Installation Tips - Kato Passenger Cars
By long time Sergent Engineering customer Luis May
Sergent Engineering/Prototype Coupler customers are a resourceful bunch. Luis May adapted our extended shank HT1R87A couplers (intended for Walthers lightweight passenger cars) to Kato cars. He was kind enough to document the process in a format similar to that provided for other installations. He says this modification improves both looks and performance of the cars and who are we to argue with that!
| Start by removing the trucks and coupler boxes, but DON'T discard them. Drill a #54 hole a scale 4 1/2 feet foward of the truck bolster. |  |
| Open up the coupler box and shave off the coupler mounting bosses. |  |
| Glue the top plate to the car. |  |
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When the glue is dry, mount the HT1R87A coupler and spring with the supplied screw. The self-tapping screw will do all the work; just make sure the hold the spring in place to prevent "fly-aways"! |
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| Snap the bottom of the coupler box in place. |  |
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Re-attach trucks and you're all set! The coupler box is needed to keep the coupler at the right height; otherwise it will hang down quite a bit.The side-to-side swing of the Sergent in this application is about the same as the Kato coupler, so it will still travel smoothly around 24" curves. As a side note, the Kato Kinnematics will mate with the H's, but not that smoothly (or good-looking!). |
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