# NWSL USA trains upgrade 40 inch wheels!



## apo234 (Aug 14, 2013)

so I have been searching the internet for awhile now about the wrong wheel size on the usa trains locomotives... I really want to fix this problem on my locomotives... I have read George Schreyer's page on his gp9... so my questions are... has anyone else done this? ive found some people who have... and im still not clear on how hard it will be to do? also how is NorthWest Short Line on customer service? ive never ordered anything from them... does it take forever to get your products? if anyone could give me anymore information on this subject i would very much appreciate it!!!


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## Curmudgeon (Jan 11, 2008)

The real issue is not so much the wheel diameter (hey, they're fully hidden behind the sideframes), but what the scale height above the rails will be once you raise the loco with new bigger wheels. 
I tried those once. Make sure they've fixed the flange size. 
Since the USA trucks are not equalized...the 40" wheelsets we got had full scale flanges. First run, one hour, spent over 40 minutes putting the loco back on the track...including one tumble down the side of the mountain. 
I have one wheel here for display of what NOT to do. 
Remember, you have to just about fully remove the brake shoes to get them to fit.....so, how "scale" is the loco with big wheels and no brakes again? 
I think, and it's been a long time, the next smaller size had proper flanges to stay on outdoor rails.... 

TOC


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## Ted Doskaris (Oct 7, 2008)

When installing body mount couplers (typically Kadees used), establishing the proper loco (or rolling stock) height from the rail head lends itself to this effort, so wheel diameter becomes a consideration, too.

As to the wheel flange, scale wheels, as TOC pointed out, can be very problematic on the average layout.

If I were to retrofit wheels on, for example, a USA Trains 2 axle truck loco like the EMD F units and GP units, I would prefer to try to use the USA Trains wheels from their SD 40. From recollection, the tread diameter of these wheels scale to about 36 inches for a prototype, which is a bit shy from a 40 inch wheel normally used on the EMD 2 axle truck locos; however, this is in the realm of prototype wheels that may have been trued up & turned down in diameter - albeit at their likely limit. Using the SD 40 wheels should, also, minimize the amount of brake shoe removal from the side frames. 

If using wheels from the SD 40, be aware that the wheels alone are to be used and transplanted on the 2 axle truck gear since the gear that comes with the SD 40 wheels is not the same design as the one used on the 2 axle trucks.

I know that one person on the FORUM has retrofitted wheels from the USA Trains SD 70, but these wheels scale too large in diameter when compared to prototype. In addition to the machining the brake shoes on the side frames, the sides of the motor blocks had to be machined in the process, too.

Since I have a couple of USA Trains GP 38s, I chose to keep the tiny factory wheels but raised up this loco when body mounting Kadee couplers until they wear enough to when I will try and retrofit the SD 40 wheels. If interested, see article:
"USA Trains GP 38 - Kadee Centerset Coupler Install, Abandoning Traction Tires & Various Mod's[/b]" hosted for me by Greg E. on his Web site.

-Ted


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

Here's my opinion on this manner. The USAT wheels are undersized per the prototype, thus lowering the coupler height, anticlimber height etc. Ted's method of raising the frame would work, but I've never tried it. I replace the USAT wheels with the NWSL wheels. NWSL makes two different sets of wheels as TOC mentions, one works and one doesn't. The semi-scale wheels (or as NWSL has them listed as 270) work just fine on types of track, code 332, 250 and 215. I've never had a problem operating my locomotive with these wheels. The scale wheels which have an even smaller flange don't work. I don't even see them listed on the NWSL website anymore. Here is the link to the 40" 270 wheels http://shop.osorail.com/product.sc?productId=1480&categoryId=-1 
This is what I have used in the past as replacement wheels.
























And yes the brake shoes have to be ground down a bit to fit the NWSL replacement wheels. Here's a picture of the NWSL wheels on a ground down brake pad.








I've only done 4 axle units so I'm not sure what the 6 axle ones would be like. 
Craig


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## Ted Doskaris (Oct 7, 2008)

I see the tread diameter measurement is 1.239 inch for the NWSL 270 wheel. At 1/29 scale this relates to prototype 29 x 1.239 = 35.9 inches, so it looks to be similar to the USAT SD 40 wheel diameter. I noticed the pictures show the side frames sill include some brake shoe material, so at this size wheel it still looks good, so if you were to use a scaled down 40 inch diameter wheel, what TOC said about no brake shoes showing would probably be the case. 

Could it be the wheels in the pictures are actually the "36 inch" Nickle silver (NS) ones?
6"/270 upgrade NS Wheels (8) for #1 USA Trains GP7, GP38, F3 Item #: 2529-6
*http://shop.osorail.com/product.sc?productId=1367&categoryId=104*

The link that was provided is I think for (NS) wheels,
40"/270 upgrade NS whls #1 USA Trains diesel GP7, F7, NW2 (8) Item #: 2662-6
*http://shop.osorail.com/product.sc?productId=1480&categoryId=-1*
Look at the the NWSL parent link below, it shows a large selection, that includes both "36 inch" and "40 inch wheels".*
*
*http://shop.osorail.com/category.sc?categoryId=104*

BTW, when was the approximate date you actually ordered your wheels from NWSL?

Thanks for excellent info. and pictures., 

-Ted


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

Ted, 
Your right it they are 36" wheels, not 40". I ordered mine a long time ago.. Early 2000's?


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## Ted Doskaris (Oct 7, 2008)

Posted By bnsfconductor on 21 Nov 2013 01:08 PM 
Ted, 
Your right it they are 36" wheels, not 40". I ordered mine a long time ago.. Early 2000's? 

That's a long time ago. Since that time I tried to obtain wheels for Aristo locos from them and got no satisfactory response. I think they were in the process of be acquired by some other company. So I gave up and had *stainless steel wheels* specially made. I don't know how it is to deal with them today.

-Ted


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

The original owners sold the company I think sometime in 2008-2010? timeframe, and the second owners are the ones currently doing all the manufacturing, etc. I talked to the new owners a few years back (2011) about a cracked USAT gear. I thought that I had bought a new gear from NWSL and it had cracked. NWSL was ready to send me a new gear, but I wanted to make sure that I didn't actually buy a replacement gear first. Turns out my replacement gear was a USAT replacement gear. NWSL seems to do a steady business in the smaller scales, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't be active in responding to a customer request.


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## apo234 (Aug 14, 2013)

Hey thanks for the responses guys! Ted i have read all of your pages on gregs website! Very informative! And your right the main reason i want bigger wheels is to correct the height of the loco for kadees... As i want to fill in the huge hole as well! I can see were the small flanges would be a problem... I guess you can get away with that in smaller scales, i did look up the thread were that guy used the sd70 wheels and i tried getting the sd40 wheels but robby at rld said usa was out of them... So i did order one set of the ss 36 wheels from nwsl so i do not know if i will get them or not...


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## apo234 (Aug 14, 2013)

well I ordered a set of wheels and it toke months to get them... didn't even know i was getting then until they just randomly showed up at my house one evening... they are the 36 inch ones and are stainless steel... or so it says...



This is the locomotive they will go in to, a USA trains gp38-2! I was installing a phoenix p8 sound card in the SD70MAC when the wheels arrived which is why it is in pieces...



I then toke the motor blocks apart and started taking out the old wheels... this is the 1st time i had ever been in a USA trains motor block... and the motors are huge!!!! which is awesome... but I was alittle worried about the wire size they used in the motor block... seems way to small... but ill watch the wires and see if they need replaced with bigger sized wires in the future... 



here are the old USA trains wheels... look how small they are!!!!!!!!



now right out of the box i noticed problems with the NWSL wheels... they did not have great quality control i guess... they left some scrap metal on the wheels in two places... the back were the axle meets the wheel and on the front of the wheel were the axle goes in to the side frames... so i put the wheels in a drill and got a file and then filed them down to get ride of the metal... if you don't do that the bearings will not ride right and the front of the axle wont even go in to the side frames! 







now with that problem taken care of... i moved on to getting the USA wheels off of the gears... I put the wheels in a vice and pulled them slowly down with a pair of needles nose pliers... worked great for all the wheels exp for one... didn't even know i could do this... 



now one problem I have with the NWSL wheels is that the ends of the axles aren't as good as the USA trains wheels as shown in the pics... they would be great if they improved this... or had the wheels come with some kind of metal gears...

USA wheels


NWSL wheels


now with all of those problems solved... one last problem was making the slider touch the rails again because these need a lot of electricity to work and i wanted to keep the sliders... so i grinded away part of the plastic to let them come down farther



Now look at the trucks! looks so much better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





Now look at the locomotive!!!! looks way better to!!!!! you can see the wheels now!!!



Here is it coupled to another gp38-2 that still has the USA wheels on it



Now here is it Next to a USA trains SD40-2, it is pretty close to the right height now!! now I can add kadee couplers to the gp38-2 and be happy about it... (so far)


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Thanks for the photos. I've got an NW-2 project coming up which I think will benefit from larger-diameter wheels. (Upsizing it to 1:22.5.) I hadn't checked to see if the replacement wheels were still available, so I'm glad they are. I'll be ordering a set.

Later,

K


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## Ted Doskaris (Oct 7, 2008)

APO (It would be nice to know your name).

Thanks so much for your informative response - job well done.

Do you have any operational problems on your layout track work with the loco having the new NWSL wheels, particularly, when going through turnouts facing the point rails and frog point?

-Ted


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## apo234 (Aug 14, 2013)

oh hey ted! thank you for your thanks! also my name is Andrew... well when I 1st put the wheels into the USA gears they were to far apart and didn't have any play when you put them on the rails... so i put the USA wheels back in the gears and put them back on the rails to see what kind of play they had... which they could move back and forth a little bit... so i gauged them to that... and I had to grind a little off the ends of the NWSL wheels to get them to that gauge... which I forgot to put in the pictures sadly... but after all that work the engine runs great and looks great and doesn't derail or pick switches in either path, i also thought i would lose a lot of pulling power when i lost the traction tires but in fact it can still pull 20 mostly USA modern tankers and hoppers which weigh a lot with out slipping at all!


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## apo234 (Aug 14, 2013)

Well I just fisnhed installing another set of wheels on my other USA GP38-2 and i thought i would post some photos of the before and after of the side frames to show you how much you have to grind away because i forgot to post them in the last set of pics I put up on here... as you can see in these photos i think grinding away part of the brake shoes makes it look better anyway... here is before photo...



and here is the after photo... I don't know about you guys but i think it looks way better!



I also would like to say that this time after i ordered the wheels I got an email 2 days later saying they where shipped! I was really surprised at that! also these new set of wheels did not have that huge problem last time of metal trimmings left everywhere on them! only took a couple of hours to install this set this time!!! I will be ordering one more set for a USA GP7 that I have


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