I am returning back to the hobby after about 15 years or so and am a little lost as to what to do. I have an mrc techII controller, an Athearn PA1?, and a few other misc. engines that are about 10 or 15 years old… They have not been used in years, so when I tried setting up a few pieces of track and turned on the controller it didn’t act right. Very little power fron the pack and the engine bairly moved.(I need to clean the wheels). When I look at the inside of the engine it looks great. There is only rust on the contacts that go to the light. The motor looks great. It didn’t get alot of use before it got packed away, but is there any sort of lubricant, or anything that I should look for to make this thing run better?
Besides that I am planning on brand new trac for the layout. The old stuff hasn’t held up too well.
I figured I would check with the pros for some advice, thanks in advance for all the help. Maybe I should post some pictures of the benchwork and engines?[:)]
Well, for starters, if your track is older brass, I’d replace it with nickel silver. Brass tends to build up a non-conductive oxide on the rail-heads that means very frequent cleaning, whereas the oxide that builds up on nickel-silver doesn’t seem to need cleaning that frequently.
Then, I’d get myself some LaBelle #9 gear grease for the gears in your Athearn PA-1. Just a little will do, and the gears will lubricate themselves by interaction.
Then, I’d get a bottle of Micro-Mark track and wheel cleaner, turn the PA upside down in a cradle, attach wires from your power pack to the leads, use a piece of cloth or a Q-Tip dipped in the wheel cleaner, turn the power on and clean the wheel-treads. The Micro-Mark is the best cleaner I’ve ever found (although rubbing alcohol will work pretty well, too). If it’s an older Athearn, the wheels are sintered iron instead of nickel-silver, so you may end up cleaning them fairly frequently. I believe that both Proto-Power West and Northwest Short Line make replacement geared wheel sets with nickel-silver treads for the Athearn diesels. You might want to think about that, too.
That should get you at least started back again.
Tom [:D]
15 years old?
1.CLEAN OFF TRACK with a brite-Boy.
2.LUBRICATE motot bearings with a v. light lubricant in a squeeze bottlewith ‘needle’ applicator.
3.Clean wheels
I doubt your Tech II power pack is bad.
Do two wires ‘spark’ when touched together?
- switch contacts go bad with age. Yours?
The advise above is great but also consider this: If there is a little rust on the contact for the light there may also be some light rust on the contact from the chassis to the truck. Remove the plastic retainer that holds the worm gear in and the truck should fall out the bottom of the loco. Clean this pad off with some 180 grit sandpaper and make is shiny again the apply some conductive grease to the contact area. The grease will help the conductivity and also keep it from rusting again. ( you can find this stuff in most auto part stores) Do this one truck at a time cause if you get the worm gears on the wrong side forward will become backwards. Cleaning the wheels and alsi lubing hte gears will also be a great help as the other above me have mentioned.
Good luck!
P.S. A small amount of this grease goes a long way.
I will try the contacts on the power pack to see if it is up to par. I have a feeling that the power pack is fine…its just the track that is old. That will all be replaced with NEW nickel silver.
Here is another question:
I have motor oil for RC electric cars. It has a needle applicator. Can I use this on my Athearn engine?
Look for the words “plastic compatible” or something similar on the oil bottle. If not, don’t use it. There’s a lot of plastic drive and housing parts in the Athearn power trucks that could be damaged by the wrong oil.
One thing I would recommend for a loco that’s been stored that long: a good cleaning inside. Then fresh lubricant on the mechanism as advised above.
You may want to clean up the comutator on the motor as well, since it has probably oxidised over this length of time. An abrasive “eraser” for ink may be your best bet for doing this , but I have used a needle file held against the comutator while you turn the shaft of the motor.
Another tune up tip for the Athearns is to replace the upper motor clip that spans from the top of the truck towers across the top of the motor with light guage flexible wire soldered to the remaining top motor clip and the upper bracket on the trucks, Put an “S” shaped bend in the wire to allow the trucks to swivel as they navigate turns.
The rest of the “tips” above will get your PA1 back in action, and running for another fifteen years.
HTH
Will
Speaking from personal experience also find out if the Power Pac has a " Low Voltage Setting." This happened to me and it took me a while to find out that the engines were all fine, but the Power Pac was in a “Low Voltage” or “Half-Wave” setting. No matter what I did to the engines they would not go at any fair speed until they were pushed for a while. (most likely the loosened up with the use).
Once the Power Pac was at normal voltages the locos ran very well. The engines I have are twenty to twenty five years old. Now they move too fast. Good luck to you and you will find a lot of helpful hints here in this forum.
OLD ATHEARN ENGINES were notorous for poor electrical contact. Where does one start?
A Line has kits for improving reliability, including replacing the shoddy ‘gound’ connection.
The athearn engines with the spring blade contacts… I hard wire them with wirewrapping wire but allowing them to make contact. Lifting them will take the trucks along. 15 years, better clean and lube and check everything.
The club layout I was in… one week, NS track, still you gotta clean the track.
I have an MDC/Roundhouse 2-8-0, ran nice, but sat around a few years, it needs to be cleaned and worked over cause theres some rust on it.