THE Most bizarre issue with FVM wheels


OnTheRightTrack

OnTheRightTrack

Member
O.K. you guys won't believe this one. I recently bought a 100 pack of the FVM 33" wheels that fit MTL and Athearn trucks. I installed all of them and on most cars they work fine. However, .... I have 8 Intermountain two bay hoppers with factory equipped MTL trucks and I replaced these as well. Then using the railer coupled them with a loco and bzzzzzz...crackle, crackle, bzzzz. WTF? Tried another loco and the same thing happened. Looked to see if any trip pins, wheels etc. were touching...nothing. All of the other cars I tested worked fine but there is something weird about these Intermoutain hoppers. My layout is DC and all Kato Unitrack and I have never had any issues with conductivity. Well today I replaced the FVM wheels with the original plastic wheels and guess what ? no issues they ran fine. What the hell is going on?:confused:
 
Very strange! Almost sounds at first like conductivity through the new FVM wheels and axles. But you'd think it would be impossibly dumb for them to put out bad product like that. Must be a combination of something about the new wheels with something odd going on with the hoppers? Yeah..(me :eek:)....Duh!!! But what is it? :confused:
 
If the trucks are metal, you can just put the wheels in with the insulated wheels all to one side. It should get rid of your problems.
 
It depends on the wheels. I've seen some where the insulated wheel is insulated from the center part of the axle, but not the axle point, which can still cause a short.
 
diburning said:
It depends on the wheels. I've seen some where the insulated wheel is insulated from the center part of the axle, but not the axle point, which can still cause a short.
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Only if the wheel comes in contact with the truck frame. A tiny piece of tape inside the frame might help.
 
I did some google searches and found that this was not that uncommon. The wheel is supposed to be insulated(nonconductive) and has a hub that is isolated as a result. Apparently one of two things can happen either "sparf" (yes its a word) gets into the insulated area and causes a short or the insulated area doesn't exist. After examining the wheels I was able to determine it was the latter. I again replaced the wheels on these Intermountain cars and they all worked fine. Just remember to inspect them when you purchase a bulk pack.
 
If you have a meter test each whelset for insulation.
If not just place each set one by one on your track and listen for the beep. (on DCC)
I had a couple IM sets that conducted across, could have been Sparf or just two non insulated wheels on the same axle. The LHS peplaced those.
I did have an issue the other day when I placed 36" wheels into a car that shorted across the weight on uneven track, that's another issue tho.
 
When I first started reading this, I thought you were full of sparf. That's sparfed up, man. What in the sparf were they thinking when they let that pile of sparf out the door?!
 
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