21" Daylight Round End Observation Passenger Car, Front Truck problems with bolster pin and clip

Remove the pair of larger phillips screws located at each end. The shell should pull off by gently pulling apart the sides.  Then remove the seat assembly from the frame. I suspect the brass washer goes between the truck and the frame.

Looks like one screw is already out.

After securing the truck to the frame reattach the spring for the coupler to work correctly. Look at the other end of the car to see where it goes.

Pete

The brass washer goes over the truck's pivot stud and sits in the shiny steel(?) circle with the three folded up edges; i.e., atop the bolster.

The photos from LIONEL's website may help:

https://www.lionelsupport.com/...0a-a6b9-999ad9203cd1

Norton and Pingman, thank you so much for your help, I'm ready to put it back together, just waiting on some glue to dry.  I had to glue one of the bar halves back down to the floor, it was spot glued.  Now all I have to do is figure out where the long spring attaches to goes to the coupler, I'm guessing it is a centering spring, just don't see what it attaches to.  it's probably right in front of my face and I just don't see it.  Thanks again, I really appreciate it.  I'm learning new tricks today.  Just one more car to do the exact same thing too.

@J. Motts posted:

Norton and Pingman, thank you so much for your help, I'm ready to put it back together, just waiting on some glue to dry.  I had to glue one of the bar halves back down to the floor, it was spot glued.  Now all I have to do is figure out where the long spring attaches to goes to the coupler, I'm guessing it is a centering spring, just don't see what it attaches to.  it's probably right in front of my face and I just don't see it.  Thanks again, I really appreciate it.  I'm learning new tricks today.  Just one more car to do the exact same thing too.

Suggestion:  Email @Hancock52 and ask for his help.  He has a lot of knowledge about these cars after taking them apart and detailing them IIRC.  I believe he'd have replied if he'd seen your thread.

@Pingman posted:

Suggestion:  Email @Hancock52 and ask for his help.  He has a lot of knowledge about these cars after taking them apart and detailing them IIRC.  I believe he'd have replied if he'd seen your thread.

Sorry to be late to this, but I think Carl has already answered the question where the brass washer goes and you have already got the car and frame separated based on Norton’s reference to where the body mount screws are.

That leaves the spring for the kinetic coupler, which in your photo is detached at the truck end. On my observation car, it attaches to a kind of clip on the bolster that holds the truck to the frame; the attached is the best photo I can get because there are other parts of the assembly in the way. The spring end should just slot into the elongated part of the clip. The clip itself appears to be riveted to the truck assembly.

I’m not really sure how all the parts you’ve illustrated became detached but if the assembly is intact you should not have any big issue getting it back together.

P.S. SORRY - I reread your post and saw that you're asking where the spring connects at the coupler end. It's a kind of bracket in the coupler assembly as shown below, and in the parts diagram Carl linked to it's part #19 called a plate/coupler centering, also shown below.

Hancock’s picture shows where the spring connects to the truck. The ring can swivel 360 degrees around the truck mount so may be hard to see. I use a light and fine tip forceps to attach the spring to that ring. It can be frustrating until you learn the trick. I moved the couplers inboard about .2” on 20 cars so had to remove and reattach this spring 40 times.

Pete

Guys, thanks again for your very helpful answers, I really appreciate it.  I'm getting ready to send Carl an e-mail about one of the coaches for those cars, it has the same problem, I've removed the 4 end screws from both ends but can't seem to get the floor to come loose.  It's probably something very simple and I'm just to blind to see what I need to do.

J. If you removed the 4 flathead 2mm screws, those only hold the kinematic coupler bracket to the frame. The screws that hold the frame to the car are the larger pan head phillips (JIS?) that go through that bracket.

How old are those cars? The early 21” cars had the double sided tape that holds the windows on sloppily applied and stuck the sides to the frame. If thats the case they have to be gently pried away.

This is one of my cars after I moved to bracket inboard. Yours won't look like this but it shows the two panhead screws at the far right that hold the frame to the car.

Pete

@Norton posted:

J. If you removed the 4 flathead 2mm screws, those only hold the kinematic coupler bracket to the frame. The screws that hold the frame to the car are the larger pan head phillips (JIS?) that go through that bracket.

How old are those cars? The early 21” cars had the double sided tape that holds the windows on sloppily applied and stuck the sides to the frame. If thats the case they have to be gently pried away.

Pete

Subject to what Pete says about the actual body screws, it has to be said that the application of double sided and automotive strength tape on these cars at the factory was slovenly (more in the second run than the first in my experience) and you may find that you have to slide a putty knife or chisel between the sides of the body and the metal frame to get the shell to come loose. Excess tape was applied to hold the windows in place; this is an illustration of what I did to separate the body shell of a UP Excursion car (2nd run) from the frame because of all of the spare tape used - as shown in the second image:

Note that in the top image I actually put some of the middle popsicle sticks in the wrong place because it's the join between the plastic body shell and the metal frame you have to separate.

Just to add what Hancock says, I used business cards to hold the sides apart until it was free, then when the shell is off, rather than try and remove the excess tape from the sides of the shell, I just covered it with scotch tape. Now the shells just pop off.

Pete

I just got the body off of the coach car that had the same identical problem as the observation, it really took some work to get it off.  I could see the clip when I swiveled the truck but when it finally separated from the body that little sucker is no where to be found,  I'm going to Lowe's or Home Depot to see if maybe, just maybe they might have it, I doubt it but I'm going to see.  If not I'll go try Ace Hardware and see.  If I have no luck, then I'll call Lionel and see if I can order them and I will order enough to fix all of my 21" cars if need be.

Thanks so much guys for all of your help, tips, tricks and suggestions, it is so very much appreciated.  Have a great rest of the day and weekend.