, I hve seen here where the #1 coupler looks more to scale.

Kadees now if you are just starting out!

Metal wheels are worth the effort!

Just my 2cents!

On the left hand boxcar, it looks like when the knuckle couplers were put on the slight tab was not filed flat. It looks like there is a small tab pushing that coupler down. If you fix that, then whenever you couple USAT to Aristo you just have to lift the USAT to sit into the other. The Aristo has a small square piece on the bottom that hits the USAT couplers. Other than that, before you start changing, they will mesh fine.

Pete,

I have changed my USA cars to Aristo couplers, they work well together. I have too many cars to change to Kadee.

If you don’t have to many cars, Kadee may be the way to go at this point.

Metal wheels for sure, I use them in AZ on all cars.

Kevin

If you have a small fleet, NOW is the time to start the conversion to KaDee, if KaDees are your long term plan. I started after my fleet grew to a size where I could not afford to change them all over at one time. JMO

Yes, I also would start the conversion to metal wheels now too. Bachmann metal wheels will work just fine in the Aristo trucks.

There is no reason to swap out the Aristo trucks for USA trucks. If you go body mount couplers, the Aristo truck can be modified, the coupler support can be cut off.

If you have broad enough curves, body mount is the way to go. I went truck mount, and they work fine for me, but I don’t do any major switching, nor backing trains through switches.

The #1 couplers are smaller and more to scale. But I know they could be an issue on my track. I have a few sections where I can watch the couplers slide up and down in each other, and smaller couplers could, possibly, slide out of each other at those locations. So if your track is less then perfect, I would suggest using the “G” couplers. JMO, YMMV.

If/when. you start going to KaDees of any flavor, get the KaDee height gauge. One end has an anvil shaped tab that should just barely slide under the floor mounting pad for the body mount couplers. The other end has a KaDee coupler on it to check the height of the couplers. And get a strip of 1/8th thick strip-wood and keep it with the gauge. Laying the strip-wood across the rails, the trip pins on the couplers should just clear the strip-wood. Almost all of my KaDees had the trip pin set too low, and this can cause the pin to snag on switches and grade crossings.

Kadees, a bit at a time. The Aristo are ugly, and will wear and start pulling apart. The USAT are mounted at the wrong height, and they hang up and need lubrication.

Body mount.

Greg

Can I have your old couplers? I don’t mind those plastic wheels either, I’m 10 degrees cooler than youse guys up there in The Valley of the Singed.

Yeah I’m 120 miles south, but elevated and thus cooler.

In a dozen years, with cars in a car barn year round when not running, never a soft one…

It’s not that they are a bad wheel, it’s metal ones have a couple of improvements; lowering C of G and cosmetic; look and sound better.

All I care about is their tracking. The sound card covers the missing clickety…

John

Pete,

I might be helpful to see article hosted for me by Greg E. on his Web site, title;

Kadee Body Mount Considerations

-Ted

Pete

USA couplers work with nothing out there except USA couplers. Aristo,Bachmann will work with most as will Kadee …

Hope that helps

Back when I started, around 2003, the USA couplers would just pop open, usually when my train was at the summit. So, suddenly, a cut of cars would come coasting down my 2.5% grade, and often times would derail on the curve at the bottom. I do not know if the newer USA couplers have that habit or not. But after a cut of cars did that, breaking off 2 stirrup steps in the subsequent derailment, I bad ordered all my USA cars and ordered my first batch of KaDees. So in my experience, USA couplers don’t even work with USA couplers, at least not on my 1:24 scale wood-side USA cars.

Kadee’s are far better than the “stock” couplers in my opinion. Do a couple at a time . You’ll be glad you did in the future.

First off I am shooting for no less than 10’ diameter curves, so sounds like body mounts will work , I do not anticipate getting any really long cars like auto racks or passenger cars.OK so if … IF I swap things out to Kadee Couplers, how do you decide which model to use is there a chart ot a something that says for a XXX boxcar use this # or do you just pick a part number then shim/ trim it to fit, not ever having done anything to any rolling stock, I guess I need to research things a bit more, before attempting railcar surgery.

Thanks for the help, now to research some ideas. keep answers coming the more information the better. The reason for asking about changing trucks, was simplicity, my thinking was if all stock was all , say USAT trucks with attached coupler that would be an easier swap( 1 screw) than modifying all the cars for body mounts, and the work involved. David is that how you did all your stock?

Edit to answer my own question, after a few frustrating minutes on Kadee’s web site I finally found the “G” scale couplers. Since all my stuff should be 1:29, I looked there only to find just traucks and wheelsets, finally clicked on the 1:20 link and found the "G " couplers and all the info on which works on what car.

Pete, I’ll guarantee that once you get your body mounts on, your rolling stock will be more reliable, even on 40’ cars.

On which to use, ask here on the forum, and Ted has done a ton of Kadee conversions all documented on my site, all under “Ted’s Vignettes”

https://elmassian.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=626&Itemid=803

One thing that will blow your mind on truck mount vs. body mount is backing a train of about 5 cars or more… dead reliable with body mounts, and many derailments with truck mounts.

But, again, if you get stuck, ask here. One last bit of advice, try to use the center set Kadees, not the offset. Again simple physics, you want forces transmitted through the couplers to be dead horizontal, offset couplers will tend to tweak the knuckle up or down.

Greg

Pete I went truck mount, not body mount. And I used the trucks the car came with. Almost all of my rolling stock conversions used the 831 coupler, mounted to the truck the car came with. The 831 coupler comes with shims, and sometimes I have to use a shim to adjust the truck mounted coupler, but I have many many more of those shims as surplus.

Most of my stock didn’t have pads molded to the underside for mounting couplers, and I didn’t want to spend time engineering pads. I wanted to get to KaDees on as quick and easy as I could. I also thought my curves could be a bit tight for body mounts. In retrospect, I should have gone with body mounted couplers, but its too late now. Changing over mt fleet to body mounts would be quite expensive.

David,

What brand truck is that shown in your picture?

Thank you,

-Ted

Well… Those trucks are from a conversion I did on some LGB EBT hoppers. So that truck is an LGB bolster with the Bachmann Vulcan side-frames. So its an LGBachmman?

Here is the list from Kadee

https://kadee.com/conv/g1list.pdf

Sean, it looks like many of those conversions are truck mounts. I see a lot of 831s listed there.

Most of the conversions focus on the many different locomotives and unique needs to install kadees.

Also, unfortunately, Kadee focused on bolt on conversions (makes sense from a sales point of view).

The reality that on rolling stock, a little cutting and a shim is normally all you need.

Since I am 1:29 SG, my rolling stock was pretty simple, bought almost all USAT Ultimate cars, where the body mounts just screw on. Also I have a lot of AML cars, and again, the kadees bolt on.

Greg

Greg, yea. But for body mount, what coupler would you recommend as the standard? The 830, or the 906, or what? In HO the “Standard”, fits almost everything, body mount was the number 5, I am just wondering what the large scale equivalent is, if there is one.