Tin Plate Coupler to Scale Coupler Conversion

I am in the process of converting my tin plate knuckle couplers to scale Kadee couplers. I like the look of the scale coupler as compared to the huge tin plate coupler that comes on our 3 rail cars. One consideration that has to be kept in mind when mounting KD's is to body mount them to the car or mount them to the trucks of the car. On my layout I have mostly O-72 & O-54 curves with some larger ones. IF I mounted the couplers to the body of the car, I risked the chance that I would have trouble negotiating the smaller curves. So I decided to mount the KD,s on the trucks. I am using Kadee # 805 couplers. Below is the steps I am taking in order to utilize my 3 rail trucks and have KD's mounted to them.  If you set up and do several cars at a time it is more of a production line and goes pretty fast per car.

With the truck removed from car remove the top screw

Next  remove the bottom screw

Next remove coupler arm

Next remove arm bracket

Next cut a piece of 1/8" x 3/8" steel into a length about 1" and mark the holes with your Kadee coupler plate

Next drill and tap holes for the size screws that you plan to use.

Now install the new arm to KD and to the arm bracket as shown below . I used small washers in the arm bracket hole.

Here I have ground flat any screw threads that came through the metal bar.

I also used a small piece of  styrene to shim level as needed.

Next step is to mount onto truck

I have found that the height of the coupler is perfect on the gauge with this setup.

Truck back on car