Hi All,
A little late to the party, but I was in the same boat as everyone else with the gap issue on my Lionel B&O sharks. As David1 previously posted, the short Lionel dummy coupler #630-4678-055(Centipede dummy coupler) is still unavailable from Lionel as of 2 weeks ago. After digging around the Lionel parts area on their website, I came up with a few couplers that worked for me. Lionel dummy coupler #630-9610-055(listed for use on E-9's) is a drop in replacement for the stock long dummy couplers on the rear of both A units and both ends of the B units whether they are powered or non powered. These shorter dummy couplers measure approx. 1.400" long compared to the stock dummy couplers length of approx. 1.750" long. While not as short as the Centipede dummy couplers, the E-9 dummy couplers, when mounted on both engine units, reduce the distance between the units by approx. 11/16"-3/4", which is quite a bit. In the pictures below, I have 2 B units, one powered, one non powered, coupled together and sitting on MTH 042 Realtrax. There is approx. 1/16" clearance between the door sills of the units. Note that I replaced the electrocouplers on the B units with the dummy couplers, as I will be running the engines as a multiple unit set(See, I didn't use the lashup word!!!). I was a little surprised at the price of these dummy couplers at $6.50 each, but after receiving and inspecting
them, they appear to be made from brass!!!
For those who wish to keep their electrocouplers on the B units, there is also a shorter version of that also, Lionel part #620-8447-550. This electrocoupler has an approx. length of 1.440" compared to an approx. length of 1.744" for the stock electrocoupler, which would shorten the distance on that side by approx. .300". However, this shorter electrocoupler is not quite a drop in. There needs to be approx. 1/32" or so of metal removed from either the outer radius of the coupler mounting pad on the truck or from the face of the coupler that butts against the coil windings on the bottom side. This is to let the coupler move forward enough for its mounting hole to drop down over the mounting post on the truck. If it were me, I'd remove the metal from the radius on the mounting pad, as trying to remove the metal from the coupler will put you VERY CLOSE to the wrapped coil windings. Anyway here are a few photos and I hope this may help someone else close the gap on their sharks.
Nick
