How to re-gauge

You'll need a wheel/gear puller of some kind.  I use a Northwest Short Line 45-4 wheel puller that I modified for the larger axle diameter.  There are other tools out there, I'm sure.

Remove the wheelset from the truck, place it in the tool and slowly turn the screw.

Some Flyer wheelsets can be regauged by simply grabbing and twisting.  Some wheels move with a small effort while others seem welded to the axles.  Either way, it gets hard on the fingers after a while.

Of course, the real issue is there are no standards that I'm aware of for Flyer/Hirail wheel gauge or profile.  My general rule of thumb is to match the wheel back-to-back spacing of an SHS hirail wheelset.

Rusty

Hi Ben,

When I was at the Spring S Spree this year, Tom Hawley, a dealer from Michigan and a modern era S Scaler showed how you could quickly regauge the Lionel Cylindrical Hopper wheelsets without even removing them from the trucks.  He used a common modeller's vise to spread them.  I guess I should have paid more attention or taken a photo, but unfortunately, I can't remember exactly how he did it.  If I can get in touch with him, I'll try to find out what his technique was.  In the meantime, maybe someone else here can chime in.

Mike A.

You can adjust wheel sets with a standard battery terminal puller.  This one was from Sears. 

To add my two cents, I use a common US dime to measure the back spacing of the wheels.  I have found almost every modern Flyonel wheelset to be too narrow.  I use a pair of expanding pliers used for "E" rings to spread the wheels.  Kind of primitive, but it works.  A small expanding vice with a screw mechanism would be better, though.  A battery terminal puller works great too. 

I guess that was more then two cents, then.... closer to ten...

Jerry

I appreciate everyone's response. I do have a battery terminal color so I was going to try that. I feel dumb asking this question but how do I get the wheelset out of the truck?  The flyonel trucks are pressed on using some sort of color or rivet and are not screwed on to the frame.  I cannot seem to just work the axle out of the truck.  It seems I would have to ruin the rivet or collar to be able to remove the truck from the frame of the car.  Is this the case?  

Ben. 

Ben,

You should not have to remove the truck from the car to regauge the wheels.  The rivet holds the truck to the frame, not the wheels to the truck.  The side frames of the trucks are not attached to the sheet metal bolster very well, so it's not advisable to remove the wheels on some trucks.  Lionel attached them in different ways, and some were done so badly that they fell off in the box.  Even Gilbert's way of attachment wasn't all that robust.  So if you can spread the wheels on the axles without removing them from the truck, it's advised to do so.  Tom Hawley probably had a kind of reverse vise that spreads rather than clamps items.  I've seen them before, and if you do a web search, you may find it.  I use an expanding plier to do the same thing to the wheels rather than the vise.  Position the ends of the jaws next to the axle and gently squeeze to force the wheels apart.  Be careful not to expand too much and break the side fromes from the sheet metal bolster. 

Doug Peck of Portline Hobbies has the tool that does the job nicely.  It costs $15, but it has many uses.  Check his website.

Micro Mark makes an expanding plier:

Jerry