Replacing Hornby 4 Vep wheels

[Peter749]

I want to replace the horrible wheels that Hornby fitted to the 4 Vep

And I started by reading thru this thread from 2013 -

 

My skills are not up to drilling out axle boxes to fit pin point axles.

 

Can somebody recommend 12mm diameter wheels that are flush ended

I looked thru the Alan Gibson catalogue but they all seem to be pin points

 

Thank you

 

Peter

 

[Darius43]

Hi Peter,

 

I replaced the Hornby wheels on my 4-VEP that I modified to be a 4-VEG using the drilling out/bearing method of the post you linked to.

 

Is it the actual Hornby wheels you don’t like or the fact that the axles are clipped to the bogies, which increases friction and inhibits “rollability”?

 

If it’s the lack of free running that is the issue then replacing the wheels with others that still clip into the bogies in the same way won’t help.

 

If not you could always file the pinpoints off the replacement wheels - although this seems a harsh thing to do to perfectly good wheels.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[Peter749]

The Hornby wheels seem to have deeper flanges than most other stock

I have tried in the past to drill simple stuff but my eyesight is not what it used to be

 

Looked at swapping the bogies with other Hornby B4s but the channel to guide the coupling is a problem

I have some replacement sets with pinpoint axles so I might try modifying a set to see if that works and how it runs.

 

Thanks for the idea

 

Peter

 

[Peter749]

I got a spare wheel/axle and cut off the pin points but the plan did not work as the wheels have a thinner axle and drop back out of the Hornby bogie

 

I will have to re think this problem

 

Peter

[cheesysmith]

You could try bearing reamer to deepen the axle box to fit pin point axles in. Goto DCC concepts website and look under specialised tools. They fit between the axle boxes and have a cutting head on one end, so turning them when in place deepens the axle box.

 

[Peter749]

6 hours ago, cheesysmith said:

You could try bearing reamer to deepen the axle box to fit pin point axles in. Goto DCC concepts website and look under specialised tools. They fit between the axle boxes and have a cutting head on one end, so turning them when in place deepens the axle box.

 

Thanks but I would still have to work out where to start as there is not a hole in the 4-Vep side frames

 

Peter

[Peter749]

By removing the thru cable and the couplings from the 4-Vep I have fitted normal B4 bogies to my 4 Vep trailer coaches off Mk2 coaches and it runs very smoothly.

 

I still have have to fiddle around with the lighting connector from the MBS to the other vehicles

Fortunately I had obtained two DTCOL coaches off Ebay and I can experiment on them before rolling out the mod

 

Peter

[Peter749]

I decided to bodge my 4-Vep.

 

The thru wiring has been remove and the connectors kept for later.

Both the DTCOL and the TS vehicles have had their bogies swapped for normal B4 coaches off Mk2s

The Power Car has had its bogies swapped for B4s so now I have a free running 4-Vep apart from it being un-powered - the original Power Bogies are stored to one side

For now I have a MLV which it can run coupled to

 

Two options going forward

[1] re-power the MBS with the chassis off the MLV

[2] I have a Replica Railways Powered Chassis which I might use to power the 4-Vep

 

Peter