E4 traction tyres

[beakaboy]

Hi all, looking for some help in replacing traction tyres on my Kato E4. I can get the bogie unit out of chassis alright, but not sure how to get the bogie apart.didn't want to force anything. thanks John

[cteno4]

Beakaboy,

 

the kato bogies usually have a tab finger at one end of the exterior frame on the top you push out to allow the exterior frame to come off to the bottom, leaving the core of the bogie with the wheels and gears attached.

 

i can dig one out and take a picture if you want.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[beakaboy]

Thanks for the quick response Jeff. I finally figured it out last night. Its different to my other models. Where the metal contact pins come up from the wheels, there was a tab beside them and with a little pressure from a small screwdriver, it released the bottom of the gear train which also has 3 gears built in. I spread the bogies to get the wheels out and replaced the traction tyres which had twisted and stretched.I also spread the gear tower while wheels were out and removed gears for cleaning as they had picked up traces of fluff,etc . this had made the gear assembly bind occasionally . I had read on here about using tape over the bottom of gear assembly, but i can see that the gears protrude slightly from the bottom of the holes in it. I will have to run my Tomix track cleaning car around layout with the vacuum going  in the future , before running my E4 and other units. I will now have to check my other trains for similar problems before it leads to damage.