I am currently in the process of adding metal wheels to any rolling stock that still has factory fitted plastic wheels. At the same time, I will replace the traditional hook and loop couplers with the much better looking S-KuPLiX couplers. More on that later.

Even though I don’t have any indoor and/or outdoor layout plans finalized, I know that I want to standardize my rolling stock to run through a minimum radius of at least LGB R2, or preferably PIKO R3. In any case, this means I have a bit more flexibility in terms of adding S-KuPLiX and maybe even shortening couplers where possible, without running into issues on reverse S curves.

Replacing the plastic wheelsets by metal wheelsets is usually a quick task, but I also want to fix an annoyance on PIKO’s (European) rolling stock. For example on PIKO’s 2-axle freight cars and the PIKO “Umbauwagen”, the wheelsets have so much sideways motion that the wheel flanges actually rub against the imitation brakes which increases friction. I understand this is required to get them through R1 curves, but as per my requirement, I could actually reduce the sideways motion to guarantee smooth running.

Let’s tackle this for PIKO’s regular metal wheelsets. Not a fantastic picture, but on the right you can see the wheel flange sits against the brake.

PIKO includes a little bag with a few shiny metal rings with their metal wheelsets, but they still allow too much side movement. So I designed and 3D printed some plastic spacer rings myself.

After some trial and error regarding the ideal thickness, I settled for rings that are 0,5 mm thick. So it then looks like this:

Final result: a little of bit side movement is still possible, but the flanges are never hitting the brakes.

For PIKO’s Umbau cars, in addition to the regular metal wheelsets, I will also add one ball bearing wheelset per Umbau car, as I want to add interior lighting in a future stage. Unfortunately, PIKO’s ball bearing wheelsets suffer from the same problem. And to make matters worse, I have two different versions of PIKO’s ball bearing wheel sets.

The left one is a ball bearing wheelset from around 10 years, and the right one is one I purchased recently. The old one has no axle spacer whatsoever, while the newer one has a much thicker one, comparable to the regular metal wheelset I showed before.

A similar spacer as before, but now 0,3 mm thick.

For the old style ball bearing wheel, I settled at 3,1 mm thickness.

Final result: even more smooth running ball bearing wheels.

Conclusion: an understandable design choice by PIKO to allow so much side movement, but for real smooth running, these axle spacers are a must.