I have a fairly new N scale engine made by lifelike. The wheels are very dirty, and I am having a hard time cleaning them. Does anyone have any suggestion of the best way to clean these wheels?
Go to the following clean site. Your problems are over.
www.ttx-dcc.com/technews/clean_machine.htm
The underscore_line between clean_ and machine is correct.
Happy railroading
My suggestion–avoid abrasives, use alcohol. On a thin board not more than 3" wide, mount Atlas sectional track: bumper/straight/rerailer/straight/bumper. Buy square rifle cleaning patches (largest they have at K-mart) and soak with alcohol and secure across the rails with “bulldog” paper clamps. Apply power to the track, hold he loco and run each truck on the cloth. I used this at our club and cleaned a lot of crud off the wheels of diesels that probably had never been cleaned for years.
Ray
The original post didn’t mention whether he had diesel or steam, but for steam, often there is electrical pickup via either the leading/trailing truck wheels and/or the wheels on the tender. Any ideas for cleaning these wheels?
On one of my HO steamers with tender pick up,I place a saturated T-shirt with rubbing alcohol
on the power track and hold the engine slightly
on the power rail. The wheels will spin on the cloth. On the tender just roll the car back & forth as well as other cars with metal wheels.
On the other steams, I turn the engine over ,run
two wires with alagator clips to the powered rail
and the opposite bear wire ends I touch the wheel
picks and with a wet t-shirt apply it to the drivers.
You will have to use brite boy on the trailing/pilot wheels.