Thanks Tom!  I appreciate your advice and the depth of your experience with the issue!

I'm coming into this discussion as a new 36 ton 2 shay owner.  Picked up the Loco on e-bay.  It looked to be in pretty good shape, but when I opened the trucks to lubricate them before running, I notices what looked like broken plastic spacer [/img]parts between the spring contacts.

The truck housings look to be plastic, so maybe I have the early dreaded plastic trucks mentioned in this thread.

I was hoping to get some expert advice on whether the spacer parts can be replaced by me, whether I should send the loco in to Bachmann for service or whether I should buy new trucks and go from there.

I took some pictures, but I can't figure out how to post them here.[/flash][/img]