Lionel Engine 2025 Starting To Make "Strip Gear" Sounds

This should be an easy fix. Put a drop or two of oil on each end of the commutator shaft. You can do this without removing the shell if you have a needle tipped oil bottle.

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Fantastic Fix. I added the Labelle oil as your suggested, and the noise instantly stopped. Thank you for the correct answer.

Don

Yes, what Carl said. a common problem with this motor.

The 2025 is my original engine from my childhood and when I hear that noise I use a solid lubricant such as Lionel Lubricant or another brand of light lubricating grease.  It lasts longer and doesn’t spray all over the place like liquid oil. 

I believe that Lionel recommended a solid lubricnt (their own) rather than oil in their post-war instruction manuals.

HTH,

Bill

I use LaBelle grease on all the spur geared locos!

Can't you hear that engine cry as it goes down the track "Oil Me!".

Al

Gears get grease, bushings and shafts get oil. That is why brushplates have OIL embossed in the brass holding the wick around the bushing on some models. The 2025 style motor will require a drop more often than other styles.

It seems to me that most of the spur gear motors need a drop of oil on each end of the armature, most are easy to reach with a needle oiler such as a LaBelle bottle, I do the turbine/Berkshire/N&W J less often as I don't run them as often, and they have a reservoir. Servicing the locos is part, if not most, of the fun of Lionel trains, at least to me. Right now I am going through all my whistle tenders and servicing the relays, and the motors. Fun!

Perhaps oil would be better but the attached 1950 Lionel instruction sheet shows a tube of lubricant being used to lubricate one end of the armature shaft and the text on the drawing says “Lubricate both ends of this shaft”.  I’ve been following these instructions for as long as I can remember (60+ years) on my 2025 received for Christmas of 1947 and many other post-war steam locomotives. 

Correct or incorrect, on the page to the left Lionel explains where to use Lionel Lubricant and where to use Lionel Oil.

This engine has been a great runner until recently. The problem is intermittent noise sounding like strpping gears. When the noise occurs, it last for less than a second. The commutator has been cleaned and new brushes installed. There is no visible teeth damage. I placed a thin shim between the intermediate gear and the frame to reduce wobble. I appreciate any suggestions to fix this problem, as the noise still occurs. Thanks.

When this happens I run down the hallway screaming "We're all gonna die"  It's never failed yet.

I have always had longer lasting results using a drop of oil. The lube just lays on the outside, doesn't seem to get in where it's needed.

Gotta go with Jim 1939 here.  I've tried both lubricant and a drop of oil in this situation and the oil has always out performed the "solid" lubricant. 

Some times it helps to clean out the brush plate bearing hole.  Gently, since you don't want to enlargen it.  It can get burnished from the shaft rotation.  Sometimes the shaft needs polishing also.

As far as oil versus grease, I have had better luck with oil.  Just don't use a lot.  Too much oil on the brush plate makes it way to the armature and brushes.

Some engines do better than the others and I have one that needs a drop of oil on each shaft before a running session. 

Looking at the same Lionel instruction sheet that says use "lubricant" in the shaft tube of the slant motor, I have found this just clogs the shaft tube.  I use a synthetic oil, since the bushing bearing are bronze oilites.  I do grease the ball bearings and thrust washers when reassembling.

You know, it seems funny that back when I was a kid and played with my Lionel train I NEVER oiled anything. The engine never slowed down or squealed. Now that I am playing with them again it seems as though I have to oil them frequently as others said. I wonder how it ran without being oiled back then? I didn't know you were supposed to oil it and my dad was not mechanically inclined at all. One of life's mysteries.

Roger

The engines were new then, were well made. But like some of us, our old bodies need a little more maintenance now.

When I was a kid, my locomotives did slow down and squeal, but I was too young and inexperienced to realize there was anything abnormal about it.  The only maintenance they ever got was when my dad very occasionally slopped some 3-in-1 oil on the gears.

When I grew up and started running those trains again, the first thing I did was remove the caked remains of that ancient 3-in-1 from the mechanism, clean everything thoroughly and do a proper lube job with modern lubricants.

The difference was like night and day.  Those locomotives ran as smoothly as the day they came out of the factory, and my adult eyes (and ears) could tell the difference at once.

The moral is: they needed maintenance just as much in the Fifties as they do now -- I just didn't know it at the time.

Everybody has their prefrences. Generally if it is metal against fiber like some brush plates I use a good lube followed by a small drop of oil. You must remove the brushplate to get the lube between the shaft and the fiber. If it is metal aginst metal as where the brushplate has a metal bushing then I just use a small amount of oil. These often will have a oil wick. If you are going to put something on the gear teath you must use a lub as oil will not stay in place.

Al

Rob,  I pondered that question also.  I have found PW trains were the drive train is stuck and must be broken free.  I think part of the issue is the bronze oilite bearing have dried out over time.  60-70 years now.  These bearing when new were impregnated with oil that would self lubricate when the bearing became warm and would retract into the bearing as it cooled.  When new, they didn't need much lubrication.  I think the oil is long gone and now we are just doing surface lubrication.  G

oldrob hit the nail on the head; lots of people never oiled or lubed anything, even though it was described on the instruction sheet (if that was read....). Once us kids burnished the fiber brushplates with an armature spinning in a dry hole, guess what? We wore the hole into a not so perfect circle that now doesn't like to play nice like it once did. Some Lubriplate white grease or Labelle teflon grease will go a long way to help our older relics, a new brushplate properly maintained would be the ultimate fix.