Fox Valley Wheels

[inkaneer]

Here is the problem I have.  My layout is about 20 years old.  The track is Atlas flex track.  They call it "code 100".  My turnouts are Shinohara. 

A WORD OF CAUTION: I would test some wheels over the Shinohara turnouts first to confirm what our group discovered.
I love FVM wheels and use them myself but we found the wheels drop in the frogs of Shinohara turnouts. We tested samples of the wheels on many layouts before they came out. The Shinohara turnouts were an absolute no go on one of the layouts that used them exclusively. I just don't want someone with Shinohara turnouts buying a bunch of wheels and then spreading word that they don't work or suck or whatever. They should work with just about any other turnout, although we also found occaisonal problems on some Peco turnouts (not all, only a small percentage). The simple fix was to shim the guardrails with a piece of .005 or .010 styrene. Hope this helps.

It's not just FVM wheels either...  I seem to recall many other threads about having to shim turnouts...

Let's be fair here.  The Peco turnouts in question are the code 80 turnouts that were originally designed for the older European equipment. The flange ways had a lot of slop in them to accomodate the equipment of that time, a lot of which is still around by the way.  The newer "fine scale" code 55 Peco turnouts do not have the slop of the code 80's.

[Mark5]

In my experience the main reason that properly gauged wheelsets "pick" frogs is overly wide clearance on the flangeways (the "guard" rails). Actually I have no experience otherwise.

I have some Peco C55 flex that I bought for evaluation years back but no turnouts. My understanding is that even the PECO C55 turnounts are built to Euro standards, which should mean they are still "sloppy" and the guard rails need to be shimmed to properly work with normal contemporary (ie properly gauged non pizza cutter) wheelsets.

Probably any turnout built to Euro standards might have this prob.

I still have a shinohara code 60 turnout floating around in my parts box - will check it when I get a chance (I am Mr. Curious!)

Mark

[skytop35]

Let's be fair here.  The Peco turnouts in question are the code 80 turnouts that were originally designed for the older European equipment. The flange ways had a lot of slop in them to accomodate the equipment of that time, a lot of which is still around by the way.  The newer "fine scale" code 55 Peco turnouts do not have the slop of the code 80's.

I beg to differ. I am using the Peco code 55 turnouts and still shimmed a few. Like I said not a big problem but it did happen on a minority of the turnouts. It's not a deal breaker for me but just something to watch for. Perhaps Skibbe can chime in here to confirm what I said.

[ai5629]

I have another issue I noticed with the FVM wheels.  I started to install some of the FVM wheels on some Atlas cars last night.  I noticed a wobble when I spun the wheel  while I had the car upside down to see how free it was in the journal boxes.  It looked like the insulated wheel on the axil has some play in it, so when you install it, it gets cockeyed on the axil creating this wobble.  Has anyone else experienced this?  I started to spin the wheel around and straightened it out as best as I could.  This seemed to fix the problem.  I will have to try them out on my layout when I get a chance to visit it at my father's place.  I must say, they do look nice.  I hope they operate nice.

[Sokramiketes]

Let's be fair here.  The Peco turnouts in question are the code 80 turnouts that were originally designed for the older European equipment. The flange ways had a lot of slop in them to accomodate the equipment of that time, a lot of which is still around by the way.  The newer "fine scale" code 55 Peco turnouts do not have the slop of the code 80's.

I beg to differ. I am using the Peco code 55 turnouts and still shimmed a few. Like I said not a big problem but it did happen on a minority of the turnouts. It's not a deal breaker for me but just something to watch for. Perhaps Skibbe can chime in here to confirm what I said.

Correct, some are worse than others, but I don't think any of the (CD55 or otherwise) Peco Turnouts actually meet NMRA specs.  We had problems with a couple Peco CD55 turnouts on Bill's modules, and shims fixed them right up.  No problems since.