Garden Railway Forum

Well, I've contacted Dream Steam and had no response (that's their customer service covered ), so no harm in now asking here;

I have a set of steel replacement wheelsets from Dream Steam which have the wrong width brass spacers fitted - they're the ones normally fitted to the 32mm axles and therefore allow far too much sideways play or "slop" (that's a measure of Quality Control )

Has anyone any practical experience of removing these wheels to share so that I can change the spacers for a correct set kindly sent by a member of this forum (Thanks Chris)?

Greg,

Stick one wheel on the top of the jaws of a vice, or something similar so the wheel is supported but the axle will be free to drop (I have one of those suction base mini vices which is ideal for this job).

Use a flat ended punch (I ground down a suitably sized nail) and knock the axle out of one wheel.

Remove the spacers & bearings, fit your new spacers making sure you replace the spacers/bearings in the right order/direction. Lightly roughen up the end of the axle with some coarse sand paper, apply some Loctite Activator, let it evaporate, apply some Loctite 603 to the end of the axle, fit your wheel making sure you have the right back to back measurement and have set the correct 90 degrees offset (both axles must be offset in the same direction). Leave the wheel assembly for the Loctite to set (I put mine on a radiator for a couple of days). Clean off any Loctite that has not set (otherwise you end up locking up the spacers or bearings after you fit them!).

I've just re-gauged one axle of a set of IP Eng wheels using the above method (although one wheel on each axle had worked loose so just pulled off) and the secret is to use the correct Loctite - the first Loctite I used did not work.

Then you have the hassle of getting those awkward bearings to fit the chassis frames properly so that the wheels are free running (takes patience to get that right I've found with 2 sets of wheels so far).

By the way, Dream Steam updated their 'About Us' on their website recently and I see that Alan Dunster (the original owner) left Dream Steam in August 2011.

Chris Cairns.

Thanks for that Chris, I was worried about driving the axle out for fear of damaging either the inner wheel "hub" or producing a "flat" on the axle end.
I'll give it a go tomorrow!

Things certainly "aint wot they wuz" since the change of ownership at Dream Steam "iz um"?

Why not try to heat the wheel up using a blow torch so that it expands and then simply falls off?

Narrow Minded:76334 wrote:Thanks for that Chris, I was worried about driving the axle out for fear of damaging either the inner wheel "hub" or producing a "flat" on the axle end.
I'll give it a go tomorrow!

Things certainly "aint wot they wuz" since the change of ownership at Dream Steam "iz um"?

'Big boys toyz' suggests using a piece of brass between a small hammer and the axle end -- the brass will deform rather than the steel axle end -- and Bob's your uncle (and mine !)

Greg-

Chris C had mentioned this in an e-mail he sent me, sorry to hear such problems. I also told him I had some 45mm spacers here in the USA I could send, but it sound like you found some in the UK.

Anyhow, I got a PPS wheel loose by accident by using sovent based brake cleaner (for cars) to clean the wheels before painting.

On the IP wheels I re-gauged from 45mm to 32, I did the vice and center punch trick with a bronze hammer. Popped right off!