I’ve had the traction tires on a diesel to come off. I got a set of new ones from the engine’s manufacturer. My question is ,what is the best way to put them on? Should I try to superglue them to the grooves in the wheels? Should I just put them in the grooves without anything to hold them on?
Thanks in advance for the help.
George
There’s an alternative solution to traction tires. Frank Razz of AOL came up with this.
he cut v in a shoe box to hold the engine upside down and puts RTV in the wheel groove and smoothing it to the tread level. After overnight curing this rubber becomes a traction tire bonded into place. Frank reports this RTV works better and lasts longer that replacement tires.
I’ve used GE silicon seal on the GDs’ Thomas and it has held up well. Took a little effort to get it smooth having never tried it before.
I would definitely not glue the tires on, as I can almost guarantee that you’ll regret it later(like the next time they need to be changed).
The best thing to do is remove the truck side frames to give you better acess and carefully work the tire on. They’ll go on eventually.
overall,
Traction tires will last quite while if you observe some cautions…
Never drag the engine on the track. This stretches the tires and has caused more problems than any I have seen at our club. I am always very careful with my engines and I have only replaced one tire (it broke on the first run of the engine) in the last 5 years.
Keep your track clean. the mineral oil in smoke fluid (what goes up must come down) attacks traction tires and causes them to swell. Once they swell they are trash.
If you are double heading powered units, there is a risk that if one stalls, the other will likely trash its traction tires (this happened at the club last week - one of the MTH diesels in a lashup stalled/lost signal and another pushing it lost all its tires). So if you see a lashup stall - kill the power quickly.
Regards,
Roy
I hate traction tires, and am thinking of trying to replace them with a metal strip wrapped around the wheel and soldered on.
Not a good idea, the metal even if you could solder it perfectly round will still slip either on the wheel or the track or both. I prefer the good old days of “magnetraction” but that’s no longer an option… For better or worse we’re stuck with rubber tires.
The first time I had to replace some I thought I aws going to have to dismantle the trucks. But a friend suggested what he used to replace the traction tires and it worked good. It was nothing more than a heavy duty paperclip straightened out and then bend a small hook on the end. It wasn’t easy to put the new tire on but it sure beat dismantling the trucks to do it.
PS. Just make sure the door is closed or the rest of the family is out of the house. More than likely you will feel the urge to utter a few(?) expletives. [:I]
Elliot, I had similar thoughts when I couldn’t keep tires on my Railking Big Boy. I also considered buying ungrooved wheels to replace the grooved ones; but MTH wouldn’t sell less than a complete engine assembly. But the locomotive seems to work just as well without tires and with no special treatment of the grooves. I guess they are just too shallow to make much difference.
Bob, I have a few of the newer Lionel, K-line, and Atlas diesels that have the tires. The fact that they are effectively insulated is potentially troublesome because I am using Gargraves track, with only a single ground rail. The other outside rail is being used train detection. Of course all of my cars have metal wheels, so once a car enters a detection block, both rails become grounded. The trouble, if there is going to be any, will come from a couple of engines with 6 wheel trucks. The wheel set nearest the center is blind, and sometimes doesn’t touch the rail. The center set has the tires, and the set nearest the end is normal. That scenario is less forgiving than I would like, placing all bets on that one wheel making contact.
This project isn’t high on my list right now, but I may play around with it later if I find that I’m having trouble. I’m thinking that I could use some of that metal banding material, used to hold bundles of lumber together during shipping. It seems like it might be just about the right thickness. It would have to be trimmed to the right width, then wrapped around a dowell slightly smaller than the wheel. The whole thing could be more trouble than it’s worth, but it is basicly a free project.
Personally, I’m not into traction tires or magna-traction. I’m not trying to run my trains up Mt Everest, or entering them in tractor pulls. 15 modern cars up 2% is all I ask, and even my little GP-7’s can manage that, though they would do better with a little more weight.
Some really good advice in this thread.
I’ve heard of the clear silicon but not the RTV. Don’t know what that is or where to get it.
How do you get the substances to go on round without blimps? Do you need to have the wheels spinning as you apply it?
Elliot’s idea has some merit and would be interesting to hear from anyone else who’s done something like it. Maybe wrap with very thin copper wire and fill with solder?
The thing I dislike about toy train traction tires is that not only do they not last long (if you put cleaner on the rails like I like to do), but they also leave black marks on the rails. Why can’t toy train traction tires be made of the clear rubbery stuff that HO trains use; or better yet, do away with traction tires!
Here is an idea,
How about cutting up a refrigerator magnet then glue it in the wheel groove?
This would provide traction and magnetic force.
Dave, I hear you about the black marks. That’s another thing I really dislike. The silicone would not have that problem, even if you used black instead of clear. Silicone would be easy to trim with an Xacto knife once it was dry, but it would be better to get it on smooth in the first place.
As for copper wire, I think it would be too soft. Brass would be better, but steel would probably be best if you could do it.
RTV is a different kind of rubber.
“RTV” means “room temperature vulcanizing”. My understanding is that silicone caulk and RTV are the same thing.
I considered winding with wire; but, no matter what wire I might use, I think the weakness would be the softness of the solder matrix.
Try running without the tires. You might find, as I did, that there is no problem.
Dave, when I applied the silicon I had the engine upside down in a cradle with the wheels running as slow as I could get them to. If I remember I used a wet piece of cloth on piece of wood to gently remove the excess and after it cured went back with a razor knive and trimmed it flat.
If you don’t replace the traction tires,doesn’t the engine wobble??? Easter
Mine doesn’t, on O27-profile tubular track.
Dave, What kind of cleaner do you use for your track that would leave a residue that eats up the tires? We use denatured alcohol, the only bad thing about it is it dries out your skin.