With the car turned upside down, you should see 6 tabs that hold the top part of the car to the floor assembly (window glass and roof are one piece). Pry each tab inward and insert a toothpick to hold it open. Then carefully pull on the top of the car to separate the two pieces. Gently twisting the car back and forth may help separate them.
Once you get the car open, you have to remove the interior to get to the coupler swivel mechanism.
Unless these cars have been changed from Bachmann's earlier offerings, there is a long eccentric connected to the truck's pivot point and a shorter one connected to the coupler's pivot point. The free ends of the two eccentrics are connected, so that when the truck turns, so does the coupler. Once you open the car, you'll see how simple it is (and should be simple to repair, too).
I'm not familiar with these cars, but for dis-assembly, the "Ask the Bach-man" site suggests using your fingernail under one end of the roof, and a small screwdriver to release the clear plastic tabs on the underbody.
Wayne
I am looking for help; a friend has asked me to try to fix a NYC Bachmann heavyweight coach that he dropped (accidentally) to the floor; damage was, it caused short circuits and one of the couplers came off
I think that the short circuit was because he had put the wheel-sets in wrong way to,, so the light did not work and the car shorted out.
In my limited experience, I had never seen couplers that turned when the trucks turned; so, exactly how does one take the car apart so the coupler can be reinstalled and this feature is restored? (The disassembly of the car was not apparent to me in the short time I had when i was looking at it at his place).
Based on the entries in this post, it seems that there is some experience out there with these cars; can anyone tell me how to go about fixing this damage? IF experience says that it can not be fixed so it works like it is supposed to , then that would be important to know, because it that is the case I would try to replace it by jury rigging a coupler, maybe the way Branchline coaches are assembled, etc.,
(But I am pretty curious on how the trucks and couplers are rigged up so one turns the other...)
Any and all help would be much appreciated.
Peter Mcardle
Modeling the New Haven, fixing the NYC ( temporarily)
[Edit: Post split from original thread for clarity - Tom]