Interesting Legacy loco-tender swap result

Lee, I'll keep that in mind if I ever want any of my steamers to sound like a diesel!

That's the only fun I've had this morning.  This V- 0-8-8-0 is a nice little loco, but it's giving me nothing but grief.  All the traction tires were shot and very lumpy,  and apparently before I got it, a 1/4 inch piece of one had been thrown off and worked its way up inside the chassis were it was playing with free movement of the front driver set swiveling.  I'm diagnosed problems one by one and it runs better now with all the tires removed, but still wobbles a lot.  Can't understand why - with all the out-of-round traction tires removed it should roll well, if not pull much.  For now, I'm keeping it a diesel - helps me keep my sense of humor this morning!  Grrr.

I wonder if you have a bent axle.  Another thing could be the quartering is slightly off and causing a bit of binding, just enough to create a wobble?

I found more traction tire up under the swivel - hard to see but there was a good bit of it.  This thing must have thrown nearly a full tire at some time up under the boiler where it lodged tight back in the swivel.  Interesting, that when I brought this home it had all ts (crackled, wellen, out of round) traction tires in place. 

Anyway, whoever owned this DID something to all the traction tires.  I vaguely recall having heard of folks putting something - not sure if its oil or what liquid, on traction tires to soften and swell them slightly for a tight fit.  I wonder this this owner did that with way too heavy a hard.  Ever heard anything like that?. 

By the way the thing no longer wobbles but it still jumps the rails at one specific spot on the layout, every time, and sometimes two other places. 

FWIW, I've found that a couple of my locomotives without traction tires installed will derail at certain places.  I'm also testing MTH traction tires on my diesels to replace the Lionel ones.  The MTH ones are thinner, and sometimes the Lionel ones are actually thicker than it appears they should be.

Yea mth Traction tires on lionel engines work very well it removes the wobble they get .

After several caliber measurements I think the Lionel traction tires are to wide and don't fit in the groves well..There about impossible to trim down.Its a shame cause the being thicker should make them last a lot longer.

It's one of those "bad loco days" for me.  I'm having coupler problems with another loco and I've just given up on this 0-8-8-0.  Without traction tires, it runs smooth, slow, and steady on my O-72 loop - just a very nice looking and sounding loco now, even it it has more than a bit of boiler stick out, even as short as it is.  So I'll just accept that this puppy is an O-60+ loco and not run it on anything but my big, all 72 and 84 inch loop. 

Just think of it this way Lee.  If you didn't have trains to work on, you'd be bored.