I want to clean my loco engine parts, but I don’t know what parts need to be cleaned and I don’t know what the parts are. Is there a good generic picture anywhere of a loco and its engine parts.
For example, what is a commutator? What does it look like?
What are brushes? What do they look like? (I am assuming a brush)
Can someone please help me. I have no idea what I am doing and I don’t want to damage my old locos.
Thanks to everyone helping me out!!!
No 25 word or less answer to this one. So let’s start with the easy answer. If your engine has a can motor you probably can not get to any of those parts as they are inside the can. Now if you have an open frame motor the part that turns is the armature. be very careful not to damage the wires on it in any way as that will make it inoperable. There are two types of commutators on the armature. One type is a plate on the end with slots to separate the poles and the other is a cylinder with slots to separate the poles. Each end of the armature should have a bearing of some type. Most bearings are not roller bearings and have a little felt pad that needs a couple of drops of oil. The larger the number of poles or sections on the armature generally the smoother it runs. Somewhere on the commutator are pieces of spring loaded metal (usually something like bronze or copper) that will ride against the commutator and make contact. you do not want to alter the spring pressure against these in any way. These are the brushs. dirt and oxide will cause sparking and contact problems. You can carefully clean the commutator with a pencil eraser and blow the dirt particles off the commutator but watch out that you do not harm the little wires where they are soldered to the commutator. If you can carefully remove the spirngs you can remove the brushs and clean them in the same manner. The whole job isn;t hard it just takes patience and time. If when the brushs are removed they look severely worn you can consider replacing them. The ones that ride on the cylinder type commutator will have curved grooves in them to ride against the curve of the commutator. The ones that ride against the end plate should be flat and most have a top side with a slot for the spring to ride in and keep it from turning. The bootm side is perfectly flat. generally unless you are having some problems just lubricate the
I found this website that has a pretty good explaination of DC motors and parts, you may find it useful: http://www.gearseds.com/curriculum/learn/lesson_print.php?id=33
As far as cleaning motor parts, I have not performed that task on any of my locos, and I’m pretty sure some are in need of it. So I’ll leave this part of your quetion to the more experienced in the matter.
If you happen to have Athearn engines, this site gives a pretty good walk-through on how to perform some maintenance on them: http://www.mcor-nmra.org/Publications/Articles/Athearn_TuneUp.html