Class 66 axles

[Trevski Jones]

Hi
A couple of years ago I replaced the axles on my two Hornby 156s with non-traction tyre versions and they run so much better.
Does anyone know if it's possible to do the same with the current Hornby 66 versions.
I have a Freightliner Orange and ONE liveried versions and would like to do this.

 

[Chrissaf]

Whilst you wait for a reply, perhaps you would spend a few minutes reviewing the TIPs in the TIP page link below:

 

TIP: As a newbie poster on the forum, just be aware that the 'Blue Button with the White Arrow' is not a 'Reply to this post' button. If you want to reply to any of the posts, scroll down and write your reply in the reply text box at the bottom of the page and click the Green 'Reply' button.

 

See also – further TIPs on how to get the best user experience from this forum.

https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/forum/tips-on-using-the-forum/

 

[96RAF]

Pull as many service sheets as you can find and compare parts for interchangability.

[Going Spare]

The non-tyred wheelset pack you need is X9665. (Beware, pack X9665M contains tyred wheelsets).  Pack X9665 is claimed to be available from lendonsmodelshop but their illustration shows tyred wheels - the same illustration appears to have been used for X9665 and X9665M.

[ColinB]

I must admit I would be surprised if they run better unless you have a ton of weight in them. I have been converting a lot of my old Lima locos to current Hornby Railroader specification, replacing the ringfield type motor based bogie with the class 66 type. I found that the class 47 I converted was ever so critical of placement of traction tyres (I normally put the tyres on different sides so the back one is on the left, the front one on the right), but on this loco they had to be on the same side. If you want to do it then just look up wheels for the dummy bogie. A Bachmann class 66 at the moment is not much more than a Hornby one, as Hattons have reduced their one, that is a much better bet. We all know how well the loco runs when it shreds a traction tyre.

[96RAF]

I have an old ringfield motored Class 91 that was converted to solid tyred wheels and it runs fine but my ringfield to DVD motored HST similarly converted to solid tyres suffers severe wheel slip on gradients, so not all models take well to solid wheels.

[ColinB]

As I said earlier, I found that even swapping the axles around causes issues. I did find the 4 wheeled bogies seemed to work better than the 6 wheeled ones. On HSTs I found even with the right traction tyres slipping was still an issue, probably because there is virtually no weight directly over the bogie and by its design the bogie is pushing the rest of the loco making the front tend to bear up. It seems unless you go for the setup as per Bachmann diesels or Hornby Class 50/33 mechanisms, you seem to always need traction tyres. Similarly with Hornby 4-4-0 locos, they always seem to need traction tyres.

[Going Spare]

All the ex-Lima diesels, electro-diesel, railcars and multiple units were originally released with non-tyred wheels but so many complaints were received about poor haulage capacity that tyred wheels were soon substituted.