Hello is there such a thing ? I have some stock that needs a good cleaning. Maybe 50 cars. I have put it off for to long and now it looks like it will take a lot of time. Has any one made anything that cleans the wheels? I had an idea last night that might work. But be for I spend to much time on it is there anything out there I should see first ? Thanks Frank
If your wheels are metal you might try an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner. Put the wheels in, add the cleaning agent, turn it on, come back later to clean wheels. I don’t know if it would work on plastic or not.
This is what I use to clean both plastic and metal wheel sets. I stop by my local Walmart and buy a small net ‘dishwasher bag’ - they have a zipper top and a cord with a hook to hang it from the upper rack. Then pop your wheel sets out of the side frames and fill up the bag about 1/2 way. You might want to do similar wheels sets in groups. I have P2K, Intermountain, and Kadee 33" wheel sets in my freight cars. Once through the dishwasher ‘normal’ cycle usually gets rid of the ‘crud’ that builds up right on the tread/flange area and is so hard to remove.
I have notice that n/s metal wheels clean up quite good and do not seem to collect the ‘crud’ as bad as the plastic wheels. If you have not converted to metal wheel sets, you might want to start a conversion ‘program’ to metal wheel sets in the future. They stay much cleaner!
Jim Bernier
Hello I was trying not to handle them to much I thought about tacking the wheels sets out but not putting them in the dishwasher. My idea was to make some kind of drive thing. I could make it so a drive wheel runs on the axles and put 1 pad for each wheel to roll on. If can figure out how well it would work I would make it so it did both trucks at once. So all you would do is set the car on the pads and the drive wheel spins the axles thous cleaning the wheel take it off and put the next one on. Do you think it will work? Frank
The simple answer to your question is, “No, there is no automatic wheel cleaner for rolling stock.”
Lay a paper towel on top of a piece of track. squirt your favorite wheel/track cleaner onto it and roll the car back and forth till clean. Fastest way I know of.
Hello I tried the paper towel and it didn’t work to well. Some came clean but most did not. I find it hard to believe with all the talent on this site know one has made anything like this. I am going to give it a try. I am not much of a engineer but it’s worth a try. If it works I will share it here. Thanks for the info Frank