Replacing ZW transformer contact rollers?

I've had good luck just crimping the roller pins with pliers. 

Hay Dennis,

 There is a guy in Somerset N.J. named Jay Stuhl who always changes the rollers for us and puts the Xformer through some simple testing. He's been a Lionel repairman for over 40 years and does great work. He is also reasonable. He has the crimper

      Steam Forever

            John

Coordinator for "The Raritan Valley Hi-Railers

Member of "The N.J. Hi-Railers

I have heard of putting a drop of solder on the rivet; epoxy might work.  There was also a tool available called the Brakeman Riveter; I have one and it's an excellent tool.

I have started just soldering the head of the river to the bracket. 

CLICK HERE for an OGR Backshop video on this very subject! 

Check out Joe's homemade tool for riveting:

Joe Geiser posted:

Hi,

There has been interest in some of tools I use for repairing Lionel trains and accessories so I’d like to share what makes my repairs a little easier. The first two pics are of a hand held small rivet and eyelet press that costs less than $10.00. This tool works great on knuckle couplers, switch repair and replacing the carbon rollers pickups for ZW and KW transformers. You can repair all four rollers w/o taking the assembly apart, takes about 15-20 minutes. Anywhere you need to press small rivets or eyelets, even in close quarters, you can use this easy to make tool.

An inexpensive pair of needle nose vise grips drilled and tapped for 2 4-40 cap screws as shown in the pic, and a couple of locking nuts. Peen over the rivets that hold the vise grips together to tighten the action, this will center the clincher with the anvil. Grind the top screw to a soft round tip as shown, grind the bottom head of the screw till its flat with a small depression in the middle to hold the head of the rivet. Size the jaws to the rivet by holding it between the clincher and anvil and adjusting the jaw gap until you can lock it while gently holding the rivet in place, remove rivet and slightly close the gap, this way it will flare the rivet and lock it in place.

I will admit that a HH or Lionel arbor press does a neater job, but for those of us who don’t have hundreds of dollars to invest my press is an affordable alternative. I have used this hundreds of times and never had a rivet back out on me.

 

+ 1 for soldering the one or 2 times I did it.  I put the rivet in from the bottom to make the soldering easier to deal with.

That homemade tool looks neat, but I wouldn't have the machining skills (or tools required) to build one.

-Dave

Many thanks to those that have replied. Some great tips here and a video!  How can one miss?

So we have the solder trick, the eyelet press a video and a recommendation for a nearby train repair guy that I do know. Didn't realize the Jay was still repairing trains.  

Make sure when you replace the rivets that you face the heads toward each other in the middle.  The longer tail of the rivet will hit the other arm if you don't.   I just squash the end with pliers and then solder the head to the arm for better contact.

Another point, the rivets in some of them are VERY hard, I was having trouble cutting them with even pretty hefty wire cutters.  I used a Dremel cutoff wheel to slice them out.