Friday, April 28, 2017

Removing a Heljan AC railcar body


John asks: I need to get access to my Heljan O Gauge AC Cars Railbus chassis to service the electrical pickups that failed at a recent Show. Any thoughts?

I had to go away and look this one up. It didn't get mentioned in the August 2015 issue of BRM when I covered detailing the model and quite frankly, I'd forgotten.

Fortunately, Howard mentioned disassembly in his review a couple of months earlier.

First, remove the handrails either side of the door. I don't think they are glued in place. Put them somewhere safe as they are easy to lose.



Then slide something under the door. Inside there is a clip and if you pull both doors out slightly, they should release the top half of the body. Of course, this weighs a ton so a couple of slivers of plastic sheet stuffed behind each door might be a good idea unless you have 3 hands.

After that, you in uncharted territory for me. I guess there will be much work with small screwdrivers to take the chassis apart. Good luck!

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