How often to lubricate gearbox?

Keith on units with a closed gearboxes I tend to fill it up with grease, not packed but enough that the gears are in grease.  Gp9 and 671 are easy to do that to.  On pw general you can't do that.  You should always check on them periodically, especially if you are pulling grades or heavy trains

I recently bought a couple of Williams Trainmasters from the  80s or 90s both new in box and luckily I checked them and the worm gear on the motors have never had grease from the factory. So good idea to check the older Williams before Bachmann trains.

Gene H posted:

I recently bought a couple of Williams Trainmasters from the  80s or 90s both new in box and luckily I checked them and the worm gear on the motors have never had grease from the factory. So good idea to check the older Williams before Bachmann trains.

In my experience, ALL Williams equipment - ESPECIALLY since Bachmann's purchase should be checked before running or soon after being taken out of the box and being run. IMO, Bachmann usually puts little to no grease on the internal gears.

I open up the screw on the bottom of the steamers and give a little dab through a plastic syringe, about once a year.  I have many engines so a little dab will do ya.  Diesels I do the same on the gears.  Give wheels a little bit of oil too.  Also clean off gunk if any off wheels.

So, with a typical modern-production diesel with vertical can motors, how do you get at the worm gear where it meshes with the truck gear? Is the only way to remove the motor?

Cheers!

Keith

Keith, other than the newer Lionel stuff with the twist-off Liondrive trucks, you have to take the shell off and drop the truck to get at the worm gear.  With Liondrive trucks, you just twist them 90 degrees and remove them.  Some of them may require you to remove the sideframes before they'll have clearance to come off, the new F40PH comes to mine.

Thank you, all.

Cheers!

Keith

SJC posted:

Gene H posted:

I recently bought a couple of Williams Trainmasters from the  80s or 90s both new in box and luckily I checked them and the worm gear on the motors have never had grease from the factory. So good idea to check the older Williams before Bachmann trains.

In my experience, ALL Williams equipment - ESPECIALLY since Bachmann's purchase should be checked before running or soon after being taken out of the box and being run. IMO, Bachmann usually puts little to no grease on the internal gears.

I just bought a older WBB Scale GG1 factory sealed and have to say your right, the internal gears were bone dry. 

I have MTH 20-2802-1 GP-9 ps2 engine.

never looked at the gearbox and I’ve run it longer than the 50 hours of operation.

which screw do I remove?  The one closer to the axel or one a bit to the side?

hard to tell from the manual picture.