Bachmann USRA Medium Tender?

[CBQ Fan]

I just bought one of these on eBay. Based on the photos it looks like the trucks are the same front and back.  The only difference is one has a knuckle coupler and the other has a draw bar.  If this is accurate I should be able to replace the draw bar and install a coupler.  If so, any good sources for the coupler?

[mmagliaro]

I don't quite understand what you want to do, but maybe this will help. 

I have some Spectrum medium tenders.  They have identical trucks.  The drawbar
is a separate part that fits over the mounting post with the front truck, but it also has the bronze wires in it
to contact the fingers on the front truck. 

The coupler on the back is body mounted. 
I usually just cut the whole box off under the back,  put a 1015 or 1023 on there (whatever I have handy), and shim it for the correct coupler height.  I seem to recall that for some couplers, I had to file the underside of the chassis (as opposed to shim)
to *raise* the coupler to the correct height, but I don't have any I've done handy here at the moment.

You could make your own drawbar, but you'll have to do something about the contact wires - either copy the design of the
Bachmann wires, or just hard-wire up inside the tender.

[Lemosteam]

Bachmann drawbars are usually available in their parts store online...

[CBQ Fan]

I am going to use the tender in a MOW train and would prefer to have couplers front and rear.  Just curious how it may work based on the pics.  It is the main central tender, shame to paint over the scheme but the price was so cheap it is perfect for this project.

[mmagliaro]

Oh!  So you don't care about pickups in it at all?  In that case, I would just take out the drawbar, leave the front truck,
and put body mounts under there, front and rear.

But if you're going to do that, you might even want to consider swapping out the trucks for some MT of another style, since the
side frames on those Bachmann tender trucks are kind of weird and don't look like any tender truck I've ever seen.
And besides, the Bachmann trucks have the axle point pickup plates in them, and that might come in handy for another
project.

[CBQ Fan]

Oh!  So you don't care about pickups in it at all?  In that case, I would just take out the drawbar, leave the front truck,
and put body mounts under there, front and rear.

But if you're going to do that, you might even want to consider swapping out the trucks for some MT of another style, since the
side frames on those Bachmann tender trucks are kind of weird and don't look like any tender truck I've ever seen.
And besides, the Bachmann trucks have the axle point pickup plates in them, and that might come in handy for another
project.

This little project just gets more and more interesting!  I like the truck idea!  Thank you!