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I recently won this item
When I inspected it I noticed that the crimping was really close to the hubs
Another one I have has much longer axles and clear separation between crimp & hub
My initial thought was that perhaps the plastic wheels had been forced over the crimped axles but inspection under digital microscope shows no sign of plastic stress fractures, hole widening and the wheels do not slide over the crimped axle ends.
Can't figure out how they could have crimped the axle ends on such short axles without damaging the wheels (unless the plastic wheels have expanded over time).
Welcome any suggestions - bet it will be something obvious, and yes I did push the other end in as far as possible

I suspect the crimp machine had a stop with a defined depth. The lady took a wheel, put it on an axle, then into the body, a second wheel on it and quickly into the crimp machine. This lasted only seconds and as long as the wheels did not fall off, no one complained about the axle length. This applies to this axle, which is just enough to hold the wheel as well to one a bit too long.

Who knows, what happend then. Maybe they ran out of the right axles at that moment and they used (after a trial) a 1mm one shorter and it worked. The assembly line was packed with women who worked in the chord and no one could afford to leave it standing still, so they took what they had.

Thanks Miller,

I think you're correct - I found a short video here and at the 1.57 mark you can see the operator putting a model into a machine that is possible crimping the wheels.

tractorboy wrote:Thanks Miller,

I think you're correct - I found a short video here and at the 1.57 mark you can see the operator putting a model into a machine that is possible crimping the wheels.

The machine being used is actually setting the rivet on the rear tire of this model. You can see her putting the tire with the rivet into the rear hole and then the machine sets the rivet. Actually a little surprised by the use of the safety cage around the machine way back then. I guess Lesney was a little ahead of the times.

Thanks for that - I ran the video full screen and clear to see it was the rear tyre.

Perhaps this was the video I was thinking about here at 1:54 mark.
Looks like the operator is putting the vehicle in sideways for an axle crimping, so the idea of a stop would drake sense.

A defined end also makes sense if you think about the fact, that the wheels should run free. If there wasn´t a stop, one could push it so hard into the maschine, that the wheels were clamped on the axle.