A while back there was a discussion about ball bearing inserts for the truck journals. That discussion reminded me that I had purchased 50 ball bearing inserts from Great Big Trains quite a few years ago. I had never gotten around to installing them in any of my trucks. I have a few freight cars that are real stones, they just will not roll well. So I decided that I should start upgrading those cars with ball bearings. The cars I have the most problems with are the USA wood side and 1:24^th steel side cars that I run. They are kind of heavy, and my LGB Moguls can only haul so many up to the summit.

50 bearings would not do all of the USA cars that I had, so I went looking for more bearings. The going price seamed to be about $1 to $2 each, At that price, I cant afford to update many cars. Then on Ebay (groan) I found a supplier that was selling them for $6.79 for a set of 10. So I ordered 100 of them.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-x-MF63zz-Mini-Metal-Double-Shielded-Flanged-Ball-Bearings-3mm-6mm-2-5mm-/141339467865?ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:US:1123

Note The Aristocraft bearings were 3.1mm x 2.5mm x 6 mm. So you were right Greg.

Today I started upgrading some cars to see how easy it is, or isn’t. I took a USA boxcar that I knew was a stone, and I placed it on the track in Shannon. That track is a constant 2.58% grade. The car rolled about 10 inches and stopped. So I took the truck side frames off of the car and went to install the bearings. The bearings will not fit into the trucks as they are. I had to drill out the axle holes to accept the ball bearings. So I put a 15/64^th drill bit into my drill press. It’s the closest size I have to 6mm without going over. I was trying to figure out how to hold the side-frames flat while drilling, and then it came to me. I could just rest the flat part of the side-frame, between the journal and the springs, on one side of the drill press vice, and with the jaws set to barely hold the journal, I should be able to hold the journal in place for drilling. I only need to drill deep enough for the 2.5mm wide bearing to press fit into the journal. Since the bearing has a flange on it, I don’t even need to drill quite 2.5mm deep.

Resting the side-frame on the vice, I was able to drill out the journals and then press the bearings into place. Then I reassembled the USA trucks, with USA wheels and put the car back onto the track in Shannon. The call rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill, probably a good 20 feet, and then rolled about halfway through the flat reverse loop before finally coasting to a stop.

On the Aristocraft trucks it’s even easier to install the bearings. I took a dental pick and just pulled the plastic insert out, and pressed the bearings into place.

But when I went to install the Aristocraft wheels I ran into a problem. The Aristo axles are larger then the USA axles, and they would not fit into the bearings (see note above). So I turned down the axles, with a file and sandpaper, until they fit. Since it was more effort then I wanted to put into this project, at this time, the test Aristo car only got ball bearings in one truck. Even with only one truck upgraded to ball bearings, the car went from rolling only about a foot on the grade, to rolling all the way to the bottom. It rolled a bit slower then the USA car, and it didn’t roll as far through the reverse loop, but the darn thing did roll on its own.

Perhaps you could negotiate a trade of some Aristo metal wheels for USA? I have some USA ones around here somewhere if I can figure out which ones they are. I stopped buying them in favor of Aristo because of the difference you noted - most of the cars I was converting were Aristo.

BTW - That eBay item has been pulled. I didn’t go looking to see if they are listed elsewhere.

There is a thread on the Bachmann forum dealing with this as well. Here is a link, including sourcing info.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,22755.msg181051.html#msg181051

I do not know, the link brings up the Ebay page for me.

I do have an update. The USA wheels I bought at the last ESLSTS fit into the bearings just fine, as do the Bachamnn wheels I have tried. Now I am updating older cars, and I am finding that the older (over 10 years old) USA wheel axles are slightly larger on the end. I am having to turn them down a bit. All it takes is pinching a piece of sandpaper onto the end of the axle and twirling it a bit. Its slowing down the project some, but the cars are working just fine when I am done.

David thanks for the info and the contact. Have just placed an order

This is something I haven’t yet tried. Am going to stay tuned for further developments as the saying says.

@David M - Not sure you pointed your comment at me, but the bearing info I was presenting was for the dental tool repair bearings. The following snip from the Bachmann forum posted on February 11, 2013.

I followed up on the lead given me by Old John, and thought it would be very useful to share the results. The company that used to advertise in Finescale Railroader is still around, HPD Inc. out of Florida. Their core business is repairing dental drills, and one of the repair parts they use is a quarter-inch OD, eighth-inch ID stainless steel ball bearing, made in the USA. Apparently not all of the bearings they source will pass their criterion of spinning at 300,000 rpm (!) so they sell these to the hobby market… current price is 35 cents each, and that includes shipping.

Needless to say, I ordered a hundred of these; at that price I figured I’d get me a lifetime supply. You can order these by calling the HPD shop at 386-719-7113. I spoke with a gentleman named Bill Butler, and he was very conversant with the process of installing their bearings in G gauge railroad trucks. If you’re in the market for this size bearing, it looks like this deal would be tough to beat!

Hope this clears up any confusion.

No Bob, Daktah John said the Ebay link didn’t work. That is what I was responding to. The ball bearings in your post are a bit larger then the ones I am using. They should work. I didn’t know about them when I bought mine.

Thanks for posting.

Ahh…Sorry for the mis-communication David. I need to call and order some as well.

Bob, its not a problem.

I only partly believed the hype, when people were talking about how ball bearing journals really improve the rolling characteristics of a car. But now I have a car telling me that my storage shelf needs adjusted, it keeps trying to roll off the shelf, and that the north end of my trestle isn’t perfectly lever neither. The slope in these 2 areas is barely noticeable on a level, but the car knows. I am a believer now.

Makes a huge difference on the level… but on significant grades the difference gets a lot less.

Ball bearing do make you pay attention to sidings though, setting out a car and having it roll back to the main line can be frustrating.

Greg

Greg Elmassian said: setting out a car and having it roll back to the main line can be frustrating.

And I’m pretty sure it is occasionally totally prototypical too (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)

This is good to now. I might want to pic up a few. When casting my new side frames I have to drill them anyway might as well drill them or a bearing. I have talked with Dave T about this and he kind of prompted me to hold off but it would be nice to see how much of a difference it makes. and for that price I could afford to experiment. I think limiting rolling resistance would always be a good thing.

Oh and Dave M I know you use the Bachmann metal wheels I assume that these are the wheels that do not need to have their axles modified?

Greg and Forrest, yes having a car roll out of a siding, onto the main, could be an issue. That is why the 1:1 guys like to have the sidings lower then the mainline. If that isn’t possible, then they will usually put a derail on the siding, just past the switch (turnout, points) to prevent an errant car from wandering out onto the main.

Devon, now I use the Bachmann wheels. Back when when I started my railroad, in 2002, I could get the USA metal wheels for about $1 to $1.25 an axle, so I bought an armful of them, twice. Then I ended up with probably a dozen or more Aristo wheel sets, I mean enough to do a dozen or so cars, through a series of ordering SNAFUs. So I have all of those wheels, in service, to deal with too. The 1/8 inside diameter, or 3.1mm inside diameter, bearings would make things a bit easier. I am finding, on the older USA wheels, that the axle ends aren’t the same size, even on the same axle. A bearing may fit easily on one end, but the other end needs to be sanded a bit.

Another challenge I came up against. The USA arch-bar truck side-frames were solid on the older cars, so they can easily be drilled out.

But they are not solid on the newer cars.

With them not solid, if I were to drill them out, there would no longer be proper support for the bearings. So, I reached for my trusted old friend, J.B. No, not that J.B. J.B. Quick, the faster brother of J.B. Weld. I then used that to fill the voids in the side-frames. Once it has set up, (bottom one in the picture) then I drilled out the holes as usual (top one in the picture). Before final fitting of the bearings, I carve the J.B. flush to the side-frames, but in the picture I have just test fit a bearing to see if my “fix” would actually work.

Things have been going slower then I thought they would, but don’t they usually? Every time I get to putting the bearings into another car, I get interrupted with something. Today I got the fourth USA woodside car done. Just for the heck of it I tacked all of my woodside cars to an LGB Mogul and had it try to haul them up to the summit.

Even with only 4 cars upgraded, the Mogul was able to haul them all up to the summit, and it only slipped, briefly, once, on the first trip. Subsequent trips it climbed up to the summit just fine.

But under the heading of “unintended consequences”; I did have a small issue coupling to one of the cars. The KaDee coupler on that car was a bit stiff, and now that the car has ball bearing journals, it wont stand still for a good, firm, coupling. It would rather roll away instead. Once I adjusted the coupler a bit, so it wasn’t as stiff, it coupled up just fine.

David Maynard said:

The KaDee coupler on that car was a bit stiff, and now that the car has ball bearing journals, it wont stand still for a good, firm, coupling. It would rather roll away instead. Once I adjusted the coupler a bit, so it wasn’t as stiff, it coupled up just fine.

Now there’s a situation I hadn’t thought about. Wonder if it is possible for hook and loop, and for Bachmann’s funkyknuckles, to have that too.

In the end, sounds like success, which is a good thing.

I’ve run into that issue with ball-bearing-equipped equipment. I can’t couple to the darned things. They just keep rolling backwards. It’s probably the one reason I haven’t converted the rest of my fleet (though I’ll likely do my passenger cars at some point). I use a mix of Kadee and Accucraft 1:32 couplers; the latter requiring much more force than the Kadees to couple. I keep threatening to upgrade to ball bearings every time someone points to an inexpensive source of bearings, but at the same time, my cars seem to roll well enough with just the occasional drop of oil to the journals. That, and the thought of installing ball bearings and having to disassemble my Accucraft couplers so they couple more freely is about as appealing as a root canal.

Later,

K

Kevin, thats why I mentioned it. I know that the Aristo couplers tend to need a good, firm coupling. If the car would rather roll away, it could be an issue.

That’s why you use link and pin that way it is always a pain in the butt and you expect nothing else right?