G`day Folks, Just a quick one for you, more about aesthetics rather than anything very technical. I have two identical Lima diesels One still in need of slight repair and conversion re buffers and the giant D shaped coupling And one that has had the business done. Actually this one also had a minor chassis repair. The coupling conversion is quite straight forward just requiring the old D shaped section to be removed and a small Bachmann fitted up underneath the slight rectangular stub that is left. This is the original fitting And this is the conversion The other end It makes quite a difference to the look of the loco and brings it up to date with modern couplings. Both these locos run beautifully......smooth and powerful....so it`s nice to remove that growth from the ends of them and make them completely compatible with new stock fittings. Tension locks are only really "efficient" if they are all the same, so if you are trying to shunt your trains with a mixture of old and new tension locks....I wish you luck. Gormo
Yes Toto, You`ve got to muster up the courage to cut into the original set up and hope you don`t stuff it up. The second loco is converted now and both are running fine. Gormo
It is a conversion I've done myself in the past, it is amazing the difference in aesthetics and performance it makes. I also did a couple of locos by removing the tension locks altogether and fitting a thin wire loop in their place, suitably blackened they almost disappear. Pete.
Yes I`ve seen that method Pete.......it works very well....I guess the tricky part is getting the wire bent to the correct height.....no big deal really if you`ve got that far already.... Gormo
