I have a B&O SD 9 and Gio Grand SD 9 that whine more than my wife! Both run and pull well, just cannot get then quite? I have opened the trucks and cleaned out the old lube and added White Lithium Greases. Had no effect on the racket.
I have oiled the motor using HL 654 model oil, and even tried ATF an still no quiter. They are DCC using DH 123 decoders.
What has got me sort of puzzled is I have a SD 7 B&O and an SD 7 Rio Grand that are quite. They sure look like the same engine once the shell is off. They have the old Style Athearn Knock Off Motors.
Faster I run them, the more they whine, so I am thinking it is the motors. Thinking cutting down the Brush Springs would help?
I can live with them, but I would like them to be quiter. While they are older engines, they have only around 80 hours run time. My LHS still has a lot of NOS PK’s.
Did You lube the motor shaft armature bushing/bearings front and rear while turning the motor by hand. Never use ATF for that,Labelle 104 or 107, I say that because they have a fine brass nozzle that is easy to do that with. If You can see the motor while running and the brushes are arcing a lot, you can clean the commutator up some with Alcohol, just don’t soak it. It probably is the bushings/bearings though, hard to get at, but they do dry out from non- use.
As a rule whine is due to lack of lubricant or rough surfaces meeting each other (burrs on metal gears for example, usually addressed with an application of jeweler’s rouge, or Pearl Drops tooth whitener).
In my experience, motor whine is sometimes actually gear whine. If the motor is disconnected from the wheels (you mentioned removing the original grease, which does tend to harden badly on those early P2K engines, so opening up the trucks is evidently something you have done before) does that remove the whine? If it does I don’t have a great solution to suggest other than trying again with removing old lubricant and starting fresh, although inspecting the gears closely for burrs or other irregularities might reveal a problem that can be corrected. I assume by the way that if this is an old Athearn clone drive from the early P2K days that you have replaced the geared wheelsets due to gear cracking? Or is it newer than that?
If not gear noise sometimes the whine is due to commutator noise. The commutator plates might be slightly out of round and short of having a very skilled repairman put the motor innards in a lathe to turn down the plates there is likely little to be done about that. But while oiling or lubricating the commutator surfaces is rarely advisable – in fact can be a mistake – sometimes the smallest amount of very light oil on the surface of the commutator can make the motor run smoother and lessen the noise, presumably by easing the movement of the brushes over the commutator surfaces.
BTW I promise not to share your first sentence with your wife.
I had similar awhile ago and it took me quite awhile to find the problem. It seems that a bearing point at the end of one of the shafts is quite hidden. In fact, without my optivisor I just “walked right past it” during the lubing.
I suggest you follow the shaft out of each end of the motor and put a drop of light oil ANYWHERE the shaft goes into or rubs something.
Spray the motor bearings with CRC 2-26 lubricant cleaner. You’ll end up spraying more than you want.
Okay…don’t laugh now…hold the loco under a very hot faucet, focusing on the motor and moving parts. The water flushes any debris that may have accumulated over the years, and the heat helps to distrbute the lubricant . Shake the water out and let dry thoroughly.
Yes, yes, yes…never mix electronic stuff and water. But only the light board/decoder is really the crucial part. And when it dries out, if it really even gets wet in the first place, its fine.
Its not the recommended approach. I’m just saying that I’ve done it dozens of times and it never hurt anything and it has quieted motors/running gear.
I have both the weigts off the Rio Grand and will pull the drive shafts and see what it sounds like then. Next I will try polishing the commuter with some 1000 grit sand paper. Maybe cut off a little of the brush spring so there is less pressuer.
I am not sure I recommend that – the last thing you want is small gouges that collect dirt. Try a wee bit of oil, perhaps even Vaseline but just a tiny tiny amount first. I have not looked at an early P2K motor in some time so I do not know what it looks like or the amount of access.
I found the CRC in a liquid spray bottle. Harder to find but I could decant some into a fine applicator bottle, (maybe Micro-Mark has these?) I have one with a finer metal tube about half the diameter of the Labelle bottles. You need it to get between the flywheel and motor bearings. I got turned on to the 2-26 from another thread. I love the stuff! Great for Walthers passenger car axel bearings, too!
Amazon, Sears, Grainger and others have it too but the shipping drives the cost up.
I have had similar whining problems from older Stewart (now Bowser) Kato drives. Seemed to be more pronounced when the motors were “unloaded” going down grade and the whine would come and go every 10 to 20 seconds. Lube didn’t seem to help so I wrote it up to an imbalanced armature/flywheel/driveshaft combination. Also, look for loose fitting “dog bones” or spline shafts. Some of my old P2K E units had flex shafts so poorly fit there was a lot of slop in there. This can introduce a balance problem.
Also, maybe instead of hot water, I have used a generous dousing with a plastic compatible electrical contact cleaner. Does wonders to flush out the worn carbon