Best Way to Re-wheel Lionel Prewar Steam Locos

If you are going to get an arbor press, make sure it is large enough to fit a standard gauge engine.  Mine is a smaller one and only fits O gauge engines. 

A friend of mine uses a lathe to press on standard gauge wheels.  He claims that is better to work with than an arbor press.  Obviously a lathe is more expensive than an arbor press.

An arbor press with the proper size cups and tools.

Hobby Horse put out a book on how to change wheels using their wheel press.  This book has a green cover.  Later Lionel adopted this book and put it out under the Lionel name with an orange cover.  Everything you need to know about changing wheels.  There is also advice on this site.  You should be able to find it with the search engine.

You will have to quarter the drive wheels.  It's obviously easier with a quartering jig, but can be done by "eye", though that's a bit hit or miss for me.

At any rate, not for the beginner without the right tools or experience. My favorite standard gauge wheel man was a Nashville Fire Captain who replaced many standard gauge wheels without an arbor press. His tools at the fire hall included a wheel puller, screwdriver, a vice, blocks of wood, and a ball pean hammer for remounting the gears on my Dick Wheeler replacement wheels. He always managed to true fit and quarter those new wheels on my axles, after pulling off the original damaged ones. I sincerely miss Captain Mack and his cheerful willingness to do my repairs!

The guys at Henning's Trains have all the tools and expertise to properly replace the wheels, they've been doing pre-war almost since the war!

Sound advice from GRJ! :-)

Thanks all for replying!! I made sure my arbor press can fit the diameter of the axles and unattached wheels. 

I'll have to look at those books for replacing wheels, but I'm going to try to look for those

I do plan on quartering the wheels to accommodate the siderods and I'll try to be precise, but if I'm not feeling confident in it working I'll be glad to send the wheels to hennings as I actually bought the replacement wheels from you guys. I also need to re wheel my lionel 264e red comet which I might send to you guys as well, but I'll see!!

There's a bit of "slop" in quartering them, but not too much.  I've eyeballed them in the past, but I've also had to do them a couple of times because my "eyeball" was not sufficiently calibrated.  That's why I let guys that do this a lot perform those tasks.

Update: I just talked with Jeff Kane from The Train Tender and ordered the hobby horse standard gauge and tinplate wheel cups.

As I bought a harbor freight 1 ton arbor press yesterday, I'm going to try to modify it to accommodate the cups and use it to quarter and mount the wheels on my 390e and others like my 264e and future models!!

I'm not sure if I'll do the mods myself or commission a local machinist to do it, but ill decide once I get the cups.

Sincerely,

Gino F.

GOOD LUCK! :-)