This page describes converting both the tender coupler and making an operational front coupler. The tender coupler is, of course, the easier of the two to replace, so I'll start with that one. The original coupler is a truck-mounted Rapido coupler. The first task is to simply remove the truck. This is done by undoing the screw that holds the truck to the tender frame.



The next photo shows the truck disassembled.



The whole arm that holds the coupler can be cut off. No need to keep it clean, because that is not really visible once the engine is back on the track. The important thing to note is the position of the wheel. One tender truck picks up power from one rail and the other tender truck picks up power from the other rail. The wheelsets have one insulated wheel. When the wheel is repositioned in the truck later on, it must be placed in the correct position, otherwise a short or a fried decoder results.



After I installed the tender truck again, I verified that I got the wheel positioned correctly. Next, off to the height gauge we go! The tender's frame sits a bit too high, so a 0.010" piece of styrene is needed to fill the gap.



There is a small indent at the bottom of the tender floor. I cut and fitted a piece of styrene and glued it in that indent with Testor's plastic glue.



I then painted it with Floquil's "Engine Black". After the paint dried, I drilled and tapped a hole for the Micro-Trains Z-scale coupler screw.



The next two photos show the coupler installed from below and above.





And now the front coupler. It is significantly more difficult. This is not a trivial project, so only tackle it if you feel like you have to have an operating front coupler. I do, so here we go. The original coupler is not operational, but it does swing from left to right.



The first step is to remove the leading truck of the engine. It is held in place with a long screw. Be careful because there is a spring under the truck that keeps it on the track. With the screw removed, you can pull the truck away from the body.



The next photo shows the cow catcher and front platform removed from the engine. The part can be lifted off of the engine now that the truck screw has been removed. All the work is going to be done to that piece, so the engine can be put aside.



The highlighted section of the cow catcher's part is where the new Micro-Trains Z-scale coupler will be mounted. The hard part is figuring out how to get it in there. The open space is way too small for the coupler, and modifying the coupler is out of place.



After trying to widen the area for the coupler, I gave up and decided to cut the cow catcher off of the part altogether. The next photo shows where I cut the cow catch off, but the knife slipped and cut off the vertical front step part also. I will have to glue it back in place later on. The bottom right of the composition photo shows the amount of space that needs to be filed away to make room for the coupler (also shown by the trim lines on the left side of the photo).



The next photo shows the side and bottom view of the cow catcher platform with the coupler installed. Ideally, the underside of the platform needed to be filed down a bit more because the coupler sits a bit too low. I did as much as I could, and then drilled and tapped the hole for the screw.



And this is the view of the whole assembly installed. The cow catcher has not yet been installed (nor the step that I accidentally cut off).



The coupler of the hopper car is too low, because the Pacific's front coupler is a perfect match with the Micro-Trains coupler gauge. I am happy with the conversion, because now I have an operating front coupler.