Model Railroading > Walthers Mainline Passenger Cars

Just picked up some Walthers Mainline passenger cars and am wondering how to get the roof separated from the car.  Want to add handrails/grabirons, their detail kit 910-200, and am looking to use a pin vise to drill out the starter holes, install the grabs, space them off the car a bit, use tape to hold in place and use CA on the backside in a fillet type of joint then trim the excess grab on the backside. 
Other Walthers cars I have included instructions showing where to insert an xacto #17 blade at about the one-third points along the roof line to separate the roof, and maybe the Walthers 910-220 lighting kit for these Mainline cars shows where but I do not intend to install lighting.  Cannot find the instructions in a web search either.  Help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance all.

Search Youtube for this video:How To Disassemble Walthers Passenger Cars - Keith Turley "Twist"

Watched the video last week as wanted to see how. Think I will sell the two heritage UP cars I have and get ones with lighting installed. Still dont see how he doesnt destroy the car, I manage to do great harm with less force.
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> Search Youtube for this video:How To Disassemble
> Walthers Passenger Cars - Keith Turley "Twist"

I posted this to the Yahoo Passenger Car List group in May of 2015, shortly after the Walthers Mainline cars were introduced. Sorry to include links instead of embedded photos.

Tom M.

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Picked up a Walthers Mainline 10-6 last week and tried the disassembly method shown on their web site. A dozen twists with no sign of anything wanting to move, let alone come apart. Was out of town over the weekend and tried again this morning. This time I was successful. Once it was apart I could investigate the design, so let's start with that and I'll describe the method after.

First, the car body, not counting the trucks, consists of only eight plastic pieces:
1 body (sides, ends, underbody with underneath equipment molded in place)
1 roof with window glazing like the old Rivarossi models. (Clear plastic with a blue-green tint, roof portion painted silver)
1 interior
1 inner vestibule wall
2 pieces of glazing for the windows in the inner vestibule wall and non-vestibule end (glued in place)
2 diaphragms

There are two steel strips for the future lighting kit under the interior molding, and four screws to hold the interior in place. Everything else snaps together. A series of projecting tabs are molded into the roof about 0.1" below the edge of the roof, and they fit into corresponding recesses molded into the upper edges of the car sides. The tabs are nominally 0.200" wide x 0.060" high and project 0.020". The lower edges are tapered. The recesses are 0.220" wide x 0.080" high and appear to be 0.020" deep. The lower edges of the recesses have a taper matching those on the tabs. (All dimensions nominal.) See this photo:

http://www.pullmanproject.com/TabSlot.jpg  

The tab and recess locking arrangement (six per side) is just below the roof line. The roof cannot flex very much at that location because of its proximity to the very strong curved portion of the roof/window molding. And of course the tabs themselves can't move. So it's the sides that have to come away from the roof to get the body apart.  That means you cannot grip the car body firmly by the ends with both hands because that just keeps the sides pressed against the roof. You have to grip it as shown in the Walthers video, between thumb and forefinger (or knuckle), low on the sides at both ends. After 30 vigorous twists one side popped loose but the other was unmoved:

http://www.pullmanproject.com/Mainline1.jpg

Nothing would release the second side. Then I thought of using my old Bell System standby, the orange stick. It's a wooden tool used to separate relay blades (among other things) while troubleshooting, and the secretaries all used them for cuticle maintenance. In fact, for my first ten years at Bell Labs I thought it was just a cuticle tool until an installer educated me. I still have two, one cut in half and both pretty beat up, but I entered the part # in Google and, lo and behold, the official name is "spudger"!! It's the perfect tool for slipping between the car side and the roof molding (as others have opined earlier in this thread):

http://www.pullmanproject.com/Spudger1.jpg

Here's a link to the Bell System document describing the tool:

http://doc.telephonecollectors.info/dm/074-257-117_I2.pdf

(My wife uses wooden Cutex cuticle tools, pointed on one end and tapered on the other, but the taper is only on one side. Looks easy to form a long taper both sides and have a quick & dirty spudger which won't mar the windows when you slide it into position.)By flexing the car body with the spudger in place, the second side popped loose:

 http://www.pullmanproject.com/Spudger2.jpg

And it was easy to slide the roof from the body:

http://www.pullmanproject.com/Spudger3.jpg

As has been suggested, once the car came apart, doing it again was easy. So I can't do a good test with spudgers on both sides at once. 

I think the basic problem is that the car has to come apart in an area where the roof/window molding has no give at all, and all of the 0.020" deflection to release the tabs on each side from the recesses has to come from the sides. Couple that with the understandable tendency to twist the car while holding it firmly with the palms on the roof and fingers under car (which prevents the sides from moving away from the roof) and you have a recipe for frustration.

BAB Wrote:
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> Watched the video last week as wanted to see how.
> Think I will sell the two heritage UP cars I have
> and get ones with lighting installed. Still dont
> see how he doesnt destroy the car, I manage to do
> great harm with less force.
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Search Youtube for this video:How To
> Disassemble
> > Walthers Passenger Cars - Keith Turley "Twist"

His way was for the Proto cars not the Mainline ones.
Do what Pullman Boss does,see his post.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl

The cars I have are the Proto not Mainline cars so would not use his method then as I understand it.
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> BAB Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Watched the video last week as wanted to see
> how.
> > Think I will sell the two heritage UP cars I
> have
> > and get ones with lighting installed. Still
> dont
> > see how he doesnt destroy the car, I manage to
> do
> > great harm with less force.
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Search Youtube for this video:How To
> > Disassemble
> > > Walthers Passenger Cars - Keith Turley
> "Twist"
>
> His way was for the Proto cars not the Mainline
> ones.
> Do what Pullman Boss does,see his post.
>
> Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl