Two IM Trinity hoppers

These two conversions (the 3281 2-bay and the 5161 3-bay hopper) are straightforward scale box installs. The trick is getting the correct coupler height and a decent ride height without resorting to significant surgery (and also dealing with the shaky Intermountain quality control).

For the 3281, I just swapped out the stock body-mount coupler for a scale box install with a medium length shank:

The medium shank looks a bit out of place, but a short shank would make the car spacing too short unless the box were moved out. But that would require filling the existing screw hole and drilling a new one ~1 hole diameter further out. Too much work and risk. The medium shank will look better when I add a crossover to the car. The wheels were swapped out for FVM 3602's, and I replaced the clear washers with a 0.2 or 0.3 mm printed washer, as required to tune the coupler height. I also replaced the crazy stirrups and fixed some issues with the end cage assembly, as detailed elsewhere.

For the 5161, I drilled a screw hole in the outer indent of the centre sill:

and installed a scale box with a short shank coupler:

I replaced the stock MTL trucks with BLMA 100T/36" and added a 0.5-0.6 mm washer as required to tune the coupler height. (I will also be replacing the stirrups and adding crossovers eventually.)

A note on ride height. The 5161 with BLMA 100T trucks and 36" wheels with an MTL 0.5 mm washer is a good match to the Scale Trains 5188 hopper, which it often shares a grain train with. From left to right below: a 5188 (more on that conversion later), a converted 5161, and a stock 5161 out of the box:

The ST and the converted IM line up very nicely. The stock IM rides a bit high.