So I mentioned my truck tuner tool went missing, just whan I needed it for some Accurail cars - oddly EVERY truck was stiff, usually out of a bunch of them one or two will have a wheelset that won;t freely roll and needs some help.
ANyway, I odered one this week from Klein, and it came today - and it’s about as useless as can be. It slips into Accurail, Bowser, and Athearn trucks (what I had immediately in reach) without even LIGHTLY having to spread the sideframes. My old one, you had to pop it in like a wheelset. As such, it’s nearly impossible to actually use it, pushing very hard on the sideframes to make contact distorts things so it’s not cutting at 90 degrees to the sideframe, which would be bad.
I’m not sure if my other one was a genuine Reboxx one, I actually picked it up at a train show, but it always did the job. Reboxx only makes one, so it’s not like the wrong one got stuck in the envelope by mistake, this is indeed genuine Reboxx item T-100.
SOmeone with the same problem. Saw the measurement given for the Micro-Mark one, so I pulled out my trusty (or not - the batteyr was dead and I rarely use it) caliper to measure the Reboxx tool. .98" vs 1.03" for the Micro-Mark, well, there’s the problem. Now, is it just made that way, or is my Reboxx one defective? Guess I shoulda just grabbed one with my Micro-Mark order the other week - except I didn;t know it was missing then.
Yea, 50-mil is a pretty substantial difference, Randy. I have one of the Micro-Mark truck tuners and I have to also spread the truck apart to slip it in.
I would contact M.B. Klein to see if you could return it, as well as ReBoxx.
Considering, per the Reboxx web site, Accurail trucks takes axles that are 1.020" long…you think a tool less than 1" would work?
Actually, I managed to make it work, somewhat. These trucks in this set of kits must have come from a badly worn die, I’ve never had Accurail trucks that rolled sopoorly with P2K wheels in them. After biting th ebullet and pressing hard enough for the Exxact Socket to work (I have a spare pair of trucks thanks to the dog chomping a hopper), it DID work - they now spin pretty freely, but not as good as I was able to get with the old one, which apparantly was the same generic item MicroMark sells
I guess I will live with it until I get to a train show and get anther of the generic ones, or the next time I order stuff from MicroMark - ordering the $12 tool alone results in an $8 shipping charge, no thanks. And maybe shoot an email to Reboxx and see what they have to say. There’s not a single truck they sell wheelsets for where this tool would be ‘just right’ to fit snugly when used. I need a new box and foam for my brass RS-3 anyway.
After using the original tool for some years, I thought it might be getting a little dull, so I got a new one about a year ago. This one obviously doesn’t fit a typical truck frame correctly when the frame is squeezed together, and would cut crooked journals, so I never used it. At Proto Rails in January, I asked a Reboxx rep why it was made so short. He said “no problem - don’t squeeze the frame, just force the tool to stay vertical” . This is silly - too hard to get decent pressure without squeezing. A waste of money. Maybe if Reboxx gets enough complaints, they’ll fix it. The original worked great.
Frustration has set it, the Reboxx version is absolutely USELESS. Guess I will see what other goodies I can add to a MicroMark order and get the GOOD one. The trucks this Reboxx one seemed to work with were all probably oens that didn;t need much if any adjustment to begin with. The ones that rolled poorly - no matetr what I do with this thing, they still roll poorly. Plus the excessive handlign it wearing off the grimy black paint, defeating my whoel purpose of this latest project.
I can;t see how they expect this to work as designed, there are like 3 axle lengths wheelsets that Reboxx sells that are at or shorter than this tool’s length, pretty much those are the only trucks it could actually work in. ANd they aren;t very many common ones. The longer length MicroMark tool, that’s longer than almost every HO axle and thus explains why it’s always worked, just pop it in place, a couple of spins, and instant fix for any stubborn wheelsets.
Say what you will about MicroMark ‘copying’ other designs, but in this case, the copy is FAR SUPERIOR to the original. I can heartily recommend NOT getting the Reboxx tool if you want to clean up HO trucks for better rolling. Stick with MicroMark for this.
Yes, one of my friends ordered one of the Reboxx and had the same problem. He even contacted Reboxx about it. He ended up buying the one from Micro-mark too. That’s the one I use to. The Reboxx one is not right enough said.
“JBarger” answered from Reboxx. He will accept the T-100 tool back for credit on any other Reboxx item. I’d take a package of wheels, but they only sell semi-scale. Oh well…
Micro-Mark order arrived today. Two turns on each side with their version of the tool and these poor turning Accurail trucks are now nicely free-spinning. Certainly didn;t cut too much off that would make the wheels wobble, it just properly cleaned things up.
Yup, I have the same problem. The tools got great reviews and a hobby shop owner talked me into buying one from an order he just got. I have to pinch the journals together so much, it hurts my fingertips after a couple trucks…and it never produced and plastic shavings (which is probably good because the journals would be crooked). I’m glad to hear the tool may be defective, not me! hahaha
I will contact them and see if I can use the money towards some semi scale wheels (I have been wanting them for my tank cars for a while now).
I have the Reboxx tool and have had absolutely no problems with it ever.But then I bought mine shortly after Reboxx brought them out.I have a fair amount of older Bachmann,LifeLike ,and TYCO cars that I have up graded.I used to arbitrarily replace the trucks with what I just assumed were better trucks.Now it’s pop out the wheel sets ream the the truck for Proto wheel sets and bodymount KADEE couplers.
Got caliper to get a measurement of your Reboxx version> If you can pop it in to trucks that take the Proto 2000 wheels and don;thave to go nuts squeezing the truck sides, I’m bettign they changed it somewhere along the line and yours is longer than the ones we’ve psoted measurements of.
I dunno about other Life Like trainset cars, but their cabooses, of which I have two, details added and custom painted and decaled for Reading, since they are accurate Reading cabooses, if a bit crude on the handrail details, absolutely do not take P2K wheelsets, the trucks are much too narrow. Those all have Reboxx wheelsets in them.