At our group meeting on Saturday Nigel kindly turned the wheels of the Terrier down to finescale standards.

There wasn't much to come off but the result is certainly worth it.

You can see from the above picture how flimsy the Dapol coupling rods are! The chassis is fully geared so the rods just go along for the ride which was lucky because the Dapol wheels slipped on their axles during the above process and needed re-quartering.  In this case it is sufficient to get them close enough.

As well as straightening the coupling rods (again) I also need to reduce the height of the crank pins on one side which you will see refused to go in to the wheel as much as they did on the other side. Getting the pins in was difficult until Guy showed me a trick for holding small items using double sided tape stuck to the end of a pointed object.

When set to 9.42mm gauge the wheels just foul the plastic brake rods which will need to be filed, but only a little as they do a good job of keeping the wheels central without having to add any washers.

It looks as if the body will escape without any surgery. I have reassembled the chassis and found it impossible so far to get the front pickups in contact with the wheels - it is necessary to spring them out of the way when re-fitting the wheels and this is enough to make them lose contact. I will have to think about this...

I have also added a chip (CT DCX74z) which, although it replaced the resistor board, now intrudes quite noticeably into the cab.  I may have a go at re-soldering the wires to the motor in a neater fashion which may save me a bit of space.

I've been asked how I got the Dapol Terrier to pieces and as it is easier to explain these things in pictures I thought I would put a few here:

1. The body is separated from the underframe by releasing four clips on the underside of the footplate.

The body (already removed) is attached to the footplate here.

2. The footplate is connected to the rest of the underframe by (1) a clip underneath the resistor board and (2) two clips either side of the worm gear. Unclip the first from above then gently splay out the footplate near the worm gear to release the others.

The clips that hold the underframe to the footplate. There is another clip on the other side of the worm gear.

This is where the clips identified in the above picture attach to the footplate.

3. The brake gear is clipped to the wheel block at the front and back where indicated. Gently(!) bend the front and back of the combined unit and the brake gear will come away. If you did it gently you won't need to extricate the wheel block from the dog bowl.  At least the wheels don't just drop out.

Gently spring the underframe apart at the points shown to release the brake gear.

A quick update: The crank pinks are a push fit and can be removed by teasing them gently out of the hole. The coupling rods are very thin so take care not to damage them doing this.

The wheels simply un-clip from the frame with a small amount of upward force.

More after our appointment with the lathe at Saturday's area group meeting.

I picked up one of the lovely new Terriers which Dapol have just released and I am contemplating the best way to convert it to 9.42mm gauge.

As you can see from the above I have already dismantled it.  The resistor block will be discarded and a DCX74z chip put in its place.

Nigel has kindly offered to do some flange reduction at our next meeting though there doesn't appear to be much that could be removed.  The wheels look pretty close to the 2mm standard (apart from the tyre width which is far too thick) and I am wondering whether pushing them out to 9.42mm gauge would be sufficient.

At present the wheels do not want to drop out of the frames - presumably the gears are keeping them in place? I wonder what the best method for adjusting the back to back would be?

The chunky plastic brake rods are going to foul the wheels when re-gauged and will probably be sliced off to be replaced with brass strip.