Wheels off

 

I love Romford wheels. Self-quartering, and thanks to the metal centres, pretty much indesructable. These are not Romfords. 

It's been a long while since I did any serious kit bulding, but the soft plastic centre suggest Sharman wheels, or possibly Gibsons. Whatever, my experience in the past is that you can't take these on and off an axle repeatedly as they lose their grip. So I wanted to do the job once, and carefully. 

That's why I'm using a wheel puller to remove them with as little strain on the soft bits as possible. They slide off easily enough, which I hope is down to me using the right tool, and not that the centres are made of blancmange. 

The front axle drops out, and I shorten it with a piercing saw. Breaking three blades doing so. No idea how, I'm usually pretty good with these things, but one blade only lasted two strokes. 

Anyway, eventually it was chopped, the end tidied up and the wheels put back on using my vice as a press to ensure they went on sqaure. Something else Romfords are good at...

At the back, the gear is firmly fixed, I i had to cut both ends. Measuring was simply putting a wheel against the frame and marking the required axle length with a fine pen. Not perfect, but good enough for this job. 

Back in place, every thing turns smoothly and they seem not to wobble when spun. The back-to-back gauge just goes in between them, so I'm not taking anything apart again to thin down bearings in the chassis. I even spotted the front axle is compensated - this seems a very well-made model, which makes me wonder how it ended up in the state I got it.