Hi, I am returning to this hobby after 26 yrs. I was trying to retyre my old toy life like F7 with culmet 505. I cant remove the truck frame to reach the bogies to retyre it. Anyone has experience with it? I would like to try and last resort is to use snoot but it will cost a lot to ship to singapore… Help. Thanks v much Kiong
The construction of Life-Like trains is pretty simple. For the F7, all you have to do to get the wheels out is remove the sideframes piece from the motor truck. There’s a large latch on each end. Use a flat-blade screwdriver to pry one of the latches open, and the whole piece will pop off.
You’ll also want to give the metal wheels a very good cleaning before you run the engine. They’re made of brass, which will form a non-conductive tarnish over time. A fine wire wheel or ultra-fine abrasive block (like the Walthers “Bright Boy”) will fix that in a hurry.
Life-Like trains like this one are very cheap, and most all will steer you away from them. But if you get them cleaned and tuned just right, they can still run well enough to be fun.[:)]
Hi Darth SantaFe, Cool I took your advice and pry opened the tab which I dared not touch for weeks…it worked and I managed to change the tyres…now my old cheesie F7 is back in action. The wheels are slightly worned due as it was ran with worn tyres years ago…so the f7 wobbles when it runs but that’s better than staying as self queen.