I have finally started work on my RBB&B Circus cars. I have ordered both MT silver four wheel streamlined trucks and Con Cor Silver with Fixed Jaw couplers to see which would be better on the four cars that are not baggage/animal cars which do have six wheel trucks. My first project was to reverse the roof on the Pie Car (diner) so that the kitchen vents are on the kitchen end. When Con Cor started manufacturing the cars themselves (had been Japan) and added the diner and sleeper styles the roofs were easy to remove, just carefully push in on the small tabs and slowly wiggle (pull) the roof off. I assumed the same would hold for the MT "Pie Car". Wrongo. MT I'am sure recieved undec gray bodies from CC and removed the roof with it's attached window material to paint car silver,also the underbody detail weight. Con Cor had or has glued the window material to the roofs on diners with the sides reversed so that when the tabs are inserted in the floor the kitchen vents are at wrong end. MT either noticed this flaw and did not care or did not care about this. What they did do though is 1 use a fairly strong glue to cement the weight to the bottom of the car,and 2 even worse,the same glue on the windows near car ends to hold roof in place. The Con Cor Roof uaually is already a firm tight fit with the tabs inserted in floor slots. To reverse the roof on this car I had to pry the weight out,it was not a mostly press fit like on usual CC production cars,then I could take a small screwdriver and break off part of the tabs.However, the glue on the windows prevented the roof from then just lifting off. A knife blade had to be run between the roof edge and the top of the car side to begin to free up the roof. Then alot of prying and some pushing in on the two tabs loosened up the glue so I could finally pull the roof out. Of course the rest of the tabs had to be cut off since they did not allign with the slots when roof was turned 360.The roof pressed fit back in very securely,no tabs needed, and I used Walthers Goo to re attach the underbody detail weight. Whole process took about an hour instead of the ten to fifteen minuets I was expecting like on CC factory cars. Nate Goodman (Nato).Salt Lake,Utah.
