Dapol LSWR Adams B4

[John CutlerParticipant]

Someone on this forum recommended a small shunting engine to navigate the awful trackwork in my yard.
I duly bought a Hornby Terrier and converted it but am not happy with its slow running.
Next was a Connoisseur Adams G6. This runs OK although the wire pickups drove me nuts as usual. I built the chassis with continuous spring beams (csbs) and it sticks up irrevocably at one end, probably out of balance. Fortunately I have a spare chassis so it awaits a rebuild with split frames in the workshop.
A Bachmann MR 1F was next using a sprung Easichas chassis as an experiment. This is not a simple conversion and I would not recommend it: I ended up with a rocking centre axle due to the offset gear drive. A rebuild awaits with a fixed central axle.
In a fit of exasperation and patriotic fervour I purchased the Dapol Guernsey B4; it was also very tempting as a pretty engine.

Has anyone converted one of these to EM?
There are no authentic replacement wheels available (according to the Scalefour forum).
I intend to reuse the Dapol wheelset using 2mm axles but the Dapol axles might have a shoulder down to 1.5mm at the wheels.
I do not think such an EM axle exists in the market place.

The predictable problem is clearance behind the crossheads.
However I measured the clearance from the crankpin nuts to be 1mm each side.
Allowing for the lateral sideplay of the leading wheelset, I was able to slip a 1.3mm drill bit behind the crankpin nut at maximum, 0.7mm at minimum clearance.
So this should not be an issue although the lateral sideplay will have to be reduced from 0.6mm to as little as possible.

The only other possible problem is the splashers will have to be widened.
Hopefully only plastic will have to be removed.
(I am reluctant to remove the chassis from the body to see as some people have reported difficulty or breakages in doing so).

The brakes will probably need to be chamfered.

Any advice is welcome.

(I tried to upload a picture of the chassis but the EMGS file size limit of 200Kb is just impossible)

[John CutlerParticipant]

A few days ago I decided to try and convert this to EM gauge using the existing Dapol wheels.
I would not recommend trying this.

The Dapol wheels are on plain axles with no splines, so standard EMGS 2mm axles 22.2mm long can be used.
Only a fraction needed to be filed off the side of the splashers, strangely on one side only, to ensure the wheels ran freely.
So fairly straightforward.
The predictable problem is that clearance behind the crossheads is nonexistent, not helped by the crossheads being floppy plastic so there is erratic fouling.

I think the only easy solution to this is to wait for someone to produce authentic finescale wheels.
For example, if Alan Gibson produced them the wheels would give 0.4mm extra clearance each side.
And if inverted AG crankpin nuts can be used, another 0.3mm each side compared to the Dapol pin.

My advice is to wait……..

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