Disconnecting the coupler will not be easy. The power to the coupler is through a brass spring that also applies the spring force to the sliding shoe. The magnet wire from the coupler coil is wrapped around a hole in a hard fiber board that the spring also snaps into. The magnet wire from the coupler could be cut, but the might not leave enough wire to ever restore it.
A reasonable modification to correct this issue would be to change the electromagnetic coupler trucks to magnetic tab coupler trucks. The type TC trucks could be changed to the 482 trucks. Or just the bottom plate could be changed to the 482-3. A lot of these 482-3 bottom plates are around as this was a common modification.
This modification would essentially converted the 3451 log car to a 3461 log car.
