Front truck losing the wheels

[BillC]

I have an older 4-6-0 locomotive (part of a Christmas train). The wheels on the front truck are falling off due to the plastic axles cracking. Will the wheel sets with metal axles, i.e. PW03, serve as suitable replacements or will they short the power since these wheels pick it up?

[wraujr]

Couple choices:
(1) Wrap the cracked plastic axle/spacer with heat shrink tubing.  It holds the plastic in place essentially acting like a girdle.
(2) Replace the plastic axle (if pieces are missing) with a stiff tubing.  Visit you local hardware/plumbing store and experiment with
all the various tubing that exists. Take the wheels with you and find one with an inside diameter (ID) that is a snug fit and then trim to length.
(3) Buy new "Axle Tubes" at Bachmann Parts
https://estore.bachmanntrains.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=69_623&products_id=11238

[BillC]

wraujr,

Thanks for your response. All very doable. I see the link for just the axles which are metal. Will the metal axles cause a short with power? I assume the plastic axle acted as an insulator since these wheels pickup power.

[wraujr]

Description is misleading, they are plastic tubes with outer metal support (to prevent cracking), so they won't short.

[BillC]

Perfect! Thank you very much.

Bill

[wraujr]

To further confirm, just replaced cracked axle tubes on my Christmas 4-6-0 (v5 chassis) and the new axle tubes with outer metal sleeve from Bachmann worked perfectly (had to use padded C-clamp to fully seat and get correct gauge).
Old wheels had started to walk out of cracked tube, increasing gauge and getting rail rub (squeaking)