I totally dig the uncoupling animation, that was awesome! 😆 Excellent video.

Dan - really great video. As an amatuer video producer, it seemed pretty clear to me that you carefully scripted your presentation and thought out your videography carefully, resulting in a crisp, clean, professional video. The content is quite useful and provides all kinds of great tips and insights into the world of couplers.

The falling cars animation is worth the price of admission on its own!

Thanks for the informative video Dan. The animation of the cars going over the edge was hilarious!

Love the .010" shim on the B end of the Kato well car!!! This shows how much "excess vertical height" is required so that KDs (as designed in the early 60s) can BOTH center AND be consistently attracted to the KD uncoupling magnet! Note that many recent small-cube neodymium magnets now can ideally fit between the ties and when grouped in 6 or 8 or 10 can work just the same; no real need now to dig or go underground unless you want a 'powered' uncoupler. Whisker centering springs are more stout, more forgiving and "a slight bit more forceful" than than the older 60s era bronze tab ones. Bronze ones will still work but need a more "gentle tweeking" to get BOTH sides and both tabs balanced while respecting their wayward fragility. 85' to 89' cars on a vertical curve at a grade change prefer a gradual, long and smooth transition; in contrast, with an undesirably abrupt, short and sharp grade change, for two 'same-height-checked' couplers, you can really see one coupler head dipping well below the CL of the other on these foot long cars! Standard head couplers with their "slightly bigger face height" are more forgiving here compared to the scale head couplers. Lastly, I like and retain my coupler trip pins too for 99.75% of the time -- steam pilots and some modern, rounded observation cars being the front and rear exceptions. As such, some coupler trip pins can occasionally "rub against and snag the bottom edge" of some diesel snow plows, especially if that particular snow plow coupler was originally mounted with that "tucked-in-tight" look and if that "metal" snow plow was originally mounted "dangerously too low" to the rails. To compensate, I bend the pin so that it goes "90 degrees straight" down for about 1.75 to 2.0 mm "before starting" the curve forward and adjust the tip to barely clear the protruding horizontal KD gauge tab. All metal snow plows get a compromise .030" clearance to prevent shorting on uneven track and accommodate (not snag, not pin) any mating pin. The HO pin arc is a "fuller 90 degree turn" compared to the O gauge pin arc (which stops at about a 45 degree angle). This is because of the mass/length needed for the differing scales and for the differing pin sizes to be 'balance-attracted' to their respective KD uncoupling magnet(s) as Keith and Dale originally tested and designed nearly 60 years ago!

Assembly of 2004 couplers is easier if you leave the lid on the sprue to use as a handle,also put the uncoupling pin while knuckle is on the sprue

i allways add KDs to all my ho trains Thanks for the informative video Dan

2:07 this is the funniest thing I've ever seen in a train video.

Keep the informative vids coming,thanks

Thanks Dan. I have a few couplings to sort out myself...

Wow! Excellent video! I enjoyed the expressions on the cars as they went through various conditions on the road.

I really need to see this layout of yours sometime soon

great video idea! these are very helpful tips that i will probably try.

I cut the trip pin on the couplers flush with the coupler face to simulate air hoses.

Really excellent video. Thank you!

Thanks Dan - After watching so many of your product review videos, this tutorial is most welcome. I appreciate your clear and concise delivery makes it clear how to work "coupler magic" on my misaligned cars. Both of you stay well.

the information about couplers is so helpful, thanks Dan

I have some European trains on my layout, but those use tension lock couplers. Since I had some trouble getting tension locks with knuckle couplers, I wanted to swap out the European couplers with metal knuckle ones. I think I’ll test it out with some freight cars before I test it on some of my locomotives.

Sounds good, now I can get all of my old Tyco cars to play nice with my new Bachman set! Thanks

Bookmarking this baby. Thanks.

Excellent tutorial, thank you

Excellent video, hopefully this will get a ton of views. I will pass this on to anyone with questions about couplers.

Thanks for video! To my opinion,it's the best manual of couples mounting,I've seen hier !

Always enjoy watching your tips and techniques--thanks Dan!!

I wasn't aware that the Kadee height gauge would be used for checking body height on an HO gauge piece of rolling stock. Thanks for the tip. I hate talgo trucks. Cheers - TN

thanks for a very informative video Dan! Great tips!

Nice video! I've been looking forward to you making this for a long time! I learned a lot of stuff and I'm sure I'll use these techniques in the future!

Dan, I recently subbed to your channel as I came across some previous videos of interest, but I gotta say...this video was really fantastic. I know your doing HO scale, but when you did the wheel gauge video and included us N scalers and now another car maintenance video with the coupler height and again included us N scalers, I gotta say thanks. I actually wasn't minding sitting through the HO examples as sometimes we pick up techniques for any scale, but was really impressed when you gave the N scale some time. Glad I subbed, and will look forward to more of your great videos. Thanks for taking the time to make these and share the great info. Cheers!!

Great work Dan ! Thanks for sharing. Very helpful info.

Great video as always Dan! I’m relatively new to HO, so this is very informative. Can’t wait for more!

Excellent video, at first I thought "19 minutes to talk about coupler height" but being straight to the point as you were, allowed you to cover WAY more information than I was expecting. Got a subscription from me!

There have been many occasions on my 1:1 gauge railroad that we have had to shim a coupler to make a coupling happen because it was too low. It took more than .0001 of an inch to fix it too! LOL!

Thank you for taking the time to make this video Dan. I always learn a few things from you. Last night I finished watching your video on painting Santa Fe locomotive which was done a number of years ago. I am building an SP. 33c and I’m looking forward to your painting of the four engines you are currently building from the 90’s. Painting the SP red wings will be a challenge for me and I want to see your approach.

Excellent Daniel as always . . . Great video . . . bringing me up to speed one video at a time 👍

Nice. Great information and tutorial for this topic. Truly appreciate your contribution and knowledge for our hobby. 🚂

this was the best video out there on this subject thanks so much sharing I learned a lot from it. have a great day

5*presentation!! Thank you 😊

Daniel, thanks for the tutorial. I have been using a similar process for my rolling stock. I was especially interested in the 3-point suspension segment as something I should be more diligent about. Hope to see more videos like this one...Harold

Thank you for the video!👍

Thanks Dan this is the best video it helped me so much. I have been struggling now I know how to fix my problem.😀

Hi Dan, Great video, thanks for sharing. Can you show how you deal with the rear coupler pockets on N locomotives, more specifically Kato F unit's, E8/9 units or any other locomotives that have the truck mounted couplers.

This is great. Lots of great procedures and details.

Excellent informative video.

Great info, Dan, I'm learning.... :)

very useful information Dan, especially on how to update couplers out of true.

Excellent video

Excellent presentation!

Brilliant. Instantly subscribed.

Nice Work! 😊

A while ago my athearn dash 9 with the stock plastic coupler snapped and jammed into the plastic ties which caused quite some damage to a few freight cars and one of my other locomotive's coupler in front of it. Lesson learned to swap all my plastic couplers with kadee's.

Good stuff 👍

Very nice video tutorial 🚂

Very informative, thank you, great screaming freight cars😄

Informative video Dan, thanks. I recently got back into the hobby. I find it frustrating though that I spend decent money for rolling stock just to get it on the track and have to buy different couplers on it. I think I will just plan on putting all the same Kadee couplers on all my rolling stock. Seems like NMRA could resolve this problem though.

I may be a little late to the show, but I appreciate the vid. I bought a Bachmann engine, and its couplers are way too high. Thanks to you, I think I can fix that issue.

thanks , very helpful for a novice like me.

Good video

Nice video.

Hey Dan like your videos a ton. Maybe you can do a how to video of weights on models especially for HO, I need a lot of help in this department please thanks!!!!!!!

These are all great tips Dan! One thing I will add is that it may become necessary on some HO locomotives (Scaletrains and Athearn rtr & Genesis in particular) to have to trim the trip pins back on Kadee couplers because these locomotives have very close coupling clearances and the trip pins could scratch and/or damage details on the pilots. I actually talked about this when I did my review of Scaletrains.com's Operator C44-9W. Be safe and well!

New Fact for me. Couple gauge car height check.

Just think Dan after your layout is built you can have a RIP track so those little people can fix freight car couplers!!😜😜😜😂😂😂

Cute animations. Back when I started getting series about couplers in the 80's, most models were kit built so checking and adjusting coupler height was part of the model assembly and preparation for layout running. I've always left trip pins on but bend them up a tiny bit to prevent them from catching on turnouts etc. I've usually used the KD fiber washers to get coupler height up to match. In a few cases I have resorted to bending the shank but not to the degree you showed, only a tiny tiny bit. I've also added a bit of thin plastic to the draft gear box to fix coupler sag. Coupler sag seems all too common. The real pain are the newer Atlas RTR cars which had couple lift which is attached to the draft gear so there is risk of breaking to change out the Accumate for KDs. Filing the boss has always been a practice of mine to stop the rocking - it was just something that was common sense when no video's were available watch. Your video will help a new generation of noobs. All tried and true methods.

There needs to be a type of coupler that fuses the shank and loop of a kadee knuckle coupler with the connection point of a tension lock coupler so that I can run some combined trains without issue. ISSUE EXPLAINED: Right now I have some Bachmann Thomas stuff that I'm running but I don't have much TAF rolling stock, so I've resorted to flipping a knuckle coupler upside down and turning the trip pin backwards to hook a chain to it and then coupling the engine to said rolling stock by using a hook that sticks off the back tender. But this has recently caused an issue while going downhill in that it uncoupled itself and left the rolling stock stranded on the top of the hill while the engines ran off ahead of it. Needless to say it caused a minor problem as my system works perfectly well on flat track, but having a dedicated coupler to fix my old ho rolling stock would be a life saver. Or vice versa for the TAF line. I honestly don't know why Bachmann decided to go with that for their coupler type, it basically forces you to buy more of their TAF line or Hornby stock in order to run a halfway decent train. POSSIBLE SOLUTION: I need a tension lock coupler that can fit inside the draft gear box of another train, or a raised knuckle coupler to fit onto my engine. (I've tried to just replace the engine coupler but their height ends up being off, which is what led me to this video to begin with. Trying to fix that height difference.)

Great vid on how to adjust and get the right coupler height I was wondering would you do a review on any North American Railcar Corporation products from PWRS

Thanks for the tutorial Dan. This really helped me out since I have a lot of locos and cars with low or high coupler height. I have one question though. Who made the atsf 3751 model behind you? If it was brass , who imported it?

>A lot of the Kadee couplers are now plastic, and not that easy to bend. >Scale size Kadee's don't couple as reliably as #5s since they are narrower. Since they are not as high, they tend to uncouple more often--some railroad clubs have banned them. >While Kadees are the best, Accumate couplers are downright dangerous. They will uncouple inadvertently and don't delay-uncouple at all. I've had break-in-twos with them on downgrades as cars bunch together.

Will you build one of the grip rebuild sd45t-2 6800 class rebuilds? Need at least one for a 90s era donner pass layout.

Dan, have you ever change or fixed a Tangent rolling stock coupler?!?! Those things seem impossible with all the details with wires and or hoses getting in the way of the gear box. They’re really good, but seem a tad too short, so the layout has to be really level.

Very useful Daniel, as I have just started to add KDs to my kit built European wagons. Do you know where I can source just the draft gearbox pockets as I have acquired a pack of 25 pairs of Bachmann EZ Mate couplers that I wish to incorporate into them. Cheers

May I repost this awesome video on my local train club website, Please?

So the video was GREAT. I have an old n Scale CON COR PA1 with RAPIDO couplers. Can you help me / instruct me how to remove the RAPIDO coupler and replace with a micro-trains knuckle coupler. The trucks in this model are asymmetric. if you’d like I send you a picture of the 6 wheel truck. Thanks. Can’t seem to find any you tube videos demonstrating this.

Hi Dan. What coupler would you recommend in N scale for prototypical size and performance? I've seen several reviews that the MT true couplers wouldn't actual couple at slow speeds. Also, any recommendations on metal wheel sets for N scalers? Thnx!

Where did you get the kadee #158 metal couplers from?

What about offset couplers ? You can get them in high med and low...

Couplers area resl pain to line up correctly

Poor cars going loose down the hill

Dan this is so inaccurate, we all know cars like run away from engines and play tricks on them.

So i have a wagon has both couplers that are too high to couple with anything. I have been trying to fix it for 6 months now and i dont know what to do. You could almost fit a whole other knuckle coupler in the gap its that high. Does anyone have any tips?

Your back yard will be full of the graves of cars that have uncoupled and rolled off the table

only in america.))))