The sadistic engineer who designed them made it impossible to love an E-Unit. Requiring the repairer to keep the 4 finger contact, the drum, and the 2 finger contact perfectly aligned with their seating holes before clamping the unit closed is an unnecessary cruelty. It consumed the better part of an hour before I got lucky.
With some practice it gets easier.
Lionel did create a couple of tools to make the job easier.
The E-unit vise held the e-unit with a little spring tension pressing the sides together to make it easier to get the parts to stay in place.
The e-unit spreader has a lobe on one end to split the e-unit without having parts go flying.
The other end has a hook to be used to position the drum.
And its thickness is supposed to be a gauge for the spacing of the fingers.
I have both, but only use the spreader bar to open up the e-units.
Several third party tools have been make over the years.
Some folks like to use a pair of horse shoe washer pliers to spread the e-unit sides.
I find them helpful when I want to spread the sides extra wide.
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