Has Anybody 2 railed 3 rail GGD cars?

Howard,

Would it be possible to insert a piece of brass rod into each sideframe to keep the wheels from moving sideways?  It would have to just a sliver from the dimensions you gave, but it is a way to limit the "play".

Have not converted one.  You might ask Sunset if they have the wheelsets available - they would probably be a "drop-in".

With apologies to the new NMRA standard wheel, you might check with your customer about track.  The older standard .172 wheelsets are still being produced, and are more tolerant of poor trackwork.

They will also slip side to side less in a tinplate truck.  I suspect you are looking for shouldered axles - the needle point axles are not common in tinplate trucks.

I found that, to lower my GGD Budd car, I had to carve some of the extrusion away where the brake cylinder might rub on curves.  Even the 2-rail car seems to sit too high.

Howard

36" dia is the correct size.  You should email Scott Mann and inquire if they have any wheels in stock. If not with the quantity you need perhaps he'd consider having his builder run off a few extra's during the next production run.  Another thing to try is to measure the length of the old 3 rail axle and see what size it is.  NWSL has produced non catalogued wheels for me in the past.

Ed Rappe

I'd stick with .145 wheels as many of the new models you'll be buying in the future will have them. Don't settle for poor track - fix it or it will annoy you for years down the line.

Bob D - I've tried removing the bearing inserts on other cars to have a high failure rate.  I haven't tried the GGD trucks yet, but I should.

I looked at the truck and the bearing surface seems to be pressed or melted into the truck and then machined to tolerance with no lip on which to get a pliers.  So that's out. 

bob2 and Ed - I corresponded with Scott about converting the Super Chief set, he told me to go to NWSL.

bob2 - The trucks use needle point axles.

Ed -

You should email Scott Mann and inquire if they have any wheels in stock. If not with the quantity you need perhaps he'd consider having his builder run off a few extra's during the next production run.  Another thing to try is to measure the length of the old 3 rail axel and see what size it is.  NWSL has produced non catalogued wheels for me in the past

I will try Scott again since he will be producing some of the same head end cars as on the SC.  If not, I will try NWSL and see if they couldn't run some axles the same length as the GGD axles. 

Thanks for the suggestions, all are appreciated.

I've converted well over a dozen Sunset brass heavyweight cars and GGD plastic heavyweight cars from 3 rail to 2 rail.

No doubt the NWSL wheelsets or getting them from Scott would be the best solution. But, I lucked into a less expensive way to do it.

I found and purchased at a great price a large number of K-line 2 rail lightweight (4 wheel sets) and heavyweight (6 wheel sets) trucks on Ebay.  Bought them mainly to convert K-line 21" lightweight passenger cars  but couldn't pass up purchasing the heavyweight trucks, too hoping I could use the wheel sets somewhere down the line and just toss the rest of the truck. 

Guess what.  Got lucky.  The wheel sets also fit the Sunset brass and GGD plastic cars using the original trucks.  Just added a Kadee red fiber washer to the insulated wheel side so the wheel couldn't touch the side frame.  Had to make some minor adjustments.

I sent Matt Jackson a number of these 2-rail wheels a few months ago!!!

I got my trucks here:

http://www.westerndepot.com/pr...e09ab1f88b91b2e87c20

Maybe Matt has some left that he would part with so you can see if they work.

As an example of what's involved in one specific case from my notes.  (But, don't take my word for it.  Do the homework.)

A Sunset brass heavyweight car 3 rail wheelset from that era a while back has a tapered axle and is 44.64 mm (1/48/64 in) tip to tip.

A GGD heavyweight plastic car  rail pointed axle wheelset was 46.81 (1 27/32 in) tip to tip.

A K-Line by Lionel 2 rail wheelset has a similar tapered axle and is 45.5 mm (1 51/64) tip to tip.

Back then I didn't think to measure the relative thickness of the respective wheels.  Just put them in with the red fiber washer and it worked.  I must have had to slightly ream out journals or dull the pointed tip on the K-line axle ends.  But, if I did is was very slight and an easy, low tech thing with a Dremel.

Also, the screws holding the sideframes can be adjusted to slightly change tolerances. And as a last resort the sideframes can be --ever so slightly -- bent out or in.  Shade tree engineering!  Most of the time it's a simple swap out but truck tolerances do sometimes vary.

The geometry of trucks on other cars is anybody's guess.  Mic. them.

Bill - That's great info!  I have a bunch of heavyweights that I need to convert.  I'll will start looking for the options you have listed.

_________________________________________________________________________

I had a very nice conversation with Scott today.  He is looking into doing a run of wheels for the lightweight cars produced in the last few years.  He's leaving for overseas later this week.  If you have an interest in picking up some wheels, I would suggest sending him an email.

Thanks, marker.  Good to know that Scott is doing wheel sets.  I have a good supply of 2 RL wheel sets for now. 

And a huge number of 3 rail freight and passenger wheel sets and trucks resulting from converting cars 3 to 2 RL. 

Perhaps I'm not reading the original post correctly, but I would think that if

the NWSL 1.815" axle is too short and the 1.92" axle is too long, then one possible solution is to grind a little material off each end of the 1.92" axle (same amount on each end) until the fit is correct. Check the existing correct axle length with a caliper, then take half the difference between that measurement and the 1.92" axle off each end, then polish the ends a little. 

bob2 -- I'm not sure I understand your reason for suggesting the use of a 0.172" wheel tread as a solution: while it's true that a wider tread is more tolerant of poor track work (rails not properly gauged, too-wide flange ways at frogs, etc.), the distance from flange to flange of the wheel set itself is still the same as for a wheel set with narrower tread, so simply increasing the tread width will not reduce the side-to-side "play" of an axle that is too short to fit properly in the truck journals. (Is that not so?)

The wider wheel sets have the same distance between inside surfaces/flanges if properly gauged but due to being a wider wheel they take up more slack between the outside of the wheel and the inside of the truck surface. Fiber washes will do the same and will also provide insulation/isolation.

The wider treads is why 3 rail trucks in general are so much wider.  Much wider wheels to cram in there for the same 1 1/4 inch gauge.  For example all the older Atlas O 3 rail and 2 rail cars use the same dimension trucks so the 3 rail and 2 rail wheel sets with identical lengths were interchangeable. (They now offer narrower 2 rail trucks aftermarket and maybe in newer 2 rail products).

Another example of measure before you buy.

• OK -- that makes sense, to use a wheel with wider tread to take up some of the play of the axle between the side frames that is the result of an axle that is too short. On the other hand, if one were to use a few more insulating washers, the same result could be achieved using 0.145" treads (which I prefer to the 0.172") on the short axles. Just add 0.027" on each side, in addition to whatever other washers are needed to take up the side-to-side play. 

Well, not quite.  If the axle is too short and has a wider wheel on it then the wheel is more likely to rub against the sideframe.  A too short axle causes lots of mischief shifting back and forth in the journals and bouncing up and down in the journals if it is tapered.  Personally I wouldn't do the 172 wheels.  I'd get the axles and side frames geometry pretty "good enuf" close and then use the insulated washers for insurance.

Of course precision is the best with all of this matching to realistically tight tolerances which is what I have achieved one way or another in my conversions.

Most all of the cars I have came from the factory with a "smidgen" (learned this in engineering school) to compensate for our curves and other anomalies.

Your question for me was answered quite well above.

My modeling skills are a smidgen off, so I use the .172 wheels.  That way I have at least a hope of staying on track.  Obviously, many are now using .115 wheels and getting reliability.  The advantage of narrower wheels ( other than they look more like the real thing) is that you can bring your sideframes in to something more closely approximating scale.  They will still be a tad less than 1/16" too far out.

I cured a whole bunch of problems by going to 1 1/8" gauge, using .172 wheelsets.  Then I found 17/64" scale to be more to my liking.  Still, even in 17/64, sideframes are too far out by .057", or the same amount you would have by using.115 wheelsets.

I absolutely agree that having axles of the correct length for a particular truck

is the best solution. I would take the longer axles mentioned in the original post and

shorten them by a smidgen.

I used wheels with 0.115" treads for awhile, but moved up to 0.145" in order to reduce wheel drop at No.8 and No. 10 frogs. 

Off the topic a little: it seems odd to me that most 2-rail modelers are still

running on 1.250" gauge track without much apparent dissatisfaction, while insisting on greater and greater accuracy in all other aspects of their models. 

If anyone has three rail heavyweight trucks with wheels and couplers they want to get rid of, please email me.  I have about 6 kit built cars that came with two rail trucks.  I want to change them to three rail.