Exchanging plastic wheels to Metal?

[lilpuu]

I'm building an HO train set and wanted to know if I could change the plastic HO wheels on the boxcars to metal?
Is so, do I just switch them and is it that easy? Advantage and disadvantages?

[Jerrys HO]

lilpuu-

Changing the wheels is an upgrade for your rolling stock. They are easily installed by carefully prying them out of the trucks as to not over bend the truck. Replace with metal wheel sets in the same manner. There are no disadvantages that I can recall.
I replace mine with the Bachmann wheel sets as my LHS only stocks them in Bachmann. There other quality sets you can find such as Kaydee's or Intermountain to name a few. Make sure you replace them with the correct diameter wheel or you can cause premature uncoupling problem's. I believe the boxcars are 33' diameter.


Jerry 

[lilpuu]

Thanks Jerry, but is that 33 feet diameters Is that the size of the boxcar in real life.?
I have an HO set. Is that the way they categorize them?
  I did not know there were other companies making metal wheels.

[Jerrys HO]

Here is a good article on wheels. This should help you.

http://modeltrains.about.com/od/customizingmodeltrains/a/Replacing-Model-Train-Wheels.htm

Bachman's wheelsets

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?page=2&act=viewCat&catId=155

Jerry

[lilpuu]

Thanks Jerry, your a big help. Will order metal wheels.

[Desertdweller]

lilpuu,

That should be 33 inches, not 33 feet.

Les

[Doneldon]

lil-

To avoid shorts, make sure that you keep insulated wheels
on the same side of metal trucks and on the same side of a
metal car.
                  -- D

[ebtbob]

Good Morning All,

        Wheel size - in general,  33 inch wheels from most freight cars.   Some of the newer large sized freight cars may have 36 inch wheels,  so I usually stick to 33 inch wheels for freight cars.   Passenger cars,   36 inch wheels.   
        Metal wheels available from Bachmann,  Proto 2000,  Intermountain,  and Reboxx.  Please understand,  Reboxx are Intermountain wheels but with different length axles.   This means,  if you have, say an Athearn 40 ft boxcar,  you want to buy the wheelset that Reboxx recommends for that particular car.   Any dealer selling Reboxx,  should have their reference manual available to help you make the correct choice.
         Donaldson,  makes a good point about metal wheels and a possible shorting problem.   If your cars have plastic trucks,  then you will not face the shorting problem as the plastic trucks will isolate the metal wheels from being able to pass electricity to any other metal part of the car.