The Tom Bee Wheel Puller

Most of the hobbyists in the United States use seven and a half inch gauge
track. But here in the northeastern United States and in England, France,
Germany, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and the entire rest of the
world - we all use Seven and a Quarter inch gauge.

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But these trucks are gauged for Seven and a Half!
So I have to pull all eight wheels off and machine 1/8th of an inch off each
end of the back gauge of every axle and put the wheels back on.

So I built this handy dandy wheel puller out of 1/2 inch bolts and barstock.

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It's really quite simple. Just tighten the puller between the end of the axle
and the back of the wheel until "click" the wheel pops off. It's that easy.

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Well I guess I'm done with that job. I'll probably never use the puller again.
February 6th, 2012
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OK. So here are the four axles with 1/8th of an inch removed from each end
of the wide part, setting the back gauge to six and seven eighths inches.
This makes the running gauge seven and a quarter inches.

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But I was wrong. I thought I was done with the wheel puller. Nope. Ever
see in those auto repair manuals where they say "assembly is the reverse
of disassembly"? So why not use the same tool to drive the wheels back on.

It turns out - that is exactly what I did!

Actually I was REALLY WRONG!. My son Kenny and I later used the Tom Bee
wheel puller to remove and replace the bushings in the A frame on his '99
Jeep Grand Cherokee WJ. It worked much better than I expected.