Drawbar assembly on Acela HO Passenger Car

[pheidhues]

Hi
I have a question. Does anyone know how to replace the drawbar assembly on the Acela passenger car? I do not see well, so diagrams don't help. I have the replacement parts. So any advice here would be helpful.
Do I need to take apart the car itself?
Thanks for any guidance.
Paul
Modeling my own little fantasy land

[jonathan]

Pheidhues:

First, No. You do not need to take the car apart.

Not sure how much help I can be, given your vision issues. I can show you in photos how to do it.  Hope this helps.

With the car upside down, you can gently pull on the truck so it sits at an angle like this:

DSC_0518 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Next, you gently pull up on the butt end of the draw bar.  It is press-fit with a ball joint.  Does not require much pressure to pull it out of the socket:

DSC_0519_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

You must disconnect the spring and twist the draw bar so it releases from the slot at the end of the car.  The draw bar is in two pieces.  Sometimes helps to remove the pipe-looking piece, then deal with the draw bar.  Looks like this out of the car:

DSC_0520 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

The spring will be very difficult to reconnect to the new draw bar, because everything is so small.  However, it can be done.  Here's the spring:

DSC_0521 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

I use a cross-hatch tweezers to connect the spring.  Like so:

DSC_0522 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

I have had practice, so I can perform the operation in just a few minutes.  You will find it frustrating at first.  Just keep at it.  It is doable.

Regards,

Jonathan