Garden Railway Forum

After reading how to dismantle the IP Eng wheels on another online Forum, and whilst still contemplating my reply to Garrett regarding my IP Jane wheel problem, I decided to do some investigation work.

My callipers confirmed that the Mamod track is very close to 32mm, and the Mamod loco wheels are set at 31mm to the front of the wheel flange. However the wheels on my PPS chassis ( for this rebuild - http://gardenrails.myfreeforum.org/about121.html ) were set to 30mm, and the rear set on my IP Jane were also set to 30mm (front set were 31mm).

So using a filed flat nail as a small size flat punch, I punched out the axles on these wheel sets to set them to 31mm.

After a slight filing adjustment on 1 coupling rod to prevent binding, my IP Jane has now returned to much freer running and I am currently using it to pull the PPS rolling chassis around my test oval of track to get the axles bedded in on that loco as well.

A quick check on my Diesel No.1 ( http://gardenrails.myfreeforum.org/about153.html ), which has multi-gauge wheel sets, also finds one axle set at 31mm and the other at 30mm, but because these are set inside the chassis this causes no binding problems. Not had time to check the multi-gauge wheel sets on Diesel No.2 ( http://gardenrails.myfreeforum.org/about80.html ), but again these are inside chassis mounted so no binding problems as well.

Very interesting Chris, as you probably well know the all important dimension is the wheel sets back-to-back, and this is required to be 28mm on 32mm gauge stock.

i have learnt something new today thanks for the post Chris

Hope they are a tighter fit on the IP models Vs. PPS. The PPS ones are glued on, and I have had to glue these back.

Loctite is what is used to bond them on per Alan @ PPS. Seems to work well, just watch cleaning w/ ANY solvents and/or be careful if painting the wheels.

Yes I admit I did not check the back to back measurements, but they all come out to 28mm as well.

Checking the IP Eng & PPS websites, the wheel sets I have on both these locos must be the old IP Eng sets with the circular holes around the inside of the wheels.

These are no longer available, but if you look at the Mamod that has been modified on both these websites (looks like the same loco but from different angles), both those pictures have the wheel sets I have fitted.

And they do appear to be a very tight fit as it took several blows with the hammer to get that 1mm extra clearance.