Replacing the plastic wheels on Hornby Railroad R4350/51/52 passenger coaches

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Newbie post!

I’ve just purchased a set of R4350/R4351/R4352 RailRoad passenger coaches for my layout, which I’m in the process of building. I’ve noticed that on all three coaches the wheels sound rough as they rotate, either on a section of track or if spun by hand, and there is a degree of resistance. I appreciate that these models are from Hornby’s basic range, but at present they suit my requirements as I’m just getting back into model railways after an absence of 50+ years, when Tri-ang ruled the OO gauge roost, and it’s an expensive hobby!

Is it possible to replace the plastic wheels on these coaches with metal ones? If so, how easy/difficult is it? Assuming that it is possible, is there a Hornby spare part that would suit? I took a look at the online catalogue, but there are a lot of wheel packs to choose from.

Cheers, Clem

PS: I may have inadvertently posted this message twice. If so, my apologies. Perhaps the forum administrator could delete one in that case.

[Going Spare]

I believe these coaches are fitted with 14.1mm diameter wheels, in which case metal wheelsets are in pack R8218. Measure the plastic wheels across their treads to be sure.

If they turn out to be 12.6mm, you need pack R8096.

Regarding exchanging the wheelsets, there should be enough flexibility in the bogie frame to enable you to spring one end of the axle out of its axle box allowing the complete wheelset to be lifted out.

[ColinB]

That is what I did with my old Hornby coaches, the old ones had plastic wheels. The only real issue is that Hornby make them in packs of ten, which means one pack does two and a half coaches.

[JJ73]

These are G. S is talking about...

14.1mm Disc Wheels (Pack 10) (hornby.com)

12.6mm Disc Wheels (Pack 10) (hornby.com)

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@RDS: nickname set, I hope!

To the others in this thread who kindly posted, thanks very much for the responses. I’ll check out the links.

Cheers!