Grease and Grinding of Drivers

Dave, you do remove that screw and inject the red n tacky into the hole. you can also remove the 4 screws that hold the gear cover in place to inspect and grease. as far as grinding drivers, I have no idea. what type of switches does it short out on?

The "grease screw" is exactly that, nothing to fall out if you remove it. Some have gears located under them. others allow you to get a little grease on the inside of the axle bushings, and there is one that allows lubrication of the "chuff cam" on Lionel steamers.

All can be removed without fear. MTH has recommended .5-1.0ml of grease for their gearboxes, this is a good measurement. Using a syringe with ml measurements will help prevent adding too much.

Too much grease doesn't really "hurt" anything persay, but it will eventually ooze out of the axle bushings behind the wheels making a bit of a mess.

I put RedN'Tacky in the gaeboxes of all my locos when I get them. I think the next greasing, if ever, will be the next owners problem.

Heres a thread with info regarding the grinding seems like a big job: Lionel T1

Just my opinion but, I sure would NOT attempt to grind off the flanges on ANY 3-Rail model locomotive no matter whether it is steam, diesel, or electric.

Thanks for all of the replies. I just have night mares about unscrewing something and then some thing falls out and since you don't know what fell out you don't know what you are even looking for. 

Rick - Thanks for pointing me to correct post. I knew it was somewhere but regardless of what search words I used it wouldn't come up. 

David

Question for you, RickO.

How do you lube the bearings in the gearboxes?  The grease is not going to get into the bearings.  That is why I use motor oil for everything, including gears.  It doesn't drip off of the gears and lasts forever.

I have seen damage to loco gears due to no lube on the shafts that the gears turn on.  

Depends on the style of gearbox, as far as steamers go, up until recently most Lionel steam locos don't really have much in the way of bearings.  Theres just brass bushings on the axle with the drive gear on it, these I lube with labelle 102 on the outside of the chassis by oiling the axle behind the drive wheels.

The "rod driven/ non geared" wheels need to have the bushings oiled as not all of these have grease screws.

The newer Lionel gearboxes based on k lines secondary reduction gearing have an extra shaft through the chassis with bushings that has the secondary gear on it. This can be oiled the same way as the drive axle.  Having said that, grease can be seen weeping from the chassis bushing shortly after the loco is run, so oiling is not really needed and grease likely makes its way to the gearbox bushings.

In the case of Lionels newer diesels, from say 2005 onward, removal of the pickups and truck cover expose all of the moving parts for grease/oil.

"grease likely makes its way to the gearbox bushings"

I am not taking this as assurance that the grease is getting into the bushings or bearings.  I prefer to oil them with motor oil.

 I never stated your method was wrong. Whatever works for you is fine with me! 

I'm confident that my lubrication practices will allow the gearboxes in my locos to outlast me, thats really all I'm concerned about.