A question to those that have changed traction tires.

No problem at all. Tolerances are not that tight.

Pete

Joe,

The width dimension determines whether the tire will fit into the groove in the wheel but 0.002" is a pretty small difference - if that's what the difference actually is. If I needed a tire for a particular model and this was the choice, I would purchase it and give it a try. The difference relative to groove width is 0.002/0.134 = 0.015 = 1.5%. Let me know how it works out.

MELGAR

That’s one thing I wouldn’t take advantage of during the parts sale.  Not a fan of Lionel traction tires.  Go with MTH tires, there’s a chart of MTH tires floating around this forum somewhere and it has all the dimensions you need to find the one that will fit your Lionel engine.

Here’s another vote for MTH tires… I put a set on my legacy sd40-2 and it went from a bumpy rider to smooth as silk…

@Norton posted:

No problem at all. Tolerances are not that tight.

Pete

Correct.

And, as I have often said on the subject, you can just leave it off and go about your business in most cases. A big, heavy loco that is not asked to mount toy-train style grades while pulling a long train will often not know the difference. Case by case.

I was running my ERR-upgraded MTH SOU Ps-4 the other day, and it threw one of the original tires (no surprise - it started out as a PS-1 loco). I cut it off the side rod and the loco resumed its trip.

There are exceptions to this, I am sure, yes, indeed, but if the loco doesn't know the difference, why bother?

BTW, I do replace them when its easy and I have a tire that's close.

Here's the MTH TRACTION TIRE CHART 2022-02-04.pdf, it's the latest listing of the MTH tires.

MTH measures its tires by the wheel diameter it goes on. Lionel uses the actual dimension of the tire, always smaller than the wheel. In most cases you can use an MTH tire if its for the same Lionel engine such as for a USRA Pacific. Both MTH and Lionel use similar diameter wheels. What may vary though is width and thickness.
I agree MTH uses better rubber though especially for the last ten years or so.

Pete

It's much easier to pick an MTH tire, I just measure the wheel and pick the tire.  I agree, for most scale locomotives, you can just go by the model.

Thank you John. Chart is very helpful. In my folder, if I can find the folder.

Jerry

Thank you all for your input.  It seems the overwhelming majority says go for MTH tires so that's what I'll do.

John thank you for the chart.  I know you responded to another post that I should go with MTH tires but I figured that since I was putting together a Lionel order I would try to get the tires from them.  Well I'm putting together a list for MTH so I'll take your advice and that of o many others and get any tires I need fom MTH.