Rplies to cwburfle on installing collector shoes in Lionel cars

[cwburfle]

Thank you for posting about your solution.

[San Jose]

Frist of all, thanks for your suggestions.  I did reply twice via email but got the message that my email could not be delivered.  Since I dis spend some time on getting this done, I thought I would send you what I did.   Hope it's helpful to someone with time and patience.

Here's my email to you:

I agree that a tool that could press the rivet while everything is in place is the answer. 

Absent that, I succeeded in getting the shoe in, but it was time-consuming and tricky. 

(1)  shorten the rivet to the correct height to ensure contact with the spring and glue it into the shoe,

(2)  put glue around the rivet at the top where it sticks out,

(3)  put the shoe in the truck, holding it in place with tape underneath,

(4)  use tweezers to push the plate onto the glue on the top of the shoe. 

I’ve skipped a lot of detail (like you may have to get the spring that contacts the rivet out of the way) but the shoe seems to hang at the correct height below the truck and makes good contact with the control rails.  

Regards, Nino