Garden Railway Forum

Hi guys, It's me again but this time My problem is a little different. After succesfull painting, baking, and re-assembling my Mamod I noticed that the left front wheel is slipping (lose) on its axle. This prevents it from running. Does anyone know anything about tightening these?

Yes, a new set of wheels! Whatever you try to do itll never work effectively and its just going to get worse over time!

Aye, what Dol said. Mamod wheels are alright when pristine but anything less and you start getting these problems. Also the flanges are somewhat shallow which can make for derailments easier.

I'd treat your loco to a pair of steel rods and steel wheels from PPS Steam chap.

It depends how good you are with tinkering....

We had the same issue on a number of our mamod wheels sets.

My step father re-drilled the wheels to a slightly larger bore to accept some round stock  (with a tight hammer or very tight press fit). He  slotted the end of that stock before putting it on the wheels (with a small slot on one side only). He then took a small drill and drilled into that slot but because the wheels were softer it made a lovely hole directly over the join of the axle and the wheel to pin it with. He then got some very small off cuts of round stock and pressed those into the holes, meaning the wheel can not possibly slip on the shaft because of the pin. Cut and file off the bit of pin sticking out, job done, one set of wheels that are not going to fall apart.

Things to watch out for.

Mamod wheels are not straight to start with, so drilling them is a challenge as they dont run true in a lathe in the first place. We ended up binning 2 wheels as they were that far out.

When making the 90 degree off set for the wheels make sure its right before you drill and pin it, lol  :oops:  :lol: Run them freely in the loco with the connecting rods attached before final pinning.

We did this method as we were re-gauging at the same time, but I dare say you can pin in the same method using the original axle shalfts.

hope this helps.....

I usually make new axles to combat this.

I've always found that when a new set of wheels is usally the simplest and quickest and darn it the less stressfull option in these cases.

I have an engine that ran with 2 part epoxy holding the wheels firm to the axles but a few years later they started to get loose so I brought some new wheels.

Just get some new wheels mate, those originals are serious weak points.

pauly:60110 wrote:Just get some new wheels mate, those originals are serious weak points.

Agreed