Regarding my Lionel 2065 Hudson, the wire connecting the pickup roller assembly with the E unit reverser has broken loose from the roller assembly and is not accessable to resolder. How can I remove the roller assembly to access the solder joint?
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That happens to be the worst wire to replace on that and similar locos.
To replace that wire, the complete shoe with the roller pick-ups needs to come out.
All the drive wheels need to be pulled off the axles, then a special tool (Hobby Horse HH-1073) is used to spread the motor frame sides a little at a time while prying one side of the shoe out - a little at a time. Much patience is needed here, or you will break the tabs on the shoe that hold it into the motor frame.
Once the wire is replaced, reverse the procedure to get the shoe in place.
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You don't need to pull the drive wheels. There are 2 ways to fix this. First is if you want to remove the roller bracket it probably has the 2055 style pick up. There are retaining tabs on one side only. These are on the opposite side of where should be 2 crimps on the aluminum frame. You can take a pair of pliers and straighten these crimps, and the assembly will drop out. Hint: unsolder the wire from the E unit lug and solder the loose wire to the pick-up. Then feed it through to the E unit. This works a lot better than trying to solder the wire back on as there is very little wiggle room to solder the wire on there. Then replace the pick-up assembly and re-crimp. 2nd method is remove the E-unit and you can see the flat head rivet to resolder to. You will need a narrow tip soldering iron/pencil to get in between the motor frame Tin the wire and solder to rivet. I prefer method #2, less work.
Thank you Larry &,Chuck. I cheated and soldered a wire to the metal base of the roller assembly located under the E unit and routed the wire straight up between the E unit and the motor frame, basically where the original pickup wire was routed. All is well and I'm a happy engineer.