How to remove power truck from K-Line diesel

[KeithL]

I need to remove the rear power truck from the lead A unit of my K-Line semi-scale PA-1 ABA to locate a short. Is anybody familiar with how to remove it? Is it fastened from the bottom of the truck, or does the body shell have to be removed? It looks to me as if the two wires to the power truck may attach to the truck via quick-connects. Is that correct? Any other tips would be appreciated.

Keith

[Roger Bielen]

I don't know about the PA-1 but I have an A-A E8 set that I needed to drop the trucks on. After talking to the local Lionel repair shop, Memory Station, it appears that there are 2 screws, 1 accessible from the top and 1 from the bottom that open the truck so that you can remove the motor and drop the truck. The warning he gave was that once you open a truck the gearing is exposed and sometimes a dog to keep alligned. Needless to say he's doing the job for me. He needs to gain some experience on K-line anyway.[(-D]

[KeithL]

Roger, thanks. Turns out I didn't need to remove the truck. As soon as I removed the body shell, I could see that the way the connector for the hot wire was positioned when it was screwed down to where it mounts on the top of the truck, it would, when the truck was pushed inward, get pressed against the inside of the chassis cutout that it comes up through. Eventually, the insulation wore through, and when the truck was pushed inward, as when coupling to a consist or, sometimes, just in general while going in reverse, the exposed part of the wire would be pushed against the chassis and—poof—a short. All I had to do was to rotate the connector a bit on the terminal screw.

It was just a question of a fine detail in assembly—positioning the connector in just the right position so that it could not touch the chassis no matter the movement of the truck— that got missed, and eventually (after a year and a half) it caused a problem.

Keith