3472 milk car doors

[Steve1964]

I recently found a Lionel 3472 milk car. It would not work at all at first, but after cleaning and lubrication it has come back to life. This car has the earlier metal doors and they are quite stiff, sometimes hampering the mechanism. Does any one have a trick to loosen up these metal doors so the car can work a little better?

Thanks Steve

[TRAINCAT]

There are some tricks to make the plastic doors open better in the Greenbergs book, but I don't recall seeing anything about the metal doors. Maybe someone replaced the door springs with after market ones?

Most aftermarket springs are worthless. Note also that in 1950 the frames were swapped out to work with the plastic doors. Its possible someone may have put the earlier body on a later frame.

Roger