Kato 10-453 0 Series Shinkansen Power Car Disassembly

[1954G]

Another newbie question, so please bear with me. 

 

When I tried to install close-fitting couplers (part no. 11-703) on my Kato 0 Series Shinkansen, I realized that I would need to disassemble the power car in order to gain access to the existing Rapido couplers.  There is an excellent DIY out there ( http://butsuma-tetsudou.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2012/09/kato-02000-807e.html ) that covers the close-fitting coupler installation process, and I tried to follow it exactly.  But I'm still not sure how to safely remove the blue bottom plate (the part with eight tabs in the photo--needless to say, the image is not mine).  Should I be using a flathead screwdriver to pry it off, and if so, where do I apply force?  

 

Thanks for your help.  

[cteno4]

1954g

 

Yes you need to pop all the tabs carefully, problem is as you do others some you have already done will pop back sometimes and can get frustrating so take deep breaths and have patience. At times when they get ornery like this I've used little shims of strip stryene to keep pried up clips from popping back.

 

It's not a super design elegant solution from a maintainance point of view. The good news is I've probably opened 40 or more kato mechs with this design over the years and not yet snapped off a tab or things did not eventually go back together well and work fine after cleaning and lubing, etc.

 

Jeff

[1954G]

Thanks for your advice: the shims did help when I successfully disassembled the power car today.  Rereading the instructions also helped, since I missed a key step the first time.  As you can see in the attached photo, the chassis has small rectangular slots located near the bogies; you can insert a small flat screwdriver into these slots in order to pry off the body of the power car.