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Post by shortliner on Aug 6, 2024 23:00:11 GMT
I want to add people to the passenger cars in this set. How do the cars open to do this while avoiding damaging the car's lighting?
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Post by harborbelt70 on Aug 7, 2024 11:19:32 GMT
I want to add people to the passenger cars in this set. How do the cars open to do this while avoiding damaging the car's lighting?
The normal arrangement for Lionel's plastic 18" cars of this vintage is that the four larger screws I have described above fix into posts that are at each end of the car. This was originally designed to make it easier to detach the body shell in order to add passenger figures. The reality can be different because the metal frame fits tightly into the bottom of the shell and in some cases the factory used double-sided tape to fix the windows in place and an excess of this got between the frame and the body shell. This means that you have to work the shell loose and even run a knife blade between the shell and the frame to detach them from each other. I have just been working on a 21" ABS UP Excursion Train car where I have had to do this as to was the only way to pry the shell and frame apart after the screws were taken out.
Interior lighting: If you look at the inside of the roof of the car you should see a multi-LED light bar with a capacitor or maybe two at one end. A wire leads from this end to the power wires from the trucks which usually pass through an on/off switch mounted through the frame. Taking off the body shell will not interfere with the lights themselves IF you are careful not to pull on the wire other than to detach a plug between it and the power wires. If you get the body shell loose it will be obvious at which end of the car it is and there will be just enough slack in it to unplug the power wires and re-attach after the passenger figures are installed.
P.S. This is a photo of an earlier UP Excursion car project I did where the excess of tape binding the body shell to the frame was very difficult to manage and I ended up inserting coffee stirrers between them so that the frame could eventually be lifted away. The interior assemblies of these cars are usually in two parts screwed to the frame from the top (inside) so they come away with the frame when it is removed:
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