Sometimes I cut the coupling where the red line is in the picture and make a
new hole where the red spot is. It might keep it away from the axle.
I use different methods depending on how much room I have.
Perfect, there's a lot of fiddly detail parts to go on and they take time but they are
worth it in the end.
I usually keep my couplers nearly level with the buffers and they work fine, it also
keeps everything close together.
They don't look too bad a match.
The MK2d is Supertrain and the MK2a is IR so they normally are different.
The supertrain livery is usually a bit more brown.