Aristo-Craft Lil' Critter
The conversion on the Critter is the first completed. It looked too easy to pass up and as it turned out it was very easy and didn't take much time at all. I used coupler number 788 for both ends of the engine. One package came with two couplers (as most packages do). The instructions were perfectly clear and very easy to follow. The conversion was basically assembling the 788's then removing and replacing the original coupler with the new Kadee's. Not much else to tell you about this one so look at the pictures and see what you think. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will help out if possible.
In
this picture you can see the assembled 788 coupler in the upper left corner. In the upper
right corner is the stock Aristo coupler with the centering spring and screws. The lower
portion of the picture shows all the parts that make up the kadee coupler. Note that there
are also two covers for the coupler box. One is used on the bottom of the assembly as a
shim. On my installation the shim was later removed to keep the coupler height correct to
the gauge but it also created excess vertical play.
I hope you can see the detail in this picture. It's showing the only real
modification necessary to make this coupler work on the Critter. The coupler in the
foreground has had the ridge ground flush that ran along the top side edges. The coupler
in the back still has the ridge along the sides. I used a Dremel with a flexible cut-off
wheel to do the work which only took a couple of minutes per coupler. If you don't remove
the ridge area the coupler will not be able to swing freely on the mounting post.
Shown here is the completed conversion along with the height gauge. My only
problem is how the new coupler looks. In the picture you can see how the Kadee sags a
little coming out of the engine. That is due to removing the supplied shim causing excess
vertical movement on the assembly. I removed the shim to lower the coupler so it would
better match the height gauge...
Note: I believe this conversion would be identical to the Aristo-Craft RS-3 engine because the Critter is basically the cab and short hood from the RS-3 model.