Finally got round to making a start on re-wheeling my second pair of HST powercars.

The first step was the removal of the OO wheels, break gear and cutting off the huge lump which is the NEM coupling pocket, the break gear was all put away to be re attached once the powercars have been fully tested, however further modification will be required to reduce the width to something better matching the wheels....

Once that was out the way the next job was to bore out the axle boxes to accept a 26mm axle, this uses a little tool from Ultrascale which has a drill on one side and clips into the space for the axle. Annoyingly after sorting the first axle out, the brass centre separated from the axle so I cant do any more until I've given the Locktight repair enough time to dry.

Still, it was possible to fit one axle. So the wheelset was put on the back to back gauge and tweaked until it stopped in the safe zone

And finally was clipped into the model.

As I have said before, I am using Branchlines 14mm wheels. I know that these are larger than the prototype, But:

• They are the nearest solid metal wheel to the prototype (and I wont touch plastic centred wheels)
• Because of inaccuracy's somewhere in the coaches, 14mm wheels in the powercars mean that the powercars and coaches are a perfect hight match. If the correct size were fitted the powercar would be too low relative to the coaches!