Help: Need to widen the screw hole in an Atlas roller bearing truck

Hi Mike, assuming the issue is with the hole in truck bolster (and not with the lug)--and also assuming you own a set of drill bits--I would start by selecting a bit as close in diameter as possible to the existing hole in the truck bolster and carefully ream out the hole.  It's possible there is a tiny burr in the hole that's preventing it from seating properly.  It probably won't take much effort to enlarge the hole just enough to slip over the lug.

Thanks, I will probably try that.  I think it's more than a tiny burr though....when looking at this pair of trucks with the naked eye, the one truck bolster hole looks visibly smaller than the other.  I guess there are variances in the manufacturing process.

Btw, love the avatar.  I have that same hat....grew up in Boston.  We had a summer cottage in Hopkinton!  Thanks again for your suggestion. (Now all I have to do is find screws for these things!)

Mike,

Be very careful. The metal that Atlas uses on their truck is, IMO, some what soft and when I tried to ream out the hole the  drill bit grabbed very fast and I ended up with a small hole in my hand (use bench vise) and a split bolster. If you have a small rat tailed file you may want to try it first. I only ever had 1 Atlas truck with a small bolster hole. Just my 2 cents.

Mark

get a hand reamer,  one that has a taper ,

 Try using  a rat tail file as mentioned above. You can clamp it in a vice. Push the truck onto the files end till it binds up. Twist the truck back and forth a few times. Then flip it over and repeat. I believe it's probably not off that much. I'd drill it only by using a large pin vice. Micromark sells one. Use numbered bits if you have them. Increase one size at a time till it slips on the mount. You will get a lot of advice on this. The cost of the tools or bits may be worth  more than the truck. My philosophy is you can never have enough tools.

What you need is a tapered reamer or broaches.  They will uniformly widen the hole.  Most reamers sold in the big box stores are too big for our jobs.  Checkout Micromark for a selection of smaller reams.

mike.caruso posted:

Thanks, I will probably try that.  I think it's more than a tiny burr though....when looking at this pair of trucks with the naked eye, the one truck bolster hole looks visibly smaller than the other.  I guess there are variances in the manufacturing process.

Btw, love the avatar.  I have that same hat....grew up in Boston.  We had a summer cottage in Hopkinton!  Thanks again for your suggestion. (Now all I have to do is find screws for these things!)

Thanks, Mike!  I think we talked once before about you growing up in Boston.

Let me know if you need screws...I have a bunch of Atlas truck screws as I do a lot of truck replacement/swapping work.  I'll gladly send you a few.

I failed to mention to put the truck in a vice as Mark recommended.  Numbered bits are also a great suggestion.  If you use sharp drill bits that are very close to the size of the existing hole and work up one bit at a time, you should have no problem reaming the hole, even with the potentially softer metal used by Atlas.  

Again, I do this type of work quite often, and have never had a truck split, crack or crumble.  However, like Dave C stated, I have a LOT of tools!  Good luck and keep us posted.

Here..

Thanks guys.  Looks as though a trip to the hardware store is in order for tomorrow!  (I like the idea of never having enough tools!  I recently  bought a micro-sized table saw with miter gauge and found it very useful for a project I had.)

Mike,  After the fact, I called Atlas.  The 'narrowing' of the hole is paint.  Use whatever you want to remove it, but it is not a metal problem.  A metal drill bit turned by hand may be used.            John in Lansing, Illinois.

After reading the above posts, I went out to the garage and rummaged around.  Look what I found!

Used this on the bolster hole, a few twists by hand and it fit right onto the lug.  Thank you to all who were good enough to respond with helpful suggestions.