How to: MDC Husky Stack MT body mount

**William Cowie** · #1 April 17th, 2004, 11:16 AM

A few times the topic of MDC's bad couplers and good intermodal cars has surfaced. Several people have come up with good solutions. The one that's most effective (in my never humble opinion

) is to body mount MT-1015 couplers. However, the impression I get is some feel this is too daunting in some way or another.

Those who know me know my modeling ability is 90% enthusiasm, 9% willing to make mistakes and 1% skill. And no, that's no subtle fishing for compliments, the point is simply to present a solution that is WELL within the competence of just about any modeler. About the only expertise required is to know what an MT-1015 looks like, and how to attach a shim to one.

Without any further ado, let's go. This is what we start with:

To the right is a simple intermodal buck I cut out of scrap plywood. I eyed it to be close to the size of a container, and just sanded it to avoid splinters. You'll find working with well cars a lot easier with something flat that fills up the space when you turn it upside down. A double layer of containers could also do.

And that, friends, is the only specialized tool you'll need beyond a pair of cutters, a small screwdriver, a pin vise and a Micro-Trains height gauge (or another MT coupler whose height you trust).

**William Cowie** · #2 April 17th, 2004, 11:16 AM

First thing we need to deal with is the wheel situation. There are as many preferences and opinions on this topic as there are modelers and manufacturers. But this is about body mounted couplers, so the truck mounted couplers are the first to go, so remove the trucks and (very important) make sure you don’t lose the bolster pins. I usually just stick them right back into their holes. You’ll find you have something like the one on the left

which has to end up like the one on the right. Here’s one way to go about it:

**William Cowie** · #3 April 17th, 2004, 11:16 AM

OK, before we go on, let’s digress a little bit and talk about the trucks and why we cut up the MDC trucks, instead of replacing them. It starts with personal taste and how realistic you want your car to be. One of the defining characteristics of intermodal well cars, to me at least, is how low they run. Even though MDC has taken a lot of flack for their incompatible couplers, we have to concede they started out with an admirable objective, which is to offer low ride height. That’s what led to the slim draft gear box, and it also shows in the trucks that come with the car. The following picture shows the cut MDC truck next to a Micro-Trains (top) and an Accumate (right).

The thing to compare is the thickness in the bolster hole (no matter how the MT “pizza cutter” flanges yell for attention!) . You can see the MDC truck is a slimmer design overall, which is my first reason for retaining them. The second is they are the free-est rolling trucks of all I have, and of course it doesn’t hurt that they’re free

.

So, you’re welcome to add any trucks that take your fancy, but for our purposes here, we’ll go with the cut-up MDC’s.

**William Cowie** · #4 April 17th, 2004, 11:17 AM

Back to the car. If you look closely at the ends, you’ll see the tab-like things below the walkways.

What we’re going to do is cut a portion of those away to create a space for the coupler. Turn the car upside down on the buck. Then take an assembled 1015 and fit it across the end like so:

For the purposes of the picture, I used a little container glue to hold it in place. Nothing’s cut yet - we’re still in the “measure twice” stage, before we “cut once.” You can see the coupler’s shape, and that it has a thinner “neck” that protrudes from the box that holds the coupling mechanism. What we will try to do is cut an opening wide enough for the “neck” portion of the coupler, but small enough to not allow the box portion of the coupler to slip though. If you have to err, err on the side of keeping the opening narrower, rather than wider. This generates just a little pressure from the sides to keep the coupler in place until you affix it for good.

Here’s a picture of the coupler fitting into the cut.

(The color changed because the red Santa Fe car is headed for eBay - I have enough Husky Stacks for now, and I didn’t have any other uncut ones [img]smile.gif[/img] )

**William Cowie** · #5 April 17th, 2004, 11:17 AM

Next step is probably the trickiest, which is determining whether you need to shim the coupler or not. The problem is not all Husky Stack walkways run at exactly the same height above the rail, whether because of the plastic bowing or whatever. In my experience just over half of them need a shim, while the rest are fine without.

The best way to explain the process is to start with the goal:

The longer the train, the more strain on the couplers, and the more important it is to have the coupler height properly aligned. For short trains (unusual for intermodal trains) it’s less of a problem. (The one in the picture was one that didn’t need a shim, by the way, in case you were wondering.)

Once you’ve made the cut, insert the coupler (hopefully this is a snug fit) and turn it over and set it up like the picture. If the cut is too loose, you can either use a tweezer or a VERY small drop of CA (you may want to undo this in a little bit) to just hold it temporarily. You have to go down to track level to see for sure how the height stacks up. Not difficult at all. If the height is fine, great - no shim needed.

Different modelers do things in different ways, let’s acknowledge that up front. When I see no shim is needed, I simply glue the coupler to the bottom of the walkway with CA glue. Not particularly elegant, but it works for me on trains of over 50 wells. [img]smile.gif[/img] If you find that beneath you, keep reading for the next step up.

**William Cowie** · #6 April 17th, 2004, 11:17 AM

If the couplers don’t align, the car’s coupler is most likely too high, and you have yourself a golden opportunity to take it one small step further. We will now proceed to add a shim and screw the coupler to the walkway, as opposed to gluing it.

For this you need a pin vise and a small drill. I just picked a drill that was just smaller in diameter than the little mounting screws we get with the 1015 coupler. (I can never recall the exact size of stuff I use – sorry!

)

The first thing I do is attach the shim to the coupler. You’ll notice the shim has a small pointy thing on one side. That should fit snugly into the little hole on the top of the coupler. A little CA should be sufficient - the joint isn’t a load-bearing one, all we want to do is keep two small and light pieces from slipping away from each other. And we do NOT want to gum up the works of the coupler. What I do is shim up a few couplers and leave a few “unshimmed.” (You will notice in some of my pictures I use shimmed, in some unshimmed. Either way, the technique is the same.)

The next step is to drill a hole in the walkway, like so:

In the process you will puncture the tread of the walkway, but this is the price we pay to get an accurate and reliable coupler (and the primary reason I prefer to glue the couplers to the walkway [img]smile.gif[/img] ).

**William Cowie** · #7 April 17th, 2004, 11:17 AM

The next step is to screw the coupler to the walkway with a screw provided by Micro-Trains with the 1015 coupler.

Because I’m not the most dexterous person in the world, this takes me a long time and many grunts (at least that’s what I call them! [img]smile.gif[/img] ). So if you find this tedious and frustrating, you’re not alone. It feels worse than it is, and if you get through this, it’s all downhill from here.