Dai Davies
@Ray Byde said:
See my enquiry about converting the Heljan 1361 saddle tank, and the answers relating to it.
You will find the main problems are the need to use 2mm axles, the lack of available replacement wheels, and the very tight clearances at the front between wheel and crosshead.
As Paul Willis says, it might be easier, even quicker, in the long run to build a High levels chassis kit instead.
One other possible problem with fiting a new chassis to the existing Heljan body is that the body seems to be in more than one part – ok if you enjoy jigsaw puzzles!
Either way, to me at least, the biggest drawback at present is the lack of a proper GWR type wheel for these locos. Hopefully either Gibson or Ultrascale will do a proper wheel sometime in the future, or even a conversion pack (hint, hint!) but I’m not going to hold my breath on that one! The best option at the moment is the Gibson wheel for the Southern Railway ‘P’ class – it is the correct diameter and number of spokes, but the profile is different, as also is the throw (slightly).
You may also be inteested to look at my post on the Scalfour Society Forum – http://www.scalefour.org. Got to ‘Forum’ (this is free for anybody to look at and you can read any posts there on any topic, you don’t have to be a member of the Scalefour Society), and go to ‘Guestbook’ and have a browse.
Hope this helps rather than putting you offRay
Many thanks Ray, but I took the easy way out and developed a second-hand K’s body with with a Mashima motor. I didn’t trust clearances with the Heljan body.