Williams FM

[tomplatten]

I have a venerable Williams FM lettered of SP. It is a brute, as you may know, and can pull numerous cars. When operating on my mezzanine loop lines I kept hearing a clicking sound as the locomotive would come out of a curve onto straight track. This would occur on Gargraves and Atlas track, but not on tubular track.
     Being"swift on the uptake" I discovered the  rear  wheelset--which is essentially there for looks-- was "picking" the rail on Gargraves and Atlas track. Not wanting to disassemble the truck to take remedial action, I cut up an old credit card an created a "shim" across the the axle to lift the wheels up enough so it would not hit the rail anymore!
     My old FM (which I had professionally renumbered correctly for SP) operates flawlessly around the curves hauling long trains. If Lionel and Williams had put an angeled wheel on the trucks this probably would have been unnecessary!

[phillyreading]

I have a Williams FM Trainmaster that I just bought and I am using Gargraves track with Ross switches. So do I have to look for this problem too?

One thing that I did to a Williams SD-45 diesel engine was to replace the plastic wheels in the truck assembly with metal wheels. I did this when I upgraded an F-7 to a powered unit, I used the flanged wheels from the F-7 and ground the flange off the wheels on a grinder wheel.

Lee F.