Disassembly of a Weaver Steam Locomotive

I have not worked on that particular locomotive, but I've taken a lot of Weaver brass engines apart. Generally the body is held onto the frame with three or four screws. Two will be at the cab - generally in the back on the sill, but they also could be on the bottom. The front is usually held with one long screw that is hidden under the guide bar for the leading truck. You generally have to remove one of the screws holding the leading truck articulation, but you may not have to remove the truck completely. 

At this point the body should be loose from the frame, but there will be other things to look out for. The biggest issue is brass piping and other details that get in the way of disassembly. Occasionally there will be a detail that has to be removed before you can take the body off. If so, it will be held in place with a small screw. It should never be necessary to unsolder anything. 

When the body starts to come off, watch how the wiring comes out. You will want to replace it exactly as it came out so it doesn't foul the drivers or the drive mechanism. Also, on many of these engines the motor will obstruct removal of the body. You may have to rock the body and slide it backwards to get around the motor. 

Once everything is loose, you can find and disconnect all the wire connectors. Usually everything has Molex-type end connectors except the main power wires, which use wire nuts. Make good notes or take a picture so you know where everything goes when you put it back together. 

That's a sort of generic guide to taking apart a Weaver brass engine. Hope it helps.

Most Brass locos are held together by two screws under the cab, and one or two holding the smokebox through the cylinder saddle.  The body screws should be fairly robust.  Be suspicious of very tiny screws, which are more likely to hold trim parts together.

I used to have a Weaver H-10 Consolidation.  I could never fully separate its body from the chassis.  There was one component of the valve gear, either the reversing lever or the eccentric crank, that I couldn't figure out how to remove, which prevented further dissection.  Lionel and MTH use hex screws in this application.  But this Weaver brass didn't have any visible means of removing the part.  To this day I wonder if I was missing something obvious?

Beautiful if irrelevant (for me) loco; thought about one. Didn't. I will regret that.

The screw under the guide bar for the leading truck was the key - once I found that one everything else fell into place. Ended up getting two screws that held the cab in place under the shell rather than two screws behind the cab which held the shell to the frame.

Currently held up due to not having the right allen wrench to remove the flywheel from the motor, and need to replace a traction tire that disintegrated while I'm at it - tools currently on order from Amazon from recommendations from the "Best of Barrett in the Backshop" from the OGR digital library. Assuming nothing goes wrong with the upgrade, I'll make a post of it running when it's finished.

Thanks!