Blind Drivers

[Anonymous]

Blind Drivers, I have them, I hate them. I have a few Lionel and MTH diesels (SD-60's,80's, and 90's) with the god awful blind drivers on the inside of the trucks (nearest the fuel tank). Bottom line, I don't need them, and I don't want them. Is there anything I can do to add flanged wheels in their place? Perhaps order some wheels from Lionel and MTH, even if they have gears on them, they look like they would work.

ANY IDEAS? Thanks fellas.

[Anonymous]

anyone?

[Roger Bielen]

If you can manage to do without the blind drives you must be one of the fortunate individuals to have sufficient space to use super wide radius curves. Even using O-72, and not having any of the super sized scale engines, the type C trucks on some of my diesels would probably derail.

[Anonymous]

You do need blind drivers for any curves less than 072 but they should be on the middle axle of the truck, not the inner axle next to the fuel tank. Atlas does this correctly. Also, the newer Lionel engines have switched to putting the blind driver on the middle axle. Supposedly, MTH will be switching to the middle axle for new diesels.

Daniel Lang

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replys guys, but like I said I don't need them. The question still remains, can I replace them with a flanged wheel. On both models the blind drivers can be removed w/ ease. Just a few screws and the cover that holds in the axle comes off. Looking at the flanged and geared wheels it looks like if I had an extra set of wheels, even with gears they would work, clearance doesn't look like a problem because the blind drivers have a lot of side to side play. I was just wondering if lionel or mth offered any wheels, with geared or non-geard axles.

Brandon

I wish I could take some pics but no ditigal camera yet. [B)]

[Anonymous]

" I was just wondering if lionel or mth offered any wheels, with geared or non-geard axles"

You may have to buy a non powered truck and then use a wheel puller to remove the desired parts. You will also need a set of wheel cups to reassamble the parts on the desired truck. If you can find a diagram for a dummy truck you might be able to get the individual part numbers for the axle and wheel. There is probably a bushing or sleeve that will also need to go into the truck assembly that the axle will ride in. This may not be included on blind drivers as they don't normally need to really rotate.