Bachmann 31mm metal wheel. Truing the wobble.

DVS4G

DVS4G

RR Dave
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I learned something tonight. After being frustrated by the 31mm Bachmann metal wheels I had purchased, and looking for solutions on the forums, I found many old threads about how you had to just throw out about 25% of what you had purchased. Well, I figured that if I'm gonna throw them out anyhow, I might as well try some things to fix them. Turns out that if you spin the wheels and watch where the wobble is, you can grab a small pair of channel locks and grab the front and back of the wheel where it tips in the most, put your finger on the axle for a bit of leverage, and then put pressure on the wheel in the direction away from the flange (toward the outside of the car) which, if done carefully, reorients the wheel on the bushing a bit. With a little trail and error, I got some pretty wobbly wheels to run pretty darn true. Way better than they were before. The metal wheel has a plastic bushing that is around the metal axle. So, the surface between the wheel and bushing has a bit of give.
Has anyone else tried a similar trick or something else to fix this problem?
 
I have done exactly that with some really bad ones, thing to do is measure the back to back in the 4 quarters, this will show where things are out allowing your solution to be adopted.
 
Thanks for the input. I didn't figure I had discovered a "new" idea. I just couldn't find anywhere that someone said they had tried this. I'm too cheap to throw things out without breaking them first! Ha! I had pretty good luck with this rather crude way to make the problem better. If I went further down the rabbit hole, I might be tempted to mill out a metal jig to hold the wheelsets and use a fixed indicator to show me the wobble points. Then, a threaded persuader through the side to refine the "small channel locks" maneuver. Might be an interesting tool to have around if it sped up the process or got even better results.
 
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