Well men, I've got some work done on the momentum van, I'm afraid I've done my usual slap-dash job of assembling kits...
Mr. Bond, on his wagon, made the wagon's original journal-boxes functional, with only the weight of the flywheel device being carried by the device's bearings. The weight of the wagon itself is still on the kit's bearings, which are much better bearings. I found it a challenge to mount the axle boxes so that they were perfectly in line with the bearings on the flywheel device, and were as free-running as possible. I finally got it all lined up OK after lots of cross muttering and pulling things apart and re-gluing them:
Cutting the hole in the wagon floor was really the only modification to the kit. I'm not sure how I feel about this new MDF stuff: it's much easier to cut, but even after drilling pilot holes and using a new sharp saw, the hole looks like it was chewed out of the floor by a beaver.
The axles on the "Z-car" toy are almost exactly the same length as the original IP engineering 45mm gauge axles. I ended up however, gluing the wheels to the axles first, so I could use my Roundhouse back-to-back measuring gauge to make sure they were exactly the right distance apart on the axles. Then, I fitted the sole-bars with pre-glue axle boxes to fit. They are perhaps half a millimetre farther apart than they would be on the un-modified wagon.
Next, I fitted the centre buffers and piled up some wood on the wagon to create a little platform. I'll use this to test the wagon behind the engine, in order to figure out how much weight is best before I build the van body.
