I purchased 3 of the new aux water tenders from Lionel, which I received 2 of last week. Running them around my layout and up my steep grades (5%) the dummy coupler would detach from the car or tender in front of it. I looked at the coupler height and found it to be a bit low.
Looking at how the dummy coupler is attached to the truck it has the following components in this order when view upside down in my foam cradle. A C clip, washer, spring, 2 washers, the truck mounting, dummy coupler and finally the coupler T bar. To increase the height of the dummy coupler I decided to move one of the 2 washers that were together (don't know why they used 2 washers here). So the new arrangement of components is now as follows. A C clip, washer, spring, washer, the truck mounting, washer, dummy coupler and finally the coupler T bar. This moved the dummy coupler height up slightly without changing the spring tension, since I didn't add anything.
Running my tenders this way fixed my random uncoupling issue from my steep grades and they still swivel and center correctly. Sorry these pictures are from 2 different water tenders. I didn't think of taking a before shot until after I had a fix, but they both had the same issue and fix. I hope this helps out some folks who purchased one or more of these water tenders and are having this issue. Obviously better track work and easements on grades would also keep this issue from occurring.
