Kato E4 Max Shinkansen questions

[philiprporter]

I have just taken delivery of a Kato E4 Max Shinkansen and very nice it is too! However, I am struggling on two fronts because the instructions are in Japanese and I need to ask some help as follows:

 

1. Does anyone know what the mysterious 'on-off' switch on the underside of the front and end cars does? Doesnt seem to do anything as far as I can tell?

2. Retracting the cowling to reveal the front end coupling - the diagram shows the 2 adjacent cowling pieces sliding neatly inside either side of the bodyshell, yet the two pieces seem too large to do this and I dont want to force it - am I being dim here or missing something?

 

Any advice would be sincerely appreciated!

 

With thanks and best wishes, Phil Porter.

[disturbman]

I don't know for the E4 but usually the switches on the front cars turn the headlights on and off. It's designed like that so you can have the lights off when coupling two sets together.

[CaptOblivious]

I do have this set, and can comment about it.

 

About the switch: Disturbman is right; it is to turn the headlights/markerlights off when consisting two of these 8-car beasts together.

 

About the cowl: The switch under the nose that you use to manipulate the cowling is really stiff. It will take some force to get it back. As long as the cowl-halves are each opened to the side, they will have no problem sliding back: There is (surprisingly!!) plenty of room. If something goes wrong, however, the cowl-halves are held by a bit of plastic that's designed to release them before it breaks. This means that sometimes the cowl-halves will come off and frustrate you, but it's better than breaking! What I mean is that, if something goes wrong, the cowl will go flying across the room, but nothing will break. Or at least, I haven't managed to break the mechanism yet, despite a little rough handling! So don't worry about all the force needed to slide that puppy back.

 

I found a little relief for my anxiety by taking the entire thing apart and looking at how it works. You might try the same?

[philiprporter]

Thanks everyone - this is really helpful advice and much appreciated - its a stunning model and I was very anxious to avoid breaking anything so will gingerly have a go with perhaps a little more boldness after reading this! I was also wondering why marker lights were not illuminating at the end of the set and it seems I now have my answer! Many thanks indeed.

[philiprporter]

Oh and I forgot to ask one more thing - my apologies - I'm assuming that to get to bodyshell off the 2 lugs at each end of each car need releasing? The issue I had here last night was that to release the lugs on the chassis, the bodyshell plastic needs to be flexed to a worrying degree (further than I dared risk!) - is this the correct way to remove the body? Again, I'm worried about causing damage so my apologies for asking a subsidiary question that probably has a very obvious answer!

[CaptOblivious]

Oh and I forgot to ask one more thing - my apologies - I'm assuming that to get to bodyshell off the 2 lugs at each end of each car need releasing? The issue I had here last night was that to release the lugs on the chassis, the bodyshell plastic needs to be flexed to a worrying degree (further than I dared risk!) - is this the correct way to remove the body? Again, I'm worried about causing damage so my apologies for asking a subsidiary question that probably has a very obvious answer!

 

Yup, the four lugs, two at each end, have to be flexed to a rather worrying degree to get the shell off! Ugh! That said, after a few tries, you'll figure out how to do it with less flex; there's a kind of trick to it that's very hard to describe but becomes intuitive once you've worked the lugs a few times.

[bc6]

I assume the same holds true for the E3 Series Yamagata Tsubasa in regards to the on/off switch