Menards caboose tear down help

Hi,

What I do.is follow the NMRA specs for weighing a car. In O gauge it's 5 ounces initially and also 1 ounce for every inch of car length.  So for instance a 40 foot boxcar is approximately 10&1/2-11 inches long which calculates out to 15 to 16 ounces.  Purchase a postal scale from wal mart or an office supply store.  They're cheap.  Then if you have a Harbor Freight Tools  store nearby,  buy some truck tire weights.  They come in a sheet of either 1/4 or 1/2 ounce sizes.  $8.99 for about 2 pounds worth. They stick to anything very well.  Place.them either inside the car or on the underside,  just make sure you balance the weight on each side or the caboose might wobble down the tracks. 

How do you remove the shell for the caboose?  It looks like the roof is the only thing that comes off, the rest looks to be molded together

If you have the roof off, just glue the weights to the floor, job done.  Why disassemble it any farther?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

If you have the roof off, just glue the weights to the floor, job done.  Why disassemble it any farther?

I should’ve elaborated further, my bad!  I can not get the roof off and I’m afraid it will break.  Is that the only piece that comes off?  Is it designed to just snap in place?

I just got a Milwaukee caboose today and it has the same problem. I cured it by scuffing the wheels with fine sandpaper that the copper grounding wipers are on. Works great now.

Grampstrains posted:

dangerwildmike posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

If you have the roof off, just glue the weights to the floor, job done.  Why disassemble it any farther?

I should’ve elaborated further, my bad!  I can not get the roof off and I’m afraid it will break.  Is that the only piece that comes off?  Is it designed to just snap in place?

Menard's caboose looks like a "Knock off" of Lionel's small caboose. If so, the roof will come off as it is pushed into the window shell from the top.  Just pry it off slowly all the way around.  The window shell snaps into the side of the body at the window openings.

 

Menards’ caboose is the former K-Line model from the 1990s.

Grampstrains posted:

Jim R. posted:

Grampstrains posted:

dangerwildmike posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

If you have the roof off, just glue the weights to the floor, job done.  Why disassemble it any farther?

I should’ve elaborated further, my bad!  I can not get the roof off and I’m afraid it will break.  Is that the only piece that comes off?  Is it designed to just snap in place?

Menard's caboose looks like a "Knock off" of Lionel's small caboose. If so, the roof will come off as it is pushed into the window shell from the top.  Just pry it off slowly all the way around.  The window shell snaps into the side of the body at the window openings.

 

Menards’ caboose is the former K-Line model from the 1990s.

I have the Milwaukee version of the Menard's caboose.  It is exactly the same as Lionel's. 

Check again. Menards has drawn its models from the tooling formerly held by Sanda Kan in China and Williams,  both owned by Kader (Bachmann’s parent company). The K-Line caboose may have been based on the Lionel model, but there are fine differences.

Jim, are you sure you're looking at the right pictures? You're normally a very knowledgeable guy.

I figure you would know K-Line never did a caboose like the Menards one. You certainly must be aware the K-Line caboose - the standard one that came in all the starter sets - was from Kusan, later used by Williams. The end handrails are half-height and are part of the frame. The caboose shell snaps on to the frame via two very visible slits on each end of the caboose. The only other non-scale cabooses done by K-Line were the Work Car and the small Bay Window, both having their origins with MARX.

The Menards one is pretty much a clone of a more recent Lionel SP style caboose. At one time someone here compared the two with only very subtle differences.

While I don't have one, it appears the roof of the Menards caboose is a separate piece from the body including the frame, which is like the newer Lionel SP cabooses. During the MPC years, the frame was a separate piece and the body was all one piece. The end handrails are the entire height of the body and are a separate piece which snaps into the bottom of the caboose body.

Now I’m not sure anymore. I have the Menards caboose. I had a Lionel caboose of the same style. And I thought I had a K-Line caboose of the same style, but what I do have is the old Kusan mold. But no match to confirm.

So the Menards caboose is more closely related to the Lionel caboose. Without one to compare anymore, I can’t tell if the construction is identical or if the tooling was created independently.

Jim, the Conrail one below is the K-Line caboose. Granted a repaint by me, but you can see the body style. The K-Line ones always had a silver ladder on one end of the caboose mounted via two small holes in the frame and a slit cut into the roof overhang. I painted the ladder on this one black, which you can just see the top of, on the far end of the caboose.

Next below is an actual Lionel SP caboose (with a modified Lionel 027 tank car that snuck into the picture ). And yes, both repaints done by me.

Lionel has changed the cupola positioning on the SP caboose along with the side window arrangement. Some cabooses come with a centered cupola and others with an offset position. Older versions had 4 windows on each body side. Newer ones have two.

Now compare to the Menards caboose, a photo from a post by Cabinet Bob.

To add to what Grampstrains said: If so, the roof will come off as it is pushed into the window shell from the top.  Just pry it off slowly all the way around.  The window shell snaps into the side of the body at the window openings.

The frosted inner window shell - of at least the Lionel version - has some has a couple nubs in the mold, which snap into the window frame. These do make these hard to get apart. I've used a Dremel with a sanding bit, and taken down the angle of the nub so that it isn't so difficult to remove next time around.