How To Service A Vintage Lionel Train

Lionel trains take a reputation for loftier quality, simply similar any car, you lot have to have care of them. Here's how to maintain Lionel trains to ensure they last some other generation or 2.

Fifty-fifty if you run your trains a lot, your trains should only need maintenance every few years. For about $30-$35 worth of materials, y'all can ensure your Lionel trains accept a long, productive life.

How to lubricate Lionel trains

The well-nigh important affair to call back when you maintain Lionel trains is to grease gears and oil bearings, axles and linkages.

The most important matter to do to maintain Lionel trains is to lubricate them, and then the parts don't wear out. We have ameliorate lubricants today than nosotros had in the 1950s, so modern lubricants are more effective and final longer. I specifically recommend Labelle 106 grease and Labelle 107 oil, as their viscosity is intended for larger trains, they are synthetic so they don't mucilage upwards over time, and they contain additives to continue the surface slippery even if the oil evaporates. I've tried other lubricants and keep coming back to Labelle.

The play a trick on to remember is that you lot grease gears and oil axles and bearings. If y'all see quondam, muddied, gummy grease and oil, the easiest way to remove it is to apply a paint castor dipped in mineral spirits. Then apply i drop of oil to any point where an axle rotates inside a bearing. Be stingy with the oil. Excess oil flings off onto your track, where information technology causes electrical conductivity issues. One drop goes a long way, especially with modernistic oil.

You can be a fleck more generous with grease since function of its job is to cling to the surface, but the general rule with grease is that if you can run across it after you utilise it and turn the wheels a chip, you practical too much. Mod grease goes a pretty long way as well.

At that place are some people who will promote WD-xl as a cure for various Lionel maladies. While WD-xl has uses, its best employ is when storing rail. Information technology'due south best to continue it away from the trains themselves.

Cleaning wheels and rollers

Over fourth dimension, the wheels and rollers on Lionel engines get dirty, and since the wheels and rollers are part of the electrical path, this can impede them. Yous can clean the surface with alcohol, contact cleaner, or mineral spirits applied to a cotton swab. I find contact cleaner and mineral spirits tend to remove more dirt than alcohol does. If you exercise employ alcohol, utilise 91%. Hither'southward why.

After I clean the wheels and pickup rollers, I have a fox to keep them make clean longer. Put the train back on your rail, and so apply a pinhead-sized glop of No-Ox ID A Special to each track. No-Ox ID A Special is a conductivity enhancer that significantly reduces arcing–the sparks you see as the train runs across the track. Arcing causes dirt to build up and also creates pits in your wheel and runway, making giving the dirt a better surface to cling to, and it creates a cruel cycle. The No-Ox helps pause that cycle. The carrier is a grease, so later yous give your locomotive a run, you may want to expect 24 hours, and so clean the wheels one last fourth dimension to remove the grease. But be sure to wait 24 hours for the chemical reaction to finish.

Several prominent model railroaders in the 1960s advocated this trick, but this clandestine got lost over the decades. Linn Westcott, the editor of Model Railroader, was one proponent and he said he never had to clean his track or his wheels. I bought some three years ago and information technology's probably the best $10 I've spent on train maintenance.

Cleaning the bodies is a separate topic merely something I recommend. If the train runs well, it might likewise look good also.

Oiling the commutator

This last piece is controversial. But some hobbyists use one driblet of oil to the commutator to reduce clothing on the commutator and brushes and tranquillity the motor. Of course, the commutator is supposed to conduct electricity and the conventional wisdom is that any trace of oil on it will interfere with conductivity. Merely a minute quantity of oil, in my experience, does tend to exist beneficial. The motor runs quieter and has more ability.

I apply 1 drop of Rail-Zip to the commutator, the copper office of the motor. Just a drib. More that causes problems rather than solving them.

In theory, oiling the commutator helps in the near term, but in the long term, by holding the dust in suspension it could cause the motor to lose significant power in one case the commutator gets chock-full. Cleaning the commutator will clear that. This process takes years, so I haven't encounter it yet. If yous prefer not to oil your commutator, that's understandable. Merely if you merely utilize one drop and then leave it lone until y'all make clean the motor again, I find it's benign overall.

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