Lionel FEF-3 a few questions on lubrication

 Shoot .5-1.0  ml of Lucas red tacky#2 in the gearbox grease screw.

I use a baby medicine syringe with the ml measurements.

 A drop Labelle 102 on all drive rod pivots and the axles/ bushings between the rear of the drivers and the chassis as well as pilot and engine truck.

Labelle 102 is a "heavier" light oil that ive found stays put better on o Guage moving parts.

Excellent,  that's what I couldn't remember....the red tacky.  I have some of the Labelle oil on hand, I'll just need to get the red tacky, I think the wally world by me has some.  Thank you.

hello N&W CLASS J............

I used Red & Tacky # 2 in my expensive brass Sunset 3rd rail S.F. 5011 Class 2-10-4.  I put about 15 hours of run time on it when we used to live in larger apt but we moved last year to smaller apt due to better location and it has done aa very good job protecting the gears (bronze axle gear and steel worm).  Since we live in small apt thus we have space problem to use 0-99 curves and once in while I put the engine on the test stand to let it run for half hour each way. The engine is really really smooth since I am deaf so I used the small screwdriver and place the tip end of it on the gearbox housing while running, I can feel the gears spinning inside and boy it is smooth and quiet even at very slow speeds ( 20 rpms). This engine spends lot of time in the box so this has to be very very good grease if not the best for heavy engines.  I use this grease on my 6 motor Williams F-3  ABA  and run them on 0-72 track ( have space for small oval), same good results !!!!!!!.  There are forum members here that uses this grease in their engines as well.  If it works for us then it should work for your FEF with metal gears.  Does your  lionel FEF use metal gears as Lionel put junk plastic gears in one of their heavy engines (the Niagara 4-8-4) there was an posted treaded about getting replacement gears but was not good enough and had to be custom made for the lionel Niagara.  In my opinion if your FEF has plastic gears like the lionel Niagara it maybe better to use the white grease for that. I would open up the gear box first to see what kind of gears are in there before adding grease in it.

hope this helps

Tiffany

It's been my experience that from the factory, the gear box is typically pretty well lubed...but all the side/main rods, front & rear trucks, and axles could just a single drop of light oil.

BTW:  Congrats on the new 844.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy my 2008 version.

Tiffany, thank you.  Some very good information..

Berkshire President....yeah I haven't pulled the screw and looked at the gearbox yet, I will check tomorrow.  And thank you, it's really a great looking engines,  I'm still taking in all of the details.