Williams PRR E6....

Unless you can remove ALL of the linkage from the valve gear hanger at the front of the chassis, there's no way to install a tire without separating the eccentric from the wheel.  Even if you were to drop the axle out of the frame (and on most brass locos you can do so), you still wouldn't be able to get the tire in there.  Why Williams and Weaver soldered the eccentric cranks on (instead of using a hex bolt like Lionel and MTH), I'll never know.  Soldered-on eccentrics just compound my frustration with traction tires.  And these brass babies usually have FOUR tires, that are narrower than your typical MTH replacement tires.  No thank you!

Ted

Thank you for describing this much better than I could...and for the "play by play", Pat. 😁 I appreciate your taking the time.

And yes, this "brass baby" has tires on all four drivers... it's a nice model; I just wish it didn't have those TTs.

Mark in Oregon

@Strummer posted:

Gee whiz, even N scale ( for the most part) has moved on from these things. Okay, rant over. 🙂

Mark in Oregon

I wish that was more universally true, Mark. Broadway Limited, N scale’s primary producer of N scale steamers these days, keeps putting traction tires on two drivers. I just checked, and, sure enough, my briefly seldom-used GN Mikado and Milwaukee Road Pacific both have dried-up traction tires peeling off the rear drivers. Even my new BLI Big Boy has a pair. What a PITA.

@Strummer posted:

And yes, this "brass baby" has tires on all four drivers... it's a nice model; I just wish it didn't have those TTs.

The good news is, the grooves are so narrow that you can leave the tires off and they'll run fine.  For Lionel and MTH, the wider grooves create issues at times if you run without tires.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The good news is, the grooves are so narrow that you can leave the tires off and they'll run fine. 

That IS "good news"...thanks! 🙂

Mark in Oregon

Note that traction suffers, so you might want to pick up a couple more Williams E6's and triple-head them.

Thanks to "RoyBoy's" lead, I was able to pick up a tender. It's a Lionel, and came without trucks, so I was able to cobble together some bolsters (Walthers), added a knuckle coupler (Athearn) and put on some plastic (gasp!) Athearn trucks for the time being. The tender drawbar I made is too short, but for now it looks good and everything runs...

Now to wait 'till "Harmonyards" Pat gets into some serious 2-railing; I think this might be a good candidate...

Mark in Oregon