Quick repair for Santa

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 A quick update post. Last year, the reindeer transport stock car I received was having a little bit of a problem that the reindeer didn't seem to want to look out one of the openings. There are four reindeer heads mounted on a swivel so as the car moves and bumps along, the heads poke out of four openings. But one of the sets of antlers seemed to be catching on their opening so the rest of the head wouldn't come out. Made it a little less exciting than it should be.

In preparation for the holiday season and so all the reindeer can get to the North Pole in time, I did a quick repair today. 

The car is a Bachmann Big Hauler stock car modified for the reindeer.

The reindeer transport car

I wasn't quite sure what the issue was so first step was to open the car up. I took off the trucks, always a good first step. There were 4 more screws in obvious locations. Those released all of the undercarriage.
Undercarriage removed

After a little poking around I found that the floor was attached to the rest of the car by some tabs. Using the small nylon crow bars I have, I was able to flex the sides enough to release the tabs. Slowing moving around I got the whole floor released. That has the post the reindeer swivel sits on. Now I had access to the reindeer heads and the support bar.
The swivel and post

The reindeer are screwed onto the support bar so I took the first set off and inspected. Things seemed a little asymmetric so I got out a straightedge and compared.

A clear difference in where the antlers are relative to the mounting block

I could see that there was a bit of a difference in how centered the antlers were relative to the mounting block. This could help the whole thing be more responsive to moving but I think it was also contributing to the antlers catching on the one opening. I checked the other heads and saw a similar asymmetry but it didn't seem as big.
I wasn't quite sure what to do next so I put the pieces back together in hopes I could see exactly where the rub was coming from and then try to fix that spot. But I did rotate the problem heads and when everything went back together, it now clears most of the time and is swiveling more smoothly. So problem fixed. I expect there is purposefully some variation to make the movements more random and this car was just a bit unlucky that variations in the antler position and the opening conflicted. Switching things up seems to resolve it.

Now everyone is ready to head back up to the North Pole.

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