When Lionel shipped the George Bush funeral train set in July I was super excited to get it and all the add on cars. I was really looking forward to the observation cards which were brand new tooling. In the catalog last year, I noticed that they showed incorrect 4 wheel trucks. I emailed Lionel and they replied that they were aware of the mistake and the cars would come with the correct 6 wheel trucks. Unfortunately that didn't happen. Luckily I was able to order 2 pairs of 6 wheel trucks from their parts department. The installation process is super easy and only took about 30 minutes. I started by removing the shell and interior. Sliding out the e-clips that hold the truck's to the frame was the hardest part, but a pair of needle nose pliers did the trick. I then cut the wires from the pickup rollers as close to the original trucks as possible to leave extra wire to work with. I slid the new trucks in (there's a large black washer you'll need to transfer from the old pair to the new). I didn't have wire strippers fine enough for thre thin wires so I was able to pinch off the insulation with my finger nails. If you have super wide curves, you're pretty much done. If you want to run them on less than O-81, you will need to shorten the skirting at the front of the car. This is actually a prototypical change though. After mustering up the courage to take a dremel to the cars, I trimmed the skirt back about half an inch to line up with the second row of rivets on the roof. From here it was smooth sailing, simply connecting the wires back and reinstalling the interior and shell. It was a bummer having to pay for the correct trucks, but I think this fix goes a long way towards improving the overall appearance of the models.
