Taking another break from my CGW Mill Cities Ltd Project and suspending my listings on Ebay for the holidays, I retreated back to the club’s donation pile, turning my gaze to some of the 700 series Lionel stuff there-in.
My door-stop brain-trust (a deep bench trust me) advised me to sell the 700 series Lionel freight cars as-is, and to avoid any serious disassembly or restoration efforts. Good advice but NO BODY wanted this day-glo orange 717 caboose (I know shocking, right?)
After multiple failed sales attempts it was into the tank, the savory remnants of “Montana Guy’s” three different colors of enamel coatings here looking like blanched pepper skins, mmmm yum!
My consultants also nailed the chronic issue with Zamak castings fracturing once the “pest” sets in (note curvature on the chassis) and it indeed broke in half once freed from the car body after the extended brake fluid bath aggravated the warping even worse than what you see here.
After grinding and cleaning-up the remaining portions of the chassis bolsters, I cut a bass wood sub floor and replaced/rebuilt the missing portion with channels, joists, original gang valve (a nicely proportioned albeit rubbery piece) etc.
Fortunately, the original Irvington finish was not too badly the worse for the experience, surviving the extended dip as you see, though the previous owner did sadly chisel/scrape off the reporting marks on one side.
I replaced the replacement Bettendorf’s with a truly ancient set of castings as a simulation of leaf spring trucks though these look more like really old time top-beam passenger trucks to me, any one recognize these? I may yet further mill down the cast bolster pedestals too as this one looks “cleared for take-off” as is.
The markers were rebuilt from “Montana Guys” original installation too, not as easy as I’d have liked either but consistent with my earlier NdeM caboose posting as I’m installing working markers as a rule now on all tail cars these days.
You get this far and why not? right?