Rewheeling Lima 00 wagons

[Fleetfoot Mike]

Never done this, have a couple of 00 GWR vent vans, one of which has seriously out of true wheels. I have some spare (new) Hornby wheelsets.

 

What's the best (least pain) way of fitting the latter to the former - it looks as though the axles on the Hornby wheels are a bit too long, looking at it.

[backwaterscotland]

The easiest way is to use a Truck Tuner from Micromark. This is a reamer that goes in where the axle normally fits and allows you to ream the bearing faces out a little - certainly enough to fit the Hornby wheels. I've done this with my Lima grain wagons, coaches and Jouef Mk3s successfully.

 

Truck Tuner details : http://www.micromark.com/HO-TRUCK-TUNER,8241.html

 

Wizard Models stock the truck tuner : http://www.wizardmodels.co.uk

 

Hope that helps.

 

Andy B)

[Adrian Wintle]

I have also used a Truck Tuner to ream out Lima bogies to take Hornby wheels.

 

Adrian

[Fleetfoot Mike]

The easiest way is to use a Truck Tuner from Micromark. This is a reamer that goes in where the axle normally fits and allows you to ream the bearing faces out a little - certainly enough to fit the Hornby wheels. I've done this with my Lima grain wagons, coaches and Jouef Mk3s successfully.

 

Truck Tuner details : http://www.micromark.com/HO-TRUCK-TUNER,8241.html

 

Wizard Models stock the truck tuner : http://www.wizardmodels.co.uk

 

Hope that helps.

 

Andy B)

 

Win!

Many many thanks. Wasn't expecting there to be a widget for it

[Fleetfoot Mike]

Duly ordered. Will report back on progress

[naugytrax]

I hope you won't be disappointed by the results of fitting new wheels. The wheels on Lima freight cars and coaches are under-scale, as measured by the diameter of the treads. This was probably necessary because of the huge flanges. Most replacement wheels are closer to scale, i.e. 12mm or so for freight wagons, so if you replace the wheels your rolling stock will be too high. Whether the difference is enough to bother you is a matter of personal preference, of course. I put Ultrascale wheels on a Lima 6-wheel milk tank and it now rides higher than its Wrenn partner, as seen at the buffers. (Of course the overall height of goods stock is quite variable.) The Lima axle bearings seem to have been placed lower in the W-irons, to make up for the smaller wheels. When Hornby re-engineered the underframes of the Lima tanks they may have moved the bearings up to the center of the axle-boxes. It might be possible to achieve something similar with the MicroMark Truck Tuner, but it could be a lot of work.

I have some Lima bogie vehicles which I fitted with scale wheels, but I threw away the Lima bogies (B1 pattern) because they were so scrawny, and replaced them with Hornby or Bachmann ones. The ride height adjustment pretty much took care of itself.