Another little project I have been working on is to use the wheels from Right O Way to convert an Atlas loco to P48.
The wheels are really nice, they are machined on both sides and look better than any others I have seen, they are also very reasonably priced at $22.50 for a set of 8. The problem though is that the axle hole is 3mm in diameter and Atlas axles are about 4.6mm in diameter, so to make the axles fit the wheels requires a bit of time with the lathe. You can of course just buy the NWSL replacement wheelsets but they are not as nice and about 3 times the price.
Getting the original wheels off the axle takes a fair bit of force even with the arbour press, the gear comes off easily.
Turning the axle ends down to 3.05mm is a simple enough job in the lathe, it just takes a bit of care to keep measuring so that you don't over do it.
Putting them back together with the new wheels is a little bit trickier.
Here I have already put the gear back on the axle, the piece of cast iron to the left of the axle has been drilled out to 3.1mm in the lathe, so that the axle end is a nice fit in the hole, this really helps to get the wheels on without any wobble.
The axles are about 3mm over long at each end, so I machine that part of the axle to be 2.95mm in diameter so the wheel slides on easily.
As the axle pushes through it goes into the hole and everything stays square.
I'm now doing the same for the other wheel, I think doing this without an arbour press would be very difficult.
Here's the first test wheelset
You need to short out the gear side as only one side of the loco is insulated from the chassis.
You must also fit the plastic washers on the original axle on the insulated side of the wheel set.
So now the GP60 is converted to P48, it was an Atlas 2 rail Gold model from 2006, so it has a QSi sound decoder installed in it.
Here's a link to its first test run