How to remove shell on a Kato 113 Series Shonan Passenger Set 10-808?

[Mutro]

I recently acquired this passenger car set, used from HobbyOff in Sapporo.  I'm attempting to install interior lights to these (if these cars even allow such instal?) but I'm stuck at not being able to pry the shell off of the cars; the body does not drop off when the shells are spread open like my other passenger cars. Perhaps these are early Kato models that have a different method?

 

[cteno4]

This can be frustrating as each train can have slightly different things that need to get unstuck to pop them out. Just takes some fiddling usually to figure out each one. I’ve opened so many I’ve forgotten the details on specific ones. I’ve had individual cars in a set be cranky to slip apart for some odd reason while the rest popped right out.
 

Do you have any Spudgers you can slip in. Sometimes you need something thin to pop a catch further in that just spreading the bottom edge of the car does not get. At other times you have to slip something in to disengage catch’s at both sides at once as you get one side free and as you free the other side the first side becomes caught again…

 

Starbucks plastic stirrers use to have a thin flat end that was like 5/8” long an 1/4” wide and the end tapered to a decent point. They were perfect little spidgers to slip in, especially the units with 2 catches in both sides nearer the ends that pulling the shell apart alone usually did not release. Some find guitar picks work well for them. I like these as super thin and easy to wiggle around to find and pop the catches on the tricky one. Having multiples lets you keep them in place once popped to prevent recatching, but these are a bit bulky for that. I have a small drawer of spudgers and jsut grab the ones that look like will work as I fiddle.

 

i guess it would be nice if someone were to document on all models where the catches were and any tricks to getting shells off, but pretty obscure thing, but maybe someone will get fixated on it! I’d say 60% pop right out with simple thumb nail pulling of the shell center. 25% require a spudger to quickly wiggle a snagged catch loose, 20% require some sort of wedge to keep one side unlocked while you unlock the other side and 5% take some time and @#$&% words and fiddling to get off.

 

jeff

[Mutro]

Thanks for your advice and experience. I’ll keep trying and hopefully get it completed soon. 

[cteno4]

It’s one of the most fiddly parts of the hobby I’ve found over the years, along with getting some bogies off (usually nasty microace ones), and separating tabs easily on some motorized chassises. A lot of it is just diving in and fiddling and practice. I know it takes me a bit with a cranky mech when I havnt messed with a cranky one for a while.

 

keep at it and if you have issues try and take some pictures if you can and post.

 

i forgot one other way to hold body clips un hooked is to use those thin wooden coffee stirrers and just shave the front edge to a 45 and use to keep clips undone as you get all 4 (or sometimes 6) poppe open.

 

jeff

[RS18U]

I've had success using wooden toothpicks to help get shells off, both N and HO scales.

[Kamome]

The 115 I have is an older model with filament bulb lighting. To remove the cab cars, you need to pop the chassis out of the rear and then you can slide it out of the front housing. There is a plastic light deflector piece fitted to the shell that doesn’t allow both ends to be popped out at the same time. 

 

Your version is from 2012 so most likely a similar design.

Edited June 24 by Kamome

[Mutro]

Thanks everyone for posting your suggestions.  Much appreciated! 

 

This follow-up post of mine is for future reference, as I discovered the following:

1. The non-motorized carriages (with end lights) are difficult in releasing the shell and I still haven't found a way. This is likely due to what Kamome mentions in his post above. But if the internals are similar to the powered carriage (see point #2), then even if I were able to release the shell, I would not be able to outfit this car with the internal lighting kit anyway.
2. The motorized carriage does allow removal of the shell by spreading it a bit and the rest of the assembly drops out like more recent Kato passenger carriages. HOWEVER, I discovered that the internals of this carriage does NOT accept the KATO 11-214 LED Interior Lighting Kit. There are no connecting parts to receive the lighting kit (see the second from the top photo of the exposed carriage below)

I could continue to explore a way to open these stubborn units, then concoct a way to solder on the lighting kit... or I may just have to replace this set with a later version of 113 (if such a model were available)...  Anyone interested in picking up a slightly used 113 set, without internal lights? 😁

 

 

[Kamome]

These older sets may have taken the older 11-204 (1 piece) and 11-206 (6 piece)lighting. They're a bit hard to find these days. Not sure how these fitted in, they may very well secure to the shell roof. I believe they used a filament bulb so there was no fancy wiring needed for different polarity. Not sure how these fitted to the motor unit though without any frame to mount the light unit onto.

 

As you have the newer light units already, you'd just need to glue the light next to the prism that clips to the roof. You'd then need to solder some wires from the light contacts to the brass strips on the chassis.  It won't look as refined as a newer set, but it would still work the same. Using black wrapping wire would help hide them shiny through the windows. The toilet end will also greatly help hide any wiring.

[Mutro]

Wouldn't it be great to have a JNS section as a database!

 

On 6/19/2024 at 5:08 PM, cteno4 said:

i guess it would be nice if someone were to document on all models where the catches were and any tricks to getting shells off, but pretty obscure thing, but maybe someone will get fixated on it! I’d say 60% pop right out with simple thumb nail pulling of the shell center. 25% require a spudger to quickly wiggle a snagged catch loose, 20% require some sort of wedge to keep one side unlocked while you unlock the other side and 5% take some time and @#$&% words and fiddling to get off.

 

It would be too big a task for one person, but such a database would be a wonderful resource to all the modelers if JNS could be the collection point for all the knowledge embedded in it's membership.  With the influence of JNS as an organization, perhaps the manufacturers such as Kato and Tomix can contribute their knowledge to this database.

Edited July 4 by Mutro

[cteno4]

Yes it would either need to be a group task or a real labor of love. Unfortunately the forum software and search is not well set up for this sort of task. A wiki or more specific forum might work. A long time back we looked at having a forum of just specific model trains. Each topic would be a specific train and all discussions of things to do on that train get out there. But the  things like dcc install get mushed in with pulling shells some and could be work finding stuff but on the other hand you if you go looking for dcc install you might pick up useful info on shell removal, bogie removal, coupler installs, etc that may be of interest while doing a dcc install. 
 

If folks find interesting bits of info in posts on a specific train already in the forum a link to those posts could be added to the specific train’s topic. The search function on the forum can be quite punky to deal with and this may help keep info together. We have a lot already but it’s spread out a lot and trains are not systematically called the same names or manufacturer codes always uses. If we titled the subjects by

 

[manufacturer] [product number] [train name]

 

the list would sort of self sort.

 

if folks are interested in this idea we can look into a sub forum to do this.

 

jeff 

[Mutro]

Not sure of the level of interest by others, but this information definitely would be useful for me.  Over my "try poking around" method, the info would save time and possibly prevent irreparable damage.  I wonder if this JNS Forum as an organization or other forums (such as JRM of WDC) tried requesting this information from Kato and other manufacturers as customer organizations?  They must certainly have the info in their corporate or service department databases. They might ignore individual requests, but a request from established organizations with a large customer base might move them to share this info.

 

[cteno4]

Our club (JRM) tried for many years to make connections with Kato even meeting Mr Kato here a couple of times to get stuff like Unitrak flier and such to help publicize Unitrak as our ole layout was all Unitrak set up on the fly. Also figure would be easier with KatoUSA, but sadly it never worked out well. Finally like 6 or 7 years ago I found someone at KatoUSA at a show that was nice enough to drop a box of Unitrak brochures on us to distribute. We didn’t contact Tomix as they don’t really think outside the us (the short partnership with Walters went down in flames).

 

JNS contacted Kato, Greenmax, Tomix, and MicroAce about posting their PDF product sheets here. Two responded they were not comfortable about it and two didn’t respond. Narrichi San also talked to Tomix Kato directly at their dealer meetings and they were not comfortable with it again.

 

So unfortunately we have not been able to make connections like this. I think part of this is we are outside Japan and while it seems like we would be a good conduit/repository I think there is a bit of business thinking to keep control of information and dissemination. We have free discussions about products and manufacturers here so that may also put some off.

 

But realizing how much info we have built up here, it would be nice to keep it more organized maybe into the future. The big task would be mining the forums for links to put into topics in a forum like this.

 

The one lace JRM did have a great corporate relationship was with JR East here in the US. They sponsored our tent (hearty fees) for the cherry blossom festival for about 10 years (JR Central chipped in later) as well as brought us up to NYC to show a layout at Japan Week at Grand Central! They have moved their offices to LA (use to be NYC and small office in DC) so we unfortunately don’t get to interact with them much anymore.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Mutro]

Thank you @cteno4 for a detailed and interesting history.  It's unfortunate that Kato and other manufacturers place their business interests ahead of customer needs. Perhaps it takes public pressure, like the recent consumers' "right-to-repair" against Apple, to force their repair manuals be made available to the public. Link

 

I also tried another approach: I asked ChatGPT3.5 "What are the specific steps in removing the shell from a Kato 113 Series Shonan Passenger Set 10-808?"  to see if it could mine the greater public data.  But unfortunately, it only returned generic, not very helpful info. 

 

Still, it may be useful to retry these two approaches ((1) requesting manufacturer and (2) utilizing AI )from time to time as circumstances hopefully will improve over time.

 

But for now, your suggestion to organize the information embedded within this forum would be good. 

 

On 7/4/2024 at 11:29 AM, cteno4 said:

 

[manufacturer] [product number] [train name]

I'm not a database expert but your suggested fields for such a database would to be a good start.  Additional fields might include [part name] e.g. shell, coupler, truck. [part number] e.g. mfg's number, [process] step-by-step text description, and [illustration] e.g. illustrative graphics, photos, videos.  I'm not knowledgeable with the hierarchy of typical assembly or the terminology of components to help determine this.  Perhaps an member expert in database implementation can establish the structure, nomenclature etc to be populated by members with their individual knowledge over time.

 

 

Edited July 6 by Mutro

[cteno4]

Well wasn’t really proposing to set up a full database as that is a larger bit of work and getting folks fill in fields can be really tough as well as designing the fields and interface and such. Martijn has an online prototype running of a full product information database he was working on, but that’s been a very big and long project and not off the ground yet.
 

What I thought was just something simple and using the forum system itself (it does not have any wiki or database system built in, although I’m sure there is an addon, but that can be problematic with updates) using sub forum with a topic on each model that we either add posts to on specific pieces of info we have on it or links to previous posts with info on that model. It would be a hodge podge, but a more one place look to see any info on that model and easy place to add new stuff. Keep it simple. Then a simple task for staff or members to link in any new posts elsewhere to the model post as they come up or someone notices a good post on a specific model.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

@Mutro BTW we don’t allow AI generated content on the forums. We want the forums to be a place where humans communicate experiences with humans and have some human experience validation. Very sticky wicket as one member started using AI to write their posts a while back.

 

jeff