# Least expensive steel wheel upgrade...



## Sesh1975 (Aug 25, 2008)

Hey guys! Looking to upgrade all of our USAT rolling stock to metal wheels. We ran the trains on the new garden layout over the weekend and found we need to really get rid of the plastic wheels. Whats the cheapest way to do this?

Thanks
Shawn


----------



## Great Western (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi Shawn,

USA Trains do make metal wheel sets which can be bought to replace plastic ones. I have used them in addition to those from other manufacturers. They were quite reasonable in price but have increased in price recently over here. You may be lucky and get some at the old price. Check with the dealer who supplied your plastic wheeled stock.


----------



## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Bachman also had cheap wheels. Later RJD


----------



## Sesh1975 (Aug 25, 2008)

Will the BMann wheel sets work with USAT?


----------



## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

Yes, the Bachmanns will work. Most brands of wheels are close in size. Also consider wheel sets from Al Kramer. He sells them on eBay under the seller name "ana.kramer". They are quality wheels (better than Bachmanns) for a decent price (usually 20 axles for less than $50, at least the last time I bought them). Many here, including myself, use them. 

-Brian


----------



## Sesh1975 (Aug 25, 2008)

Your talking about the roll-ez from san-val right?


----------



## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

Yes, but SanVal no longer exists.

-Brian


----------



## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

Bachmann are still the cheapest, I believe. They also have the advantage--which could also be a disadvantage--of being lighter. As I see it, in general heavier wheels, like aristos, track better but lighter wheels let you pull more cars. I recently changed a few Aristo wheelsets to Bachmann to lessen the load on a steep grade


----------



## Trains (Jan 2, 2008)

San-Val, Al Kramer still has wheels on e-bay. I bet if you e-mailed him he would sell to you.


----------



## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

I have seen the San Val wheels on ebay going higher than our regular price.


----------



## Chucks_Trains (Jan 2, 2008)

San-Val may be out of business but the website is still alive and well..









San-Val


----------



## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Charles Ro sells the USA wheel sets in lots of 10 pairs for $90. The part numbers are R2090 shiny, R2093 for black. These are solid metal and very heavy, great outdoors in the wind!!! 
Since these are made by USA Trains, they are a guaranteed fit. 

I find the newer LGB cars have a tighter truck width wise and some grinding needs to be done to make these fit and turn easy. Older LGB trucks were wider and these wheels fit with no problems. 
On Aristo cars, these wheels are a little smaller diameter and some cars have the brake shoe hitting the rail. These shoes can be filed/trimmed.


----------



## Matt Vogt (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Treeman on 11/24/2008 7:32 PM
I have seen the San Val wheels on ebay going higher than our regular price. 

Hey Mike,
Are you talking about Bachmann or San-Val. I couldn't find either listed on your site.

Thanks,

Matt


----------



## blueregal (Jan 3, 2008)

Just go to ebay and click on model trains g-scale Bachmann, you will find his listings under 10 wheel sets for sale. AnnaKramer, is Al Kramer no more San Val but he IS selling from home. The reason you see people paying higher prices there is because there are still some idiots in the world making it harder on us people looking for the bargains to keep alive in this ever price increasing hobby right LOL!!!! The Regal


----------



## trainbuffjr (Jan 11, 2008)

*I just put Bachmann metal wheels on all of my USA Trains work cars and they seam to be working great. And Bachmann metal wheels can be bought for around $12 a set.*


----------



## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Another vote for B'mann


----------



## Sesh1975 (Aug 25, 2008)

Looking all over the internet now for the best deals. Anyone have a good place???


----------



## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

I've had good luck with ridge road station (www.ridgeroad.com), Lantz' train shop (www.wholesaletrains.com) and train world (www.trainworld.com). 


I bachmann metal wheels are fine. They are cast so that makes them a little bit louder than the machined metal wheels. But they roll just fine.


----------



## Sesh1975 (Aug 25, 2008)

Thanks Mark. 

I need to recount how many axles I need.


----------



## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I have found that 10-20% of the bachmann wheels wobble noticeably. From my observation, seems to be that the hole is not aligned with the rest of the wheel, i.e. you cannot fix it. They do seem to always be the lowest priced wheels. 

Regards, Greg


----------



## DTI356 (Jan 3, 2008)

I've found RLD Hobbies (rldhobbies.com) the least expensive and they are PayPal friendly. 

They have 4 axles of the USA blackened wheels (R2093) for $13.84....if you buy 10 sets they are $12.84 a set. 

Always a pleasure to deal with. 

Dan, 
I agree about the LGB American trucks....but don't grind them. Use a countersink bit and use it till the upper diameter is the same as the boss size on the truck. Being the same angle as the turned down area on the axle makes them very slippery. I've been doing this and these are the easiest rolling trucks I have! 

Brian B.


----------



## Dave F (Jan 2, 2008)

I've had good luck with Bachmann so far. Very reasonable prices, decent quality wheels.


----------



## Robert Fasnacht (Jan 2, 2008)

*Sorry Greg...*

*There are times when Greg clearly knows what he is talking about but this ain't one of them. Maybe his claim of having 10% - 20% of Bachmann wheels with a wobble is correct in his mind but that percentage is wildly inflated or imaginary. I have bought over 1,000 wheel sets (that 250 wheel packs) and out of that number there may have been a half a dozen I found faulty. Bachmann's quality control is much better than Greg will have you believe. As for wheel choice, it is pretty obvious what I use on EVERYTHING that does not come with metal wheels. They are relatively inexpensive yet provide a nice lowered center of balance due to their reasonable weight and do allow a piece of rolling stock to roll with reasonable ease. I have pulled consists of as many as 86 cars--all Bachmann wheels--with a USAT Big Boy so the lack of bearinged axles may be a moot point. Sure, you can break the bank and go to something believed to be top notch (and perhaps it is) like Gary Raymond but it really isn't necessary. Besides, I have fellow club members who have trouble keeping their rolling stock on the tracks at certain outside train shows with their Gary Raymonds while I continue to operate. Certainly the flanges are not prototype but what really is in G-scale anyway?*

*Bob*


----------



## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

I use a lot of the bachman wheels and have not seen the problem that Greg has mentioned. Later RJD


----------



## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Guess I was just lucky (or unlucky)... it is not knowing what you are talking about, it's your experience. I have only bought about 6-10 packs of Bachmann wheels, and more than one in 20 had what I considered an unacceptable wobble. Since they were cheap, I was not upset, but I don't want to buy more. They were only from 2 different stores, so a small sample. I have settled on mostly cars that come with metal wheels in the first place. I do not like the finish on the Bachmann wheels, and they appear to be cast not machined, but you get what you pay for. 

I do not think that ball bearings are all that they are cracked up to be myself. On grades they really make no difference, only rolling resistance on the flat. Most people are working the train harder on a grade.

Regards, Greg


----------



## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

The bachmann wheels are cast, not machined. I wonder if anyone has ground flat spots on to their metal wheels. How often do you hear flat wheels as a train passes? Got to be at least one in a 1:1 consist. Even on passenger trains...


----------



## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi Shawn....

I've been using Bachmann metal wheels for 8 years with very, very few that went bad. I have over 70 4 axle cars running with them. I've used others but have found the Bachmann wheels are the best for the money in the long run. Most of my trains run all day 4-6 days a week, 8-12 hours a day.


----------



## Sesh1975 (Aug 25, 2008)

Thanks for the information Stan. I went home last night and counted how many cars we need to retrofit right now. 10-4 axle USAT cars. Im going to look around local for wheels this weekend and see if there are any deals near by. Ill be checking the websites provided as well. 


thank you all! 

Shawn


----------



## Robert Fasnacht (Jan 2, 2008)

*Sesh1975*

*Ten, 4-axle cars...that is not a huge undertaking and I am hopeful you will find a deal agreeable to you. Wait until you run into a long string of cars with plastic wheels and you have to buy buckets full of metal wheels for never-ending retrofits. I assure you, thoughts of committing an atrocity on the car maker will weight heavily upon your mind.*

*Bob*


----------



## Sesh1975 (Aug 25, 2008)

Your right 10 cars isnt horrible. Its the cost thats just crazy. It will end up costing me close to 200 for the switch on all cars. Thats 3 or 4 more train cars.....


----------



## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

Matt: We do have metal wheels listed on our site, under USA Trains Accessories. USA wheels seem to be of very high quality and plenty of weight. They come black or silver.


----------



## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Even if Robert thinks I'm in left field, I have about 40 USAT cars with the supplied metal wheels. I like them very much, nice and heavy and very few problems. Much nicer in appearance in my opinion. 

They are my preference for retrofitting. 

Regards, Greg


----------



## DTI356 (Jan 3, 2008)

Sesh1975, 

As I stated earlier. If you buy 10 sets from RLD Hobbies they will cost 128.40 + shipping 

You may want to take a look. 

Brian B.


----------



## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

With the Bachmann metal wheels you essentially get what you pay for. They are typically the cheapest and it's what we use almost exclusively. They are for the most part dependable, look good, roll nicely, and add a bit of weight to your cars. However they are not the smoothest wheels out there either.


I have been contemplating changing out from Bachmann to something a little better, like the San-Val wheels. The only problem is price. To reequip our fleet would just be too much, and even a little at at time is pretty pricey. If I do ever get around to a great change over, maybe I can offset some costs by selling off the Bachmann wheels.

Like most people's experience, there are definitely a few bad apples in Bachmann wheel packs when you start getting into high numbers of wheels. The biggest issue I've experienced are the wheels being out of gauge. Thankfully you can push or pull on the wheels to fix this. One out of gauge Bachmann wheel made it's way into our layout cab ride video. The camera car is a gondola that is rarely used. I didn't check the wheels and didn't notice a problem until after viewing the video. If you watch the video (at 2:24), you'll notice a bump when the camera car goes over a switch. The bump only happened on one switch so I thought it might be the frog. But after checking, one wheel was slightly out too far. Erg, guess we'll have to re-shoot it









If an axle is bent then there could be some really noticeable problems. With a bent axle, the car will wobble, may look a little funny, and could derail too. How many come with a bent axle, well not too many, about 4 out of 50 with bent or slightly misshapen axles has been my experience. But it's close to Greg's 10% level. Not all are beyond fixing, however if the axle is badly bent it's pretty hard to get it true. But then again, when have you seen a real trainset with perfect wheels on every car...especially on the D&RGW narrow gauge which we model










If you do go with Bachmann, the wheels fit on pretty much everything (LGB, USA, Aristo, Bachmann, Hartland, MDC). Just be sure to get the "large" wheels and not the "small" wheels. The small wheels are great for mine cars, but way too small for most everything else.


----------

