I have their #108 light oil and I plan to use it sparingly on my diesels wheels and my steamers side rods etc.
1- is this the correct oil for that job?
2- where exactly is the oil placed on the diesels? Is it just a drop on the inside or do you place it on the outside?
3- The manual for the steamer says to place oil on all moving points on the rods etc. Should a drop be place on the inside of the wheels also (brand new engine)?
4- gear grease… is Labelles 106 grease the correct one for the worm gear boxes on locomotives?
5- how often should grease be placed in the worm gear box? I realize that mostly depends on how often the engine is run and on what grades/loads etc. but a rough estimate would help.
Thanks for any help.
Jarrell
- Yes. #108 for the steam siderods and diseasel wheel bearing, drive train parts/ motor bearing.
- #102 is great for gears. 2-3 drops into the gears after you remove the cover under the truck. Then 1 drop onto the worm gear.
- Do you mean the driver axel bearing? If so, I recommend ‘not-quite-a-drop’ of #108. It won’t gum up and is perfect for the heat generated on that surface.
- I just use #102 with a little 134 PTFE puffed onto the wet steam engine gears.
- That really varies, the factors you mention AND even the loco manufatures. Some worm gears hold lube better. Example: my first-run BLI NYC J1e’s worm DRIED out after about 1 hour of operation. After being totally lubed, it ran fine. Then it was like ‘its going fine, its going fine, whats that noise?’ I opened it up and found a almost dry worm!
Lets say you run the loco a bit 5 evenings of the week. it [icould[/i] last up to a 6 months.
Someone (brain fart…can’t recall who it was) very recently has told us that auto transmission fluid is excellent and won’t attack plastics or gum-up over time.
Breyer.
I was getting ready to post a graphite question, maybe it can be answered here. Is powdered graphite a good product to use?( I know it was great for my skate boards 30 years ago ,but I digress) Is it electrically conductive? And where should or shouldn’t it be used? I was thinking of rolling stock axles, but I don’t know about deisel gears and such? Any thoughts?
Hey Aggro- Every time I think you can’t impress me any more with your work,you take it to another level. Come on FESS UP, there’s NO WAY your in your twenties!
Your either a fat old bald 70 year old man or your showing us pics of your grandpa’s layout. Come on dude… come clean!!!
Howdy Loathar, the subject of graphite for train lube came up at the LHS a few weeks ago the owner has a nifty N scale layout in the shop. He was saying that he tried some graphite on a couple of locos and some cars and it didn’t seem to affect anything negatively, he also tried as an experiment on a car to see if over lubing it with the graphite could cause an electrical problem with shorting. From what he could recall the conductivity was negligible (he checked with an ohm meter for any change in conductivity). I would consider this info as anecdotal for now unless someone else has more direct experience with this.
Aggro, thanks for the information. I’ll print it out! Also thanks to everyone else for your input.
Jarrell
Another question is, what is the white ‘grease’ that is currently in the worm gear box? Is that made by LaBelle, it seems to be much thicker than their heavier ‘oil’.
Jarrell