For the most part tender wheels sets and axles like in the Bachmann Spectrum series have tenders wheels and axles that are elecrtically isolated from side to side like the Kato tender truck. Is there somewhere those can be purchased for a reasonable price? My next question has anyone tane the older style with the solid metal akle and cut them in half and then join them together with a space between to isolate them from side to side to make a similar arrangement?
Kato parts sells them. 932040 Passenger car wheel sets and 932080 tender and caboose wheel sets. I usually use the passenger car trucks off of the skirted Budd cars where I replaced them after cutting the skirts off. They only have half the side frames. I use the bronze side frame inserts then to modify tender trucks from various manufacturers to get all wheel pickup. If the axle spacing is different I cut and splice the bronze inserts.
This shows where I used parts from the Kato Budd trucks to add electrical pickup to some older Bachmann tender trucks. The center axles do not pick up power. I notched the bronze inserts to allow the axle points to engage the plastic bearing pockets in the side frames. I enlarged the plastic bearing pockets for the other two axles on each truck so that the bronze bearing cones have room. I lightly touched the inserts with a hot soldering iron to make sure they were well seated in the plastic truck frames to allow the proper lateral clearance to accommodate the wheel sets. The axle spacing for the outside wheel sets was exactly the same on the Bachmann six wheel trucks as it is on the Kato passenger trucks. I soldered flexible wires to the top of the insert pins to transfer power up into the tender.
