It was stated that the Protocraft draft gear pocket holes do not have the same spacing as Kadee's center line ones. Question: is the forward hole identically positioned to that of Kadee? Mounting them with a metal screw in the forward hole and some super glue to keep the pocket from rotating should stand up to the drawbar forces on our model railroads.
Ed,
My experience with these couplers so far has been that they do match up to the Kadee mounting holes on the centerline. They DO Not match the Atlas cars but then again Kadees do not either.
I have found that the boss around the center hole makes the forward screw provided by Protocraft a little short. It most cases, I've cut down the boss to the height of the back of the box and the provided screws have worked fine.
On a couple of cars the top of the Protocraft Cupler box was hitting the end sill of the car. I simply just cut off the ridges on the top of the coupler box lid.
I paint the inside opening of the coupler boxes before assembly. The light gray of the plastic coupler box is bright if you just paint the outside of the coupler box.
Couple of other things I've found so far have been, the rear centering pin on the coupler shank can be filed down to give a little more room inside the coupler box to allow a little more swing of the coupler. Also filing the inside of the coupler shank hole help the coupler move inside the coupler box.
George Losse
