Massoth Uncoupler Fitting

[dutchelm]

At Stafford I was able to have a good look at one of the Massoth uncouplers to see if it could be fitted to an LGB tender. The instructions indicated "significant modification" but it could be done.
First job as to cut a piece from the end of the tender and then remove much plastic until I was attacking the centre pillar. I was reluctant to remove that as it held the bottom on but just chiseled a shaving off to get the coupler in.

Unfortunately the pillar fouls the wiring coming from the coupler. You can try skimming a bit from the coupler at your own risk as the wires are rather fragile.

 

[dutchelm]

Another view of surgery

The next problem I found was how to fit the reeds for the bell & whistle.

I'll work on that one. It may go in at the other end with surgery but the space is reserved for a pulse generator.

 

[dutchelm]

Once the coupler is fitted the bottom cover needs to be cut to fit around the coupler.

The next job is to connect to the decoder. I nearly stalled on this bit as the loco had a ESU decoder & I could not find the Ground -ve connection. However, after reading the decoder instructions again I found it next to the pulse counter connections.
A bit of reprogramming and everything is working. All thats left is to find a home for the reed switches ( & repair the wires on the first attempt, I think I have invalidated the warranty on that one)

 

[muns]

Hi Mike,

Neat job.

With the reed board....

Cut the board into 3 bits - discard the center section (with the hole). jumber the 2 boards together (2 wires needed) and stick them back in the same position as they were before.

I did this for a New Orleans street car as the board did not fit correctly in the short motor block (sorry no pics of that).

 

[PaulRhB]

One thing we found over the weekend at the Wimborne show was that the uncouplers fitted to the wagons were a bit low and we had to add a shim at the back to angle them up a bit. All we did was trap a plastic piece behind where the screw attaches the unit to the wagon body.