I bought a used Williams Northeastern caboose and I need to replace the wire to the inside lamp from one of the trucks. When you unscrew the truck the nut falls off inside. I can't figure out how to disassemble the body. It seems it will break when I try to pry the sides away from the bottom. Anyone know how?
Quote from: kennarwing on March 02, 2013, 05:58:15 PM
I bought a used Williams Northeastern caboose and I need to replace the wire to the inside lamp from one of the trucks. When you unscrew the truck the nut falls off inside. I can't figure out how to disassemble the body. It seems it will break when I try to pry the sides away from the bottom. Anyone know how?
Look through the handrails on the ends and you should see a small Phillips head screw on each end.A magnetized screw driver will make it easier to get screws out and back in.Then you should be able tolift the superstructure straight up.
Thank you for the suggestion, however, there is no screw on the either end of the caboose.
They are almost in the door on each end on each of my four .
Is this an older version that you have?
Look underneath on the frame near each end of the caboose, there can be either two or four screws that hold the frame to the body. You may have to swing the truck assembly out of the way to see the screws and remove them. Or as another person mentioned the screw can be near the handrails at each end of the caboose(almost like the K-Line MP-15 screw location) depends on what year it was made and if it was Crown Edition or not as to where the screws can be.
To take the truck assembly off you must get the top off first, as there is a C clip to remove.
Lee F.
My daughter's boyfriend found 2 screws: under the frame after your remove both truck screws and take away the frame. Nothing on the ends of the car or on the bottom of the floor as earlier posts suggested. The car is letter WM round herald #1882. Not sure if that helps. Will try to disassemble this weekend. Another ebay adventure!
I got to thinking about the Northeastern caboose mentioned. Are you sure it is a Williams product and not Weaver? It seems to me that Williams has produced the N5C caboose in almost every railroad name you can think of, wether they actually had an N5C caboose, but I have not seen any other caboose by Williams by Bachmann.
Maybe Jerry Williams made a Northestern caboose that I don't know about, as he had several models of train items made that either he discontinued before selling to Bachmann or Bachmann has discontinued.
Lee F.
Lee F., you are the genius. You are correct that it is a Weaver and not a Williams caboose. I did manage to get it disassembled, but remain mystified as to why the wires from the center rail pickups cooked.
I can't believe I didn't even get the brand name right!
Don't misunderstand but that makes me feel better. :)
Dear kennarwing,
Does the caboose have dual pickup rollers?
If you derail one truck of the caboose so that its center rail pickup touches an outside rail,
it will short the transformer's entire current output through the two pickup rollers and their wires.
The small wire acted as a fuse (cooked), or
it could be that the wire was flexed enough (over time and use) to break all but one strand of the wire, which then acted as a fuse....
Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Joe Satnik