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Heljan replacement loco wheels


brian daniels
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Hi Dave,

Sorry to hear about the problem with the 47, I use Kadee's so it could still cause a problem plus the Kadee's need to be at the right hight.

I have had a look for Pullman wheels and can only find the packs of ten 14mm coach wheels, any ideas where you could get them from? Looks like we will both be trying to get some.:D

 

Cheers Peter.

 

 

Sorry, mate: been off line for a few days. Luckily, I still have some spare wheels left over from the Pullman bogie upgrade but www.Hornbyspares.com advertise a set of four Pullman w/lights wheelsets as Part no. X9096 at £1.79.

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Sorry, mate: been off line for a few days. Luckily, I still have some spare wheels left over from the Pullman bogie upgrade but www.Hornbyspares.com advertise a set of four Pullman w/lights wheelsets as Part no. X9096 at £1.79.

 

 

No worries Dave,

Thanks muchly for the part number and website, your a legend.;) :D

 

Cheers Peter.

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Help needed - I've been trying to remove the wheel retaining baseplate from Heljan class 33 bogies without any success - can't get the plates free. I've taken the bogie frames off ok, but can't pry the base plates off. Can't see any retaining clips and I don't want to use too much force. What point(s) should I lever them off from?

Cheers,

Bill

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Absolutely correct, Jamie. I did mine recently enough to remember! I inserted a small flat-bladed screwdriver from the front of the bogie, pushing it past the gears and levering gently as it approached the clips just behind. Once you can get one side loose, the other follows easily.

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Spot on advice, Jamie and SRman. Got the base plates off ok without any damage by levering from front of bogie with small screwdriver, one side at a time. 2 pics show the securing lugs, just behind wheels, and the base plate where the clips fit in. I needed to do this because 1) the wire from one of the pickups broke off so I have to remove that side pickup to solder on another piece of wire and 2) white grease kept leaking out of the bogie onto the backs of the wheels preventing electrical contact and requiring constant cleaning up. The gear train looks like it was overpacked with grease.

Loco ran very well to start with so should be ok when pickups sorted out.

 

Thanks again, just the info I needed!

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post-4032-036479500 1285067743_thumb.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just ordered some for my Hymeks, BRC&W type 3 and my Brush type 4. Howes didn't seem sure about the Westerns, so I dashed off an email to Heljan. I don't want to mess up the centres of my existing ones with finding how easy it is to do it.

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Great service from Howes. Ordered testerday and they arrive first thing this morning. Didn't start replacing them until 2pm and finished, 1xBRCW type 3, 2xHymek and 1xBrush type 4, in an hour including painting the wheels before replacing. I have to say that the advice on getting the keeper plate removed was a boon. All 4 loco's now running merrilly away. The BRCW(class 33 to you modernists) sounded like a bag of nails in one direction only but this is now running smoothly again.

 

Anybody tried removing the wheelcentres on their Western yet?

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Just had a reply from Heljan.

I fitted the standard replacement wheels to all my Westerns and the running improvement go's without saying. I believe the original Western wheels had a black vinyl insert to represent the four holes and would think that this should be quite easy to reproduce if required. Personally I can live without this for the time being as it is not that noticeable from normal viewing distance on my layout. There will be another run of Westerns available in the near future so we shall have to wait and see what gets fitted to these.

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  • RMweb Gold

I have a number of Heljan diesel locomotives purchased over a number of years. Is there any guidance on how to tell which locomotive have the old wheels, and which have the new (other than running them for ages to see which gets dirty)?

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I have a number of Heljan diesel locomotives purchased over a number of years. Is there any guidance on how to tell which locomotive have the old wheels, and which have the new (other than running them for ages to see which gets dirty)?

A quick way of telling is that the old wheels appear a brassy dull brown/black colour where as the new wheels are nickel silver in appearance with bright faces. The older wheels tarnish very quickly although having said that some of my very early loco's that hadn't been on the layout ran perfectly straight from the box. I expect though that once the protective coating has worn off then the tarnish sets in if not run daily.

In a nutshell anything that preceeded Falcon and the class 58 in 2008 had the old type wheels.

Hope this helps.

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I have just finished fitting Heljan replacement wheelset to my BR blue 33/2. It now runs beautifully but there was a small learning curve to master.

(1) I followed SRMan's advice - Getting the axle cover plate off is a bit of a chore - the plastic is very flexible and robust and the clips firm, but they will un-snap before the pastic does!

(2) Putting the replacement wheels in with the axle insulators both on the same sides is a good idea as it prevents the wheels from shorting...(ouch!)

(3) Make sure the phosphor-bronze contact is properly aligned on the inside face of the wheel - the first time I tried I forgot about wheel pick ups and some of them wound up on the outside of the wheels which resulted in some strange noises and a decrease in performance until I figured out what had gone wrong!

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  • 2 weeks later...

If it helps onlookers - I've fitted R8264 Hornby wheels to my 33/2, 14.1mm dia, and four quid for a pack of ten...

 

Better get some in over the marsh for all those flats we'll be sending you this autumn.

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I have a BR Blue 33 (33 211) that does not run very well. Would this be a possible solution? The wheels appear to be clean, and the DCC decoder works fine in another loco. It run rather jerky and usually needs a push to get moving to start with. It's not the track as my other loco's run fine.

 

Not sure how old this model is, as I don't have the model number handy. Anyone believe this is part of the affected batch of bad wheels?

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The jerky class 33 could be a combination of wheels and pickups. Turn the loco upside down and try a wire feed to one wheel only of each side. I have found that, out of the box, Heljan locos often only pick up on four or five out of the eight wheels. To tweak the pickups, just pull the side frames off and use fine long-nose pliers or forceps to twist them into shape so that all wheels pick up as they should.

 

Clean the wheel treads and the wheel backs.

 

Of course, that's not guaranteed to fix your problem but I would be willing to place a smallish bet that these two things are contributing heavily to your problems.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry, mate: been off line for a few days. Luckily, I still have some spare wheels left over from the Pullman bogie upgrade but www.Hornbyspares.com advertise a set of four Pullman w/lights wheelsets as Part no. X9096 at £1.79.

Hi All

Do the Hornby wheels fit on the Heljan axle? if not any ideas how to remove the cog?

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