Another Newbie Question regarding couplers

Good evening...regarding Micro-Trains cars factory equipped with Marklin couplers; are the couplers body mounted or mounted to the truck? If they are truck mounted, can I simply swap trucks with MTL couplers for the trucks with Marklin couplers? Thanks for your help.

 

Dave,
That sort of depends on the type of car, the age of the car and how the Marklin coupler got there in the first place. MT stopped offering cars equipped with Marklin couplers a few years ago. At about the same time, they stopped offering body mounted couplers and went strictly to truck mounted. Any cars with Marklin couplers after this point were put on after sale. Before that point, the only Marklin type couplers that were truck mounted were on the cabooses and possibly tank cars. The rest were body mounted. The body mount couplers simply mounted around the truck bolster. To remove them, you just need to pop off the truck. You can replace them either by replacing the truck with a truck with a coupler, or you could use an MT body mounted coupler (use the pre-assembled version, more expensive, but much fewer headaches). Even cars with Marklin style couplers are drilled and tapped for MT body mounts. For truck mounted Marklin style, your easiest replacement is to just replace the truck. If you feel like assembling your own, you can just take the coupler knuckle and spring from an MT coupler and put it in the coupler box of the existing truck.

Hope this helps.

Dan S.

 

Thanks, John. I wasn't sure if they came out before or after MT stopped offering Marklins. The only ones that I was sure of were the cabooses.
Dan S.

 

does anyone have experience at putting a MTL coupler in a AZL pocket? or other conversion procedures?

 

Thanks John. Now that it is posted I remember seeing it. I need to replace some couplers on some coalporters. I didn't want to have to buy a whole AZL truck assemby to replace a bad knuckle