To everyone posting here:
When posting, please reference the locomotive, car, or accessory number, and approximate age of the unit you are talking about. Many units have been remade over the years and are manufactured differently now than in the past.
If you are talking about a postwar Scout locomotive, it depends on which one you have. If yours has a plastic MOTOR unit, then maintenance is limited to cleaning the wheels and pickup shoes or rollers, and oiling the axle bearings.
Dis-assembling, servicing, and reassembling these plastic motors, and getting them to work properly, have made seasoned technicians cry. Definitely NOT the first locomotive you want to learn how to do a full teardown service on.
Special tools are needed to reassemble these motors, as all the wheels have to be pulled off, replaced and quartered properly.
The Scout locomotives with these motors are in the 1000 and 1100 series cab numbers and can be identified by a fiber reverse unit lever protruding out the top of the boiler shell, as opposed to a chrome metal one.
There is a pin that is pressed in the side at the back end of the cab that needs to be punched out properly to get the cab off these locomotives.
Servicing equipment is fun and rewarding; however there are a few items, these Scout locomotives included, that even the professionals turn away.
These locomotives were just not designed to be serviced easily, as they were low-end, starter set locomotives. The motor design was never re-used because of the maintenance problems they had.
What is the cab number and approximate age of your Scout locomotive?
Larry