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I have a K-Line Bay Window Caboose, stock K612-1417.    Recently, one of the windows popped out and is rattling inside.  I thought it would be a simple procedure to open up and service, but it is not.....Found on the net other owners who mentioned four deep-set screws on the frame, which attach to the roof-supposedly just remove those four screws, swing the ladders out of the way, and pop off the roof. It looks like the ladders are glued in at the frame, I can't swing them out.  I searched further, and found commentary from other owners who said it is too difficult, so they gave up trying.  So do I make things worse by pressing on, or do I just live with it. Or is there some trick I am missing.  I had the crazy that I would try to upgrade the lighting while I was CA gluing the window back in place, but it looks like neither of those plans is happening.

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Hi John, at least it is good to know that I am not alone or crazy from the standpoint that I can't figure out how to open it up....It's really unfortunate, as Kline seemed to make some otherwise really nice stuff-I have a large collection of their alu. covered hoppers, and they are excellent.    So I don't know why they would hermetically seal this caboose model with an otherwise nice build quality.

Yes, thank you, coach.  I did see the locking tabs under the roof line for the ladders.  They seemed fixed in place.  But I am going to take another look, and see.  Like John said, we can make things worse by breaking parts.

Thanks/re smoker.   Actually, I have had it switched off, now. But I did not see any over-heating.  But it puts out such a little stream of smoke, that I decided it is really not worth bothering it with it. You can barely see it, unless you really look.  I do not like the flashing lights, that's another reason why I was opening to open it up.  But am going to try and clean the rollers, or just find another Lackawanna unit with LED, if possible.

I worked on a K Line ATSF Steel cupola caboose.   Similar ladder design to the Bay Window.  What I ended up determining was that I had to push down on the top of the ladder rungs where they arch over, and at the same time use a small eye glass flat blade screwdriver to pry them out of the holes in the frame at the bottom. 

I don't have photos of the ladders off the car, but I remember that the bottom of the metal ladder rails were bent more than 90 degrees which is what helped keep them in place, as they were under slight tension. 

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Ok, so the roof can actually come off, after all.  Now I have a question about lighting.  I see there is a company named Evans Designs, that makes LED lighting for train cars.  They have  7-19 volt four LED set up tied in on one lead.  Is it just as simple as I think, to cut away the old analog bulb leads and solder these in?  Will that get rid of the flickering, or do I need a capacitor?  Evans has a nine-volt battery set up, but I am not sure there is room inside the caboose, for that.   Also, I don't know how the corner marker lights are illuminated.  Any thoughts or guidance, or if there is a better product to use than Evans, I would appreciate it.  It is my first try at doing something like this.

Alex, I can't answer your questions about LED lighting, but I have some experience with flickering.  Is the spring tension on the rollers adequate to keep them in contact with the center rail?  Do the rollers turn freely?

I use a small drop of light oil on the end of the rollers on all my engines and lighted rolling stock.  Sometimes the oil will temporarily increase flickering, but it will go away with continued operation.  I've solved all my flickering problems by paying attention to the rollers.

John

Evans has a wide variety of LED lights that work on AC or DC from 7-19 volts. Just hook up the wires to the ground and center rail pickup and they work well. They also have blinking Red lights that look good. There are circuits you can buy that will maintain a constant voltage as well to reduce the flicker but if you are rollers are clean and the springs are tight enough the lights should stay on most of the time.

If you are trying to light the side markers on a caboose I find a wider bulb works well they need to be aimed at the inside lens to light up the colored glass found on some cabooses. The LED bulbs do not work as well as grain of wheat incandescent bulbs if inserted in a tiny hole for the side lights if there are different colored lens side and rear on the lamp holders. As the LED lights tend to be brightest when viewed directly. You can file down the LED lens a bit to get the light to spread a bit or insert  a glass or plastic tube through the hole where the old grain of wheat bulb fit, then shine the LED directly into the end of the glass/plastic tube and it will help distribute the light a bit better.

I figured out how open up this model for servicing.  So I will attach photos, show you what I saw/did, and then comment and ask questions about the wiring.

Member Chris was right, his method for opening the roof worked like a charm  You need to push down slightly on the ladder rungs on top of the roof to slightly bend the ladder, and then use a flat head eye class screw driver or small from the bottom of the frame (you cannot do this the sides, for sure), and then insert the flat between the frame and the lowest ladder rung and gently pry-the ladder rails will quickly pop out of their mounting holes with no resistance.  Once you do that, you can remove the four deep set screws which attach to the roof from the bottom of the frame, and the roof will come off without effort.  

The chimney flue is mounted on a horizontal plate, which you can just lift out of the way.  The seating and orientation of this plate is intuitive.

The wiring looking a little tricky than what I thought I would find, and would appreciate some thoughts.  There are eight incandescent bulbs on a board, which is screwed to the roof.  As of this writing, I don't even know how many of those are still illuminating, but am going to find out.  It does not look it is so easy to just cut the leads and solder in new LED's.  As it looks the marker lights are depending on that board wiring.  From what I can see from the marker lights, mine work-but there would be no changing them.  There is no bulb there, inserted into a shell or lens.  It looks like the molded marker light is itself the bulb.  There is just wiring going through a hole in the car body to the marker light on the other side.

Secondly, the marker lights seem to get their power from two copper contact strips, wired into the the light board, which then make contact with two grommets on each side (each pair of grommets must be for positive and negative terminals, I guess)  I have noticed that both the grommets and the contact strips have a lot dirt/crud on them.  So if I clean them, that may improve things, as far as the marker lights are concerned.

So that leaves, what to do about the incandescent bulbs?  If I cut the leads, then the marker lights are not going to work, anymore. If I try soldering the LED's to the copper contract strips, then I am going to end up still with flickering incandescent lights and steady LED lights.

Does anyone think I can get away with cutting and removing the light board, and using WAGO connectors connect new wiring for the LED's and maintain also the connection for the markers? Ended up being a bit more of a project than I thought, but maybe it will work out.

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Thanks to tips from Chris and Alex, I removed the roof from my SP caboose,  retrieved and glued in the errant window and restored the dead marker light to operation!

The marker light didn’t work because the plastic tab holding the contact grommets was broken in half (second hand caboose, somebody worked on it before).  I glued the tab together with CA glue and added a small wood block to reinforce it.  All the interior lights work; I’m satisfied with the way they look, so I don’t plan any modification.

Thanks again, guys!

John

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looks good.   I got my window fixed, too.  My contact grommets were covered with gunk, so I cleaned it up with alcohol and q-tips.  I also cleaned the contact rollers on the trucks with alcohol and lightly filed them with an ignition file.  I am going to try to avoid re-lighting, if I can avoid the blinking for the most part.  I can do the relighting project, but it is really more time than I want to spend on it, more than just unplugging the old and soldering in new leads.

I can confirm that cleaning the contact grommets and rollers with alcohol and then lighting filing with a small, ignition file has done the trick for solid burn incandescent lights.  I am definitely not going to bother with the upgrade, now that I know this small trick will solve the problem.  It was good, though, to learn how to open up the caboose and fix the detached window

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