I must express my thanks to my next door neighbor Gene for coming up with the ideas and machining the parts that made this all work perfectly.

On the left photo is the wheel disk that will be attached to the inside of the lawnmower wheel, three holes to be attached to the mower wheel and the 4 remaining holes will be attached to the coupler that attaches to the gearbox. The right photo is a device Gene came up with to make the mower wheel and the disk and the coupler all align up for the axel to pass through without any problems.

The screw holes were made with threads so I could thread in the screws so they would not back out while tightening.

You’re looking at the setting up of the wheel to check on the position of the holes in the disk to make sure that they come out in a flat area of the mower wheel for the lock washer and nut.

I have now placed the alignment tool in the center of the disk it has lined up with the center of the disk and the hole in the mower wheel.

You are now looking at the wheel, disk, alignment tool and the coupling all set to mark and drill the holes to put this device together.

You are now looking at two views of the completed rear drive wheels that attach to the two motors and gearboxes. This will do all the driving for the train. I have not yet tried to run the train since I do not have all the wiring in place I will wait to see what happens at a later time.

Now it is time for me to switch gears and do another car for the train, my next car is going to be the coal car.

Well this past two weeks have been ones of slow progress. I ordered an additional 8 casters from Harbor Freight for the final two cars to the train. On the engine I used 8 casters since the engine was so big and heavy, but on the two additional cars one being the coal car and the second being the caboose I made the cars smaller and lighter in size. Therefore I decided to use only 4 casters for each of the last two cars I also decided to use Safety Gate Hooks & eyes so that the train cars stay coupled together while going around the track. I will also get into the making of my track I have asked a few others how they have made theirs and am doing some research on my own for the type I plan on using. I made a 8 foot section some time ago to allow myself the ability to use it to make the decisions that needed to be made for the engine, and the other cars, and now I have seen some changes that need to be made to make this track work out even better. My biggest problem here in Central Florida is the weather and wood, they don’t mix to well. With rain a lot of the time wood does not stay strait for long even with weather proofing, later!

This photo shows the axel for the rear of the train engine the black unit is the gearbox from the motors of the Power Wheels. I took the wheel off to do some final painting and the final setting so when the newly made axels arrive they will just slip in and fit to all dimensions.

Well there it is the coal car!

Well in a few pieces that is!

This is the start of building the coal car; I precut all the parts and had them ready to assemble since I am now trying to save a little weight I have decided to make the other cars in the train somewhat smaller in their length.

I am using the vice to hold the parts as I screw and glue all the items together.

The outside of the coal car is complete but there is much more to do on this car.

I am using the vice to hold the parts as I screw and glue all the items together.

The outside of the coal car is complete but there is much more to do on this car.

This base is added to the original base of the car so I can add the lawnmower wheels to the coal car; on the left side of the car is two pieces of wood they are to be used for the six inch lazy Susan and the casters to be added at a later time.

This is the first wheel set in place I used a 3 ¾ inches bolt along with a spacer of PVC and some oversize washers to make them fit the track.

Well there is the completed coal car, completed for now I have much more things I want to do on this car but that is for a later time. Anyone have an idea for filling the coal car with fake coal? I thought I might put in some broken Styrofoam and cover with aluminum foil and spray paint it all black inside the outside of the cat will follow the red and green theme colors. Any other ideas

I just added the second ladder to this engine side.

I had a 3 day weekend so I spent some time looking for my toggle switches and found some at the auto store thank goodness I was wondering if I would ever find what I wanted.

This is the bottom of the coal car I will go step by step to show you how I made my swivel caster plates for keeping the train on the track. I start with the bottom of the car it has a 2x12 fastened to the bottom of the coal car.

To be able to work without problems I decided to remove the wheels.

At the same time as putting on the casters on I have decided to paint the outside of the car to save a few steps in this process. Besides it takes more than 1 coat of paint for this train.

This is the other side getting the first coat of green paint.

The two colors of paint the same as the engine!

I have replaced the wheels and added the 2 “L” brace for the 6 inch lazy Susan. This is made from 2 pieces of 1x2 glues and screwed together. The reason for putting back the wheels is because I need to check the measurements of the car to make sure when the casters are added that they sit low enough to keep the car in the track area. If it is to low then the rails will have to be cut back some to make sure there is no rubbing of the casters with the cross ties of the track.

I looked at the rails this way but decided that it was easier to attach the rails with the large flat area down so I could screw them into the 2x12 easier and it was also easier to take wood off from the other side easier if I need to shorten the distance when all is finished.

The 6 inch lazy Susan being set into place while adjusting it to move smoothly and it does not bind at any time or to any screw that is put in later with the wood plate to come.

It was now time to place the final wood plate for the casters for this car. As I turned over the car I realized that the plate was to low even before I placed the casters on the wood plate, time to remove the lazy Susan and cut down the rails. I took off close to 5/8 of an inch from the rails. Now I will have to try the casters and see what happens! There is no plans to work from everything is trial and error!

You are now looking down the throat of the lazy Susan after taking off 5/8ths wood from each side and replacing the caster plate.

After replacing the plate and oiling the ball bearings the bottom wood plate kept hitting one of the screw heads that was fastened to the rails, again it is time to remove everything and make sure that the flat head screws are seated low enough to clear the screws from the top plate.

Here is the safety gate hooks once over the screw eye they are locked on!

As you can see a nice combination easy to put on and easy to take off, they also come in longer sizes I’m experimenting with this size which is 2-1/2 inches long they come longer but I will run the train first and check them out. So far I have only found them at Wal-Mart, nothing at Lowe’s, Home Depot, or Ace hardware in my area.

It is really beginning to look like a train in these next photos!

LIKE IT?

Your looking at the inside of the coal car I have painted it black someone gave me the idea to use the expandable foam in the can, I thought that was a great idea and as long as it can be painted it might just work for what I need it for besides I can cut it up to look just like coal!

This is the inside of the Coal Car before I sprayed the expandable foam into it your going to be surprised at what happens to a little bit of foam.

This was Dap’s version of expandable foam I let it set overnight and it appeared stiff and cured buy what the can stated and it did not go as planned. So to the next foam the usual slightly yellow foam!

This is another shot of the white foam and how far it rose! Not very far.

Well after adding one smaller can of the yellow foam it started to rise and this was after one hour!

This was after 3 hours! Wait!

It just kept going and going!

I came out to this in the morning and it was still curing you could hear it cracking still!

Look at what else happened overnight it oozed out of any crack that was open, just what it is designed to do but this was the Dap filler, and it came out all day till it finally cured.

These are the casters that I’m using they are from Harbor freight online and they are 15/8 x 7/8 inches big. And I added a screw, washer, lock washer and nut to the angle iron this way I can secure them to the wooden plate under each car that is attached to the lazy Susan.

I wanted to show you something I found interesting, after a few days of curing the foam sealant does some shrinking and was I ever glad! It is now cured and ready to be painted.

You are looking at the completed bottom of the coal car with the casters in place and everything runs smoothly and no binding anywhere.

This is for my last and final car I think this year this is the cut pieces for the caboose! I always cut all my material and get it fit tested to make sure it is going to work the way I had planed.

I have used 4 clamps after centering the caboose bottom to the 2x12x16 and used some glue and 5 screws to hold things together.