Postwar searchlight car rewire

There is no need to take the light apart. Feed the wire through the small hole in the socket and put a glob of solder on the wire, large enough to not go through the hole, and screw the bulb in. If you need to reattach the wire under the car you will have to remove the truck assembly, I have done this by grinding off just the expanded end of the rivet. Remove the truck, and solder the wire to the wiper. Next drill and tap the rivet , if memory serves me correctly for a short 4:40 screw, this will give you a repair that is not visible from the top of the car.

Ray

Ray, I think you forgot how those cars are assembled. Not a simple job. The bulb contact is a rivet that you can't pass a wire through. The light assembly will need taken apart. The best way I found is take a small punch and from the wire inlet hole on the backside, carefully tap with a hammer around the stake marks in the reflector and knock loose. The reflector needs to come out of the searchlight housing to resolder the wire to the bulb socket. You will need to restake the reflector slightly when finished to provide a ground for the socket. The reflector will get marred slightly, no way around that.

Unless anyone has a better idea, this is the way I have fixed them.

Thanks Guys. 

I want to update this in case someone does a search in the future and this pops up.

I popped the insides out with a small dental tool.  I drilled a hole (only part way) into the center of the bulb's rivet on the back side.  I soldered a scrap of Lionel 022 switch controller wire into that hole.  I cut off the old, black wire insulator sheathing.  I placed 2 layers of electrical tape over the end to make sure it doesn't contact the bucket.  I tapped the insides back into the bucket with a socket and hammer.

I cut a piece of heat shrink tubing to go over the existing wire - long enough to go from the truck to my wire splice.  I slid that all the way up to the bucket to get it out of the way.  I used flux and soldered the wires.  I slid the heat shrink all the way down to the truck and heated it to shrink it.

It's not perfect, but I happy to have it working on my simple Christmas train.  I don't know how to get photos to display in the order I want them: So I'm adding photos one at a time.

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Rick,

I am sorry for any misinformation I had given, as Chuck mentioned I did get the rewiring of the light mixed up with another repair. Glad you got r dun.

Ray