I was getting really tired of the massive flat spots on Lister’s tyres that made moving it a serious effort. I got some pneumatic tyred wheels from Machine Mart, and some 20mm round steel bar, box section, and 20mm shaft collars.
By the tender ministrations of the Milwaukee Hole Dozer and angle grinder, the box section was turned into a set of axle collars.
I was too cheap to buy precision shafting for the axles, I went for so-called “round” mild steel bar which isn’t actually all that round. A lot of grinding was involved to get the shaft collars and wheels to fit onto it.
The next part was actually really fiddly and I apologise for not getting more pics of it. I had to jack the generator up, remove the existing wheels and axle, and offer up the new axles to the frame to mark out the bolt holes. As the unit is on loan, I didn’t want to drill any new holes in it, so I drilled the axle mounts to line up with the existing holes.
So far so good, but the next step was to fire up the generator and use it to weld its own axles together without having it vibrate its way off the temporary pieces of wood it was propped on.
It was getting dark and I was in a bit of a hurry as I couldn’t put the thing away and lock up until it had functioning wheels on it again. The welds turned out horrible, but as the saying goes:
I welded.
It helded.
