Pour l’encourager des autres I thought I’d share my personal crossing of the Rubicon.
The most recent purchase of yet another Lifelike (by Canada) Proto 1000 C Liner (another B unit) went well until it started wailing like a Banshee.
Time to investigate.
First checked the truck drive gears by unclipping the axle retaining covers and peering in. The axles just lift out. No damage to any gear teeth. Add a little Labelle oil. Clip back together. No change.
Shell comes off very easily, remove the front coupler and gently spread the shell where it curls under at the fuel tank. The chassis just drops out.
Eliminating the possible causes one by one: unclip the worm gear covers which double as truck retainers, clean up the worm and upper drive gears, relube the worm with Labelle grease, tucking some into the universal joints for good measure.
No change.
Unscew and lift up the light board to eliminate that as a possible cause. Nope.
Unclip the wires from the lightboard, drop the trucks out. The drive shafts slip out of the flywheels. Remove the fuel tank cover revealing the four press fit nubs that hold the motor assembly in place. Push those into the chassis from below, I used a modellers Phillips screwdriver but any blunt rod of the right diameter will work.
The motor and two rubber mounts essentially fall out.
Ran the motor by connecting power directly to the red and black wires. Wailed like a banshee. The flywheel on the brushes end of the motor shaft pulls off. The plastic end plates act as bed logs and have a flat bottom edge worth noting. The motor goes back in that way up. The red power wire is to the right when the motor is reinstalled.
A drop or two of Labelle into the spot where the motor shaft exits the plastic end plates reached the motor bearings (or whatever was wailing). For good measure I cleaned up the flywheel surfaces by running the motor and wrapping a strip of f