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I've disassembled many MTH locomotives but this one's got me stumped.  Having removed all of the body mounting screws, I am still not unable to remove the frame from the carbody.  The hangup appears to be at/in the nose of the locomotive. In desperation, I even read the manual, which was of absolutely no help at all.

The problem lies in the nose of the locomotive which refuses to separate from the carbody.  I have resisted all temptations to use a bigger hammer and a pry bar because this is a favorite locomotive and I want to 3RS it.

Any help will be much appreciated.

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Yup.  Those tactics have always worked in the past and I've tried them on this locomotive but without success.  The carbody is free of the frame, save for the forwardmost end.  Something in the "nose" of the locomotive is hung-up.  I can lift the hind end half an inch without bending the frame before something in the nose prevents further movement.  Harrumph!

Knowing that the headlight and marker bulbs/LEDs are often mounted on a stamped framework attached to the frame, I'm leery of forcing the issue.  Perhaps scale track jacks, spike mauls and claw bars are in order?  When all else fails, call in Maintenance of Way!

I just realized what the issue might be!  I had one of those come in for repair years ago and had the same issue.  The problem ended up being that the bulbs had obviously run hotter than expected and melted the cab to the point it was deformed and holding the shell on.  At the time I managed to get new cab parts to rebuild it, don't know if that's still possible today.

MoW saved the day.  Brute force won out without collateral damage.  The cab interior and the very large headlight, marker light and ditch light array mounting structure is an extremely tight fit and I may have to do some file work to get it back in.  There is no sign of melted lamp housings or other such defects.

My only disappointments were the MTH instruction manual, which misidentified the body mounting screws (I didn't believe them) and the amount of grease that had escaped from the gear boxes, covered everything in the general vicinity and took hours to remove.

Thank you for your advice.  You gave this poor trackman the courage to go on to victory!

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