wacky fix for rolling stock with bad wheels

[truckman060473]

when a large number of wagons are on a train it's quite surprising how each wagon's rolling friction can affect the train. when i recently bought a rake of coaches and saw how all of them came to a standstill very quickly when put on a 6 foot straight section and gave them a push along. if you look at the "axle boxes" the axle is a sharp point resting in a conical acceptor in the truck. if this is not new the material will have been eaten away and the wheelsets lol from side to side. to be free spinning the sharp point must be nestled in the axle box bottom. so as an experiment with an old wagon with this problem i did the following: remove wheelset. clean the axle box hole. drop in a very tiny drop of superglue on one side. used tiny bit of tissue paper to remove excess glue. close inspection reveals a concave liquid shape. leave to dry for 24hrs. wheelset re-installed.(BTW it's metal hornby wheel types i'm using here). ok so it wasn't going to be plain sailing; the wheel wouldn't turn completely freely. using thumb & forefinger to compress the outer axle boxes it allowed the sharp point to make a dent in the now "solid" glue. wheel running freely with no side play!! so i did the same trick with my rake of coaches and wow they run incredibly freely now. it takes some patience and is a very cheap way of restoring older stock

 

[CROMPTON 33]

:roll:this is a total bodge job. the correct way is to use( brass )top hat bearings. in stock at most model shop's. use a pin drill to open up the axle box for new bearing . then use 15min epoxy to glue bearing in axle make sure it fit's flush. leave over night then clean off and refit wheel's. job done

 

[truckman060473]

a bodge job would be to do all the coaches and then find i'd ruined them. i only done it coz it worked for me on the one old test wagon. i agree it's not ideal or perfect but i thought i'd post it to show that it can work and costs nothing. and even if it was done by putting these brass axle bushings in you can't guarantee the wheelset will be a snug fit and not move from side. and once glued in place you wouldn't be able to alter it. my method is somewhat crude but you can spin the wheels up fast using the rubber wheel on a dremel rotary device and the axle point bores a snug hole on the hardened glue surface and it spins freely with no side play