I used the Search function, I tried YouTube, but I can't find any pictures of truck removal of a Kato Amfleet 2. I want to give myself more room to solder leads onto the truck pickups for marker lights. Any ideas? Sepp
According to Kato's parts listing - they are "Snap mount". So, they should just pop out. I would gently pry them up. There may also be a locking mechanism around the bolster pin. A photo may help - Regards, Wolf
Wolf, thanks for your suggestions. It's really hard to get a picture of the arrangement, since everything is black. There does not appear to be a conventional truck pin. I wondered about a locking mechanism below the car floor. Maybe I'll unsnap the truck cover and see if that reveals the solution.
Success! Removing the bottom plate of the truck allowed me to lift it off using the coupler as a handle. Once you unsnap the bottom plate the wheelsets are loose, so you can't grab by those.
Glad that you were successful. It seems that everything is made of black plastic these days and it makes dismantling things nearly impossible, even under bright light.
Why are you soldering onto the truck pickups? Don't they energize strips in the car floor that would be much easier to solder to? Is there a reason you aren't just installing the Kato lighting kit?
First, I've never gotten consistent contact from the installed strips to the Kato lighting kit in the Amfleet cars. I've always had flickering. Second, I'm installing end marker lights in addition to the lighting kit. Sepp
In my experience, 99% of the flickering with Kato cars is due to dirty track and wheels. Clean those, and the flickering is largely gone. I don't believe that contact between the truck pickups and the strips in the car floors are an issue. YMMV.
I have had the problem specifically with Amfleet cars. I've cleaned and lubricated with both No-Ox and ConductaLube, sparingly.
In my experience, I totally agree. At first I thought it was the contact strip when all my passenger cars were flickering at a train show where I was running them. I got totally disappointed. When I got home, doing absolutely nothing, I ran them on my layout and no flickering at all. Next time there was a train show where I ran the set, flickering again! WHAT????!!!! Out came a Brite Boy and went at it with the tracks. Afterwards, no flickering. During all this nothing was modified or tweaked with the cars. Can't get any more scientific than this!
Thanks for sharing that. Soldering leads to the truck pickups seems like a hit it with a sledgehammer approach, when there are very likely more eloquent approaches.