I’ve acquired a used (blue box) LifeLike Proto 2000 SD60 (23000 series) and it needs a very good cleaning and re-lube. I want to disassemble and clean all the gearing, etc, so need to open up the trucks. While I know how to do so on a LL P2K E6 with the 2-piece truck bottom covers (just pry them off and they don’t break), the SD60 is not the same. So I thought I’d ask before breaking the one piece cover on the SD60, which does not seem to readily pop off. Does it pry off somehow, and are there right and wrong ways to try?
Here is a photo of a truck on the SD60.
Here is a pic of the diagram from a similar looking (but gray box, 30000 series) SD50. The truck bottom covers appear to be the same.
While I’m at work and my SD-60 is at home, I can’t exactly verify this but I think you will see the answer in those six ears sticking up from part #20. The four fingers hold the side frames in place, they will pop off once you unlatch and remove the bottom cover.
You’ll need a piece of stiff music wire with a short 90º bend to reach in and release three of the tabs on one side from the top (bolster) side of the cover.
You can just make out the three tabs in your photo.
Music wire is not stiff enough…You will need a small flat blade screwdriver, (jewler’s preferred) and slide it along the bottom on side where the clips are and with a twisting motion release the clips from one side. They will want to snap back, try to stick a tooth pic into the side of the first clip and continue on to the next. Don’t be afraid to break them…they are flexible Delrin plastic, hard to break. All You need is to release one side, the rest is easy.
Thanks, guys. I’ll get to this today for sure as it’s a rainy one.
For clarity, the drawing shows three short extensions on each side and two longer ones. The drawing makes it look like the three short (boxy) ones might be clips that have to be pried outward, where the two taller ones might just be alignment slides? Is that right? Might be apparent when the screwdriver is applied.
Thanks, all. Went just as you described. It was nice to be much less nervous about breaking a (hard to get) part. The loco was not worn much but pretty gritty, must have been on a garage storage shelf. Not too much had got into the gearing so I did not need to disassemble the gear towers completely but took the trucks off and apart to there, cleaned everything in alcohol with a toothbrush and it looked as though all got clean, even throughout the towers. Went together easily. Now ready to mill the frame for room for speakers (4 sugar cubes) and a better decoder as I want to install, ala a recent SD50 conversion.
