I pulled out of a box this afternoon one of my ‘fix it when retired projects’. It is a 499 EP-5 which had one axle with galloping wear and the gears meshing too deep.
This post was really to show the difference between the two axles where one has just plain mechanical wear and the other one the well know problem of electrical wear due to the high current eating away at the journals.
The picture below shows both axles as removed from the chassis. The top one uses two pul mor wheels on it and is just mechanical wear. It actually hasn’t worn much and was still a good fit in the chassis. The lower one shows the electrical wear and indicates it had a hard life. The chassis holes for this axle were nice and oval so I rebuilt the chassis with four new oilite bearings.
If I can I prefer to refinish axles and remove as much as possible any imperfections like the electrical wear so that they get a second life. It isn’t alway possible and then I will resort to using a new original axle. The picture below shows how both axles have been cleaned up so that the journals look a lot better and have a nice smooth surface ready to put some miles back on them again.
