Last Labor Day on a visit to a very well known coastal LHS here, Gold Cast Station, I found a large cardboard box in the entryway containing plastic bags full of plastic parts just like a model car kit, when I inquired I was informed that these were LGB Ore Cars, complete, just unassembled - sans trucks and bolsters.
Apparently on a visit to San Diego recently the owner picked them up at the LGBoA warehouse, the way he said this made me think to myself that they were selling anything they could to dealers to keep the cash coming in! Somewhere down the line these were sent from the factory to San Diego, but SD didnt have anyone to assemble them nor any red boxes to package and ship them in. So he got at least one large box of these parts, and must have got them for cheap cause he was selling the unassembled parts kits.... at $20 a car!!!!!
How much were these freaking car sets when they came out??? So of course I got 3 of them.
I started to put them together last weekend using the service parts diagrams downloaded from LGBs website, so far its been very slow going on car #1, lots of parts and theres no clearly apparent sequence of assembley so I'm playing it by ear, been a real PITA, finally figured out the way to go is from the bottom up.
I went from this...
To this...
Now to find trucks...:D
Okie dokie finally got some proper trucks, luckily someone was selling on Ebay 4 pairs of trucks, and more luckily I won the auction, so they all will match each other.
New bolster, 3/16 square basswood, epoxied into placedont forget to add a bearing surface, I use a washer and two styrene strips, this allows the truck to pivot a little from front to back while the styrene strips keep it level from side to side.
A little paint
Add trucks
All done!
Now just have to do the other two kits.
PS this was posted on 2 other websites prior, I'm pretty sure they cleaned Hans out of his inventory.
Have fun with your trains
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