Piko wheel re-gauge

[hornbeam]

Hi,

I have a two car G scale German Railbus made by Piko and am thinking it could make a nice gauge 3 railbus as per the German ones BR had. Has anyone re-gauge Piko wheels? It seems the wheels are a press fit and the gear is available as a spare part. Ideally i'd like some new axles made ( any takers?!  ) failing that I may use GRS wagon wheels and one of their gearbox/ motor units. ive attached some pictures, but the gearbox is from the unpowered trailer. My only issue maybe fitting batteries inside!

thanks,

Simon

[Traininvain]

Hi Simon

how does this model square up in terms of size?

Ian

[AllWight]

Hi

When I re-gauged The Royal Alex Class 73 I used 6mm dia steel rod cut to length and knarled the ends on a lathe. This was so the wheels would lock onto the axles. To stop the side play I made up some bushes to keep everything in check. This is very similar to the job carried out on Thomas except that job required setting up the quartering.

Mark

[hornbeam]

Thanks Mark.
Here's some pics with it by a B set coach. Looking online at the drawings of the ECW version it compares quite well:, width is spot on, length is only 30mm short, wheelbase is spot on. The biggest thing is it sits way to low by about 30mm.

This is not a bad thing- I think I will re-wheel using GRS wagon wheels and gearbox. This will leave more space inside too. It's a shame the IP engineering gearbox unit only fits 3mm axles. Longer term I may see if GRS will do me a some of the resin castings from their class 121/122 DMU- I may just need a gearbox and engine.