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Aristo-Craft 0-4-0

This conversion is very strait forward and only takes a few minutes to do. A Kadee 831 is used for both the front of the engine and the back of the tender. The only problem I see with this conversion right now is the fact that I won't be able to run the engine on my Christmas Tree Stand layout. It is basically a 4 foot diameter circle and this conversion only allows for the coupler to swing enough to run on a 8 foot diameter curve. To enable the engine to run on a curve less than 8 foot in diameter the rear steps on the tender must be removed or at the very least, cut back to allow for the new coupler gear box to swing further from side to side.

To install the 831 on the rear of the tender you must remove the stock (truck mounted) Aristo coupler and cut out part of the rear step. If you look closely at this picture you will see that I cut my step on the inside edges of the two inner step support brackets. It only takes a couple of minutes and then the new assembled Kadee 831 coupler can be attached to the truck in the original coupler mounting hole with the original screw. You may also need to lightly sand or trim the shoulders on your coupler gear box to fit properly onto the trucks coupler mount. I also saved the section of the step that was cut out as you will see in a couple of minutes... As I mentioned earlier, this conversion only allows for this tender to run on a 8 foot diameter curve. To make it work on anything less than 8 foot curves, you will need to remove more of the steps next to the coupler gear box. Doing that will also force you to remove the inner step supports. Not a big deal but it will require more time to fabricate new step brackets and install them. If that's too much work you can always remove the steps all together but I think having them there makes a big difference in the way the tender looks.

The Kadee 831 is a strait replacement for the stock Aristo coupler with the exception of adding a shim to set it at the correct height. I used the section cut from the rear step on my tender as the shim. All I had to do was drill a hole large enough to fit over the coupler mounting screw post and assemble it with the original screw.

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This site has been online since: Tuesday July 28, 1998 and was last modified: Wednesday July 28, 2004.