As with many Lionel 520 cabs, mine has the screw hole broken out and the tabs on the other end snapped off. To make matters worse, the broken parts are missing so whatever the fix is needs to be fabricated.
The first suggestion was to use brass and epoxy for strength. But others say to stick with plastic since adhering styrene with glue is a better bond than with epoxy and metal. Someone even said that coming up with a mechanical screw/nut fastener system would be the best.
Unfortunately none of those offering the above suggestions had ever actually fixed a 520 cab.
I’m not overly concerned about the cosmetics since there is already so much damage. But I do want to keep as much of the original look as possible and not have to repaint other than the repaired areas.
Can anyone offer a suggestion which they know from experience will work? Thanks for your help.
Here’s what I did to mine. I took a piece of sheet plastic about 2 x 2 and super glued it to the backside of the cab. Then I took the thick super glue and a old razor blade as a spreader and filled the void with glue and used a activator to quick dry the glue. drill hole and touched up with a red paint.
If you don’t want to use the plastic, just use masking tape as your backing board to spread the glue. Hope this helps? I love those things, just wish they had magnatraction cause they haul major butt! I’ll be following to see how you make out.
I have had to repair it. The screw hole was cracked badly, and part was missing. The tabs on the other end were broken off. Someone had made a hole in the end with the tabs to run a section of 12 gauge copper wire through to keep the shell on the frame.
My solution was to use liquid plastic cement and sections of styrene plastic attached to re-inforce the screw hole.
As far as the back tabs are concerned, I have still not decided on a fix yet. I am trying to fine styrene strong enough to act as back tabs. I have also considered using a metal bracket to hold the shell on.
As far as the color around the screw hole is concerned, I matched up paint as best I could and dabbled a little on around the screw hole to make it less obvious the shell has been repaired.
Regardless what some people have written in CTT, the 520 is a great little work horse.
If necessary, I will try to figure out how to post pictures of my repair work.