I have a number of passenger coaches which I bought many years ago before the close couplers were invented. These were fine in their day but when you run these next to coaches made today that almost touch end to end the gap between the older is too obvious. So I decided to upgrade these with the close couplers conversion kit 7205.

Eagerly I removed the old couplers and installed the new. I hooked up two coaches and noticed almost no difference. I thought I must have made a mistake, but no, there is only one way to put these on. I had to take ruler out to check it, and yes there was an improvement. The buffer to buffer gap had reduced a whole 2mm from 16mm to 14mm. Utter disappointment and complete waste of money! (Except for the hand uncoupler of course)

I then took a closer look and got the idea that it might be possible to modify the coupler so that ends of the coaches come closer and still negotiate R1 curves. In order to do this the pivot point on the coupler needed to be moved closer to the coupling end. It then occurred to me that the simplest way would be to drill a new hole. Below is a photo showing the new 2mm diameter hole in front of the original hole.



I tried this, but was now unable to fit it because there is a small lug on the bogie that limits the sideways movement of the coupler by hitting against the small “ears” on the end of the coupler which got in the way. I then decided to cut away the redundant end of the coupling by cutting through the original hole. This not only allowed space for the lug but also created new “ears”. The two plastic “spring leavers” were kept to help the centering of the coupling, but had to be trimmed a little as they were now a bit too long. I clipped it in and it fitted and functioned just right. I did another and clipped it on to another coach and tested it. The buffer to buffer gap was now only 7mm and no problem with R1 either.

The photo below shows (from left to right) the original coupler, the close coupler from kit 7205 with the extra hole already drilled and the finished modified close coupler.



It then occurred to me that this modification could also be made to the original coupling. I tried it and it also works. Using these the distance between buffers becomes 9mm. This is even more remarkable because you can now reduce the gap from 16mm to 9mm at no cost whatsoever.

The photo below shows two coaches with the original couplers. Gap = 16mm



The photo below shows two coaches with the couplers from kit 7205. Gap = 14mm



The photo below shows two coaches with modified original couplers. Gap = 9mm



The photo below shows two coaches with modified couplers from kit 7205. Gap = 7mm



I don't know if this is well known or old tip, but I have not seen this elsewhere and having just discovered it for myself I thought it was worth sharing.

Great tips Hobbit, thank's !

Kimball :
Telex is on locomotives only and can be remote controlled. Relex is the "old" coupling (like the one you see to the left in
the second photo) and "Kurzkupplung" (short coupling) is the new one in for example the set 7205 and all new models delivered today.

Thanks for the useful information and good instruction, Hobbit.

For me, one of the big benefits with the 7205 Kurzkupplung is the much smaller length difference in the car distance when pushing or pulling the cars. The "slack" in the KK is much smaller.

I have, step by step, converted all my locomotives and cars to KK, sometimes by cutting the metal Relex couplers and glue in a KK.

See an earlier topic: https://www.marklin-users.net/fo...ault.aspx?g=posts&t=5361

Thankyou Lutz for the extra tips. That will be very useful.

regards
Kimball

To Lutz:

As I mentioned in a new topic recently, your suggestion to replace the "passage piece" (faltenbalg) is indeed an excellent suggestion. I would like to change these on my coaches but I do not know the spare part numbers.

I searched the LokShop spare parts database (which is the only one I know of other than the locomotive-only pages from the Marklin site) for "faltenbalg" and it comes up with 40 alternatives. Unfortunately there are no illustrations to help identify them.

I would very much appreciate if you could tell me part number of the ones you used in the pictures above.

Are they made of soft material that would yield in curves