I have an old HOn30 AHM steam locomotive. I want to disassemble the little beast but so far I am being stymied by simply getting the body shell off. Is there a trick to these? How do you get the plastic locomotive shell off the chassis without breaking something off?
Have fun with your trains
If possible, a photo or two may help. side, top and bottom
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Hi vsmith:
I don't know if you are aware of the HO Seeker site but you might find some information here:
http://hoseeker.net/ahminstructions.html
I couldn't find any references to HOn30, but maybe some of their other locomotives were assembled in a similar manner. I'm assuming that there is no visible screw on the bottom of the cylinder casting. I looked at the AHM 0-6-0 and it looked like they used a screw accessible through the smoke stack to hold the shell onto the frame. A couple of other AHM locos used a similar method. Have you had a look in the stack?
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
IIRC, the body shell is held in place by the smoke stack, which you can unscrew to lift the body shell from the chassis.
It's this little bugger. I will see if that stack will unscrew but it looks cast with the shell.
If not the stack itself, the other common method of attachment is a screw up through the cylinders from the bottom.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Okay found it! theres a very small screw on top of the boiler. It was painted over so I couldn't see the flange. It's off now thanks.
I checked the Minitrains website, and found something that looks like your locomotives. The item is about changing the wheels to another type, but tells how to take it apart. One caution, they are new production, and may have been redesigned since the AHM days
http://www.minitrains.eu/mt-mod-spoke.html
Thanks George. That's the locomotive but the new production version is different. New says to take the dome off revealing the screw. Mine the screw was between the stack and the Bell and was painted over. I had to scrape the paint away before the tab for a flat screw was even visible. These old version minitrains really were poor quality and are not worth salvaging once they go south. Better to buy the new version. I'm salvaging this shell for a bash I have in mind.
Thanks guys.
The Minitrains site has a list of vendors in the US, except Caboose Hobbies in Denver has closed - not sure if the new Caboose has them or not.
http://www.minitrains.eu/sources/USA.pdf