Lube Question

No.  I use Excelle lubricants. They are all safe on plastic and conductive.  I use Red & Tacky  on gears. 

 

http://megasteam.com/lubricants.html

Motor oil is fine for axles and bearings, but as long as you are going this route, you might as well take advantage of technology and use a pure synthetic like Mobil 1. At $5.00 for a quart, this would be a lifetime supply for the typical operator.

 

By the same token, using a top quality modern red lithium complex grease on gears can improve performance and provide a high level of protection from wear, especially on worm gears.

I don’t use motor oil for locos, but if anyone does, it would be interesting to see what weight(s) they use.

 

For post war, MPC and modern engines, I use Labelle 106 or XL NLGI 1 for gears and Labelle 107 or XL heavy for bearings and pick up rollers.  For pre war, I use XL gear oil for gears and bearings.

Bruce,

Honestly, in this era of modern lubricants it doesn't make much sense. I feel that it's a judgement call. Whichever you pick, keep with it.

I still have the "stuff" my grandfather used way back in the early part of the last century. His kit contains a bottle labeled 30w motor oil. It has to be non-detergent. And a small metal tub of axle grease. It's so old you cannot read the label. There's also a few bottles of what smells like naphtha and turpentine. Back then hobbiests used whatever was available.

Back in the 50's I used motor oil and grease like my mentors. As better lubricants became available I experimented. Over 30 years ago I started using Lucas Petroleum Products and haven't changed. Good luck on your quest.

I use 5W-20, 0W-20, 10W-30, or 5W-30... whatever is open when I have to refill my needle oilers.

hello guys and gals.........

 

I still uses red and tacky # 2 for gear boxes, it did very good job protecting the large axle gear in my Sunset 3rd S.F. Texan locomotive so I am sticking with it. I put some in my older Williams F-3's and boy it is very smooth !!!! I can feel it running with my hands on top of the shell.

 

Tiffany

I use Labelle #106 grease, and a couple of different Labelle oils.

Better safe than sorry.

 

According to what I have read, some plastics are adversely affected by some oils, so I stay with stuff that is plastic compatible. Article.

I have been using Red N Tacky for about 6 or more months on all the gears of my PW and vintage Lionel locos and I think they are running smoother and quieter. Some just glide around the track and my track isn't very sound proof.

I find Red N Tacky the best on the market for our use, does the job and doesn't dry out, one tube will last a life time.

 

Jack

I have my arsenal, except some of these I would be careful on plastic. I agree with C.W. and like the labelle line because its safe on plastic. I do like Red and Tacky and do use that on gears. The most important thing is don't overdo the oiling!

franktrain

Be aware that some older Labelle products were not plastic compatible.  These products were clearly marked as such.

Until recently everything got 106, now the newer stuff gets a heavy oil I buy at the train store, although everything mentioned here seems to work.

I use Red-N-Tacky on gearboxes and 5-20W motor oil on axles.  I've never had a problem with motor oil, and it's never harmed paint or plastic.  I have a lifetime supply in the garage as well...

I switched to synthetic motor oil about a year ago when my needle oiler went dry. 10W-30 just because that's what I had in the garage. I use it on pivot points, axles, and the rollers and have never experienced any problems. Red N Tack for gears applied with tooth pick or syringe.

I just purchased a PW 671 that was dry as a bone, also got some Red and Tackey and did the gears up and did the axles with motor oil.  The engine is running smooth as silk now.  Thanks for the info guys, I'll be doing the rest of my fleet the same way in the future.

 

Bruce

 

A couple years ago, I found this fan collector website that has a good posting on lubrication:

http://www.fancollectors.org/info/Lubrication.htm

I agree with the author on the oil but not the spray-able white grease.

Here is another link:

http://www.fancollectors.org/info/lube.htm

Lubrication of antique fans is similar to that of toy trains.

I also tried Mobil One, but like most other automotive oils has detergent

and other additives. Additives mean less oil doing the job. Funny thing about Mobil One I experienced, in fan motor bearings it seems to last a long - long time, but on toy train axles it dries up quickly. 30 weight non detergent oil is too heavy IMO, but I can’t seem to find 20 weight non-detergent anymore.

Turbine Oil in the Zoom Spout bottle is paraffin based and works great and is very long lasting when I use it on home appliances. However when I use it on train axles it dries out within about two weeks. I emailed the supplier of my bottle of Turbine Oil and he claimed it was plastic compatible. Regarding Remington or Hoppes gun oil, both seem formulated to spread and coat surfaces. One drop spreads like water and won’t stay put on a train axle in my experience. I now know so much about oil for trains that I don’t know which one to use and keep switching with every engine I tune up,

Grease, on the other hand seems like a settled issue. Modern wheel bearing grease or Red and Tacky work fine for me.

I use Red and Tacky grease, and I use Castrol Syntec 10W40 synthetic motor oil. I had contacted the company, and was informed that Castrol Syntec is safe for plastic and nylon gears, as well as the plastic bodies. Have been using the same quart of Syntec for about four years now, and I lube a fair amount of locos for my collection and for customer locos. Never a complaint.

Guys,

 

I did some work with unusual gear lubrication problems in real life.  Mostly these involved heavily loaded gears of some size.  Some were open gears.  Commercially at this time almost all worm gears were furnished enclosed, and designed to be run in an oil bath.  So one just followed the manufacturer's instructions.  Obviously this won't have any direct application to the worm gears in a model train locomotive, which are lubricated by some type of grease, because the enclosure is not oil-tight.  It does form a grease reservoir to a limited extent.

 

Commercial open gearing, at least in the field where I was involved, involved spur gearing, sometimes running on various racks.  This could be lubricated with various types of grease, some very specialized where high tooth loads occurred.  As an extreme measure, the largest gears could be lubricated with asphalt compounds.  Grease had the disadvantage of having to be applied frequently, while asphalt was subject both to containing abrasive material and not being a true lubricant.  The commercial attack here was to somehow enclose and run such gearing in a bath, to the extent possible.  I dealt with trial incorporation of such ideas, into moving bridges.

 

On this last, let me clarify that oil is a true lubricant (which is complicated to explain, so I won't at this moment--but basically means it obeys certain mathematical laws regarding flow and viscosity), while not all liquids are.  Certain "synthetics" are true lubricants as well.  Grease itself is not a true lubricant, but acts as a porous reservoir for oil, which is.  Of course, at times the grease is made to act as the load-bearing material in a smooth bearing or between the smooth surfaces of gear teeth.  This is much the way asphalt is used in my admittedly extreme example.

 

So this is the same situation with worm gearing in O-gauge locomotives.  We do not have a grease whose contained oil has a sufficient rating for the job.  Our Red n' Tacky has tack, which is not only good, but essential in an open worm gear.  Unfortunately, its oil rating is only a little above 300 (possibly 315?), while that needed can be calculated to be around 600.  This is for the 3-thread steel worm, 25-tooth  brass wormwheel used in postwar Lionel products with the vertical Pulmor motor.  At a forward speed of 2 fps (scale 65 mph at !:48), and a tooth pressure generated by the just-before-sliding tractive effort of two magnetraction axles, you'll find that the motor armature turns at roughly 7000 rpm.

 

If you take the gear size to be 40 dpi (diametrical pitch inches) and the tooth face width to be about 0.1 inch, there is a formula or set of curves on a graph which will show you the the need for the 600 lubricating index number.  The worm set is actually slightly different from the 40 dpi spur gears, but this approximation will do.

 

The "600" value has a name; there is another system of units with different numbers resulting.  I cannot recall the name of either right now, but if you look up grease properties you'll see them given.  They are enough different that the set I refer to will readily identify itself.

 

I had hoped that the postwar Lionel grease lube would be a material with an index of 600.  It was, I believe, a tallow- (ie, possibly paraffin-) based grease, with tack provided by using a fish oil.  Such greases are not widely available now (I could not find any current manufacturer); and so I could find no indexes for it.

 

However, on reflection I realized that for a long time the top-of-the-line Lionel postwar diesels (the F3's) used an arrangement where each single driven axle had its own wormwheel.  Do the arithmatic-- 600 divided by 2... Only 300 index oil in the grease is required with a gearing arrangement that Lionel did not change until 1955 in these locomotives.  That was a point at which the Corporation realized it faced increasing economic pressure in selling trains.

 

So you are trying to solve an impossible problem-- at least one that doesn't have a neat mathematical solution.  You are faced with using the grease, rather than the oil within it, as the lubricant.  So you are making trial and error investigation.  Well, I've done the same.

 

I can only give a few hints, for metal gear wormsets.  Tack is good; probably Red is less than best.  I say this because axle-bearing grease is usually lithium-soap based because of its water resistance, and red is the typical dye used to indicate this.  But a lithium base is generally not the best for worm gearsets.  I have seen 400 index greases, but generally they are not very tacky.  Molybdenum-disulfide additives are to be avoided around gears that involve a lot of sliding, so that eliminates your lubriplates and the like.  Now your hypoid gear (rear axle) involves some sliding contact, so you have you hypoid oils; but these all run in a bath, and you don't find greases with them.  Churning (oil separation from the grease) is probably a problem at high speeds, which doubtless is another reason why current commercial worm gearsets run in oil-baths.

 

So I follow all comments on this subject here with interest.  I would only suggest that those who find a particular product satisfactory include some description of the severity (or not) of the service to which their locomotives are put.  It may not be just coincidental that sets are not sold with long strings of cars, but just 4 or 5.

 

--Frank

Frank,

I am surprised you didn't discuss the vapor pressure of oil.  As I am sure you know, the vapor pressure determines how fast the oil dries out.  Motor oil has a vapor pressure at 100C of 10^-2 torr.  This is very low.  At room temperature, the vapor pressure drops to between 10^-6 and 10^-5 torr.  This is why you don't need to be concerned about the oil in your car's engine evaporating.  I have tried to find vapor pressure numbers for lubricants other than motor oil, and have been unsuccessful.  Many lubricants have vapor pressure high enough that they should not be used for toy trains.  I have one loco that was lubed in 1965 and run a while and then put in a box in the closet.  About 5 years ago, I took it out of the box and ran it.  It ran just fine.  It was lubed with Valvolene 20W-40 back in '65, and the oil didn't dry out.  Because of its low vapor pressure, and because of the time test I ran for 45 years, I cannot recommend anything but motor oil. I haven't run a time test on any other lubricant because it takes a long time.  I don't want to be taking my locos apart every few years because the lube dried out.

What sort of lubricant did (or do) they use in impregnate Oilite bearings?

Interesting thread on lubes. I use the Red N Tacky on gears and light machine oil on axles and like moving parts but don't run my trains long and hard. Plus I don't let my engines sit a long time in a box or anywhere. I might try some light motor oil to see what happens. What about tranny fluid ??  Would it work ??  Just wondering. It is gone now, like so much else, but at one time we had Bakerstown Grease & Oil in Butler Co.  At that time they were still making lubes for steamers plus for the swivel pints on the RR trucks.

Transmission fluid can attack paint, and may attack plastics. Article

 

By the way, I went to a quick oil change not too long ago. They topped up my power steering fluid, and two days later the pump failed. Pretty certain they used the wrong stuff.

 

Why do so many people have a fascination with being creative when it comes to lubricants and smoke materials?

I have been using the same tube of Labelle 106 for several years now.

I only use plastic compatible Labelle products. Lubriplate, 3 in 1, Vasoline etc is ok for Per & Post War but I havent used it for years.

Transmission fluid would be a lousy lubricant!  It has all sorts of additives to tailor it specifically to the automatic transmission operation.

 

All I can say is that I guess there is more than one way to skin a cat.  Back in 1989 I purchased a book entitled Greenberg's Model Railroading with Lionel Trains authored by the well remembered Roland LaVoie.  In this book he included an article written by one Arthur Broshears a noted hobby shop owner at that time and a long time Lionel operator and collector.  In that article Broshears's aggressively advocated the use of automatic transmission fluid to lubricate Lionel rolling stock.  He claimed that he used it for years on his own trains and always used it when servicing his customer's cars with excellent results.  Personally, I never followed the advice provided in that article and only add it here to provide perspective.   

quote:

Personally, I never followed the advice provided in that article and only add it here to provide perspective.   

 

I have seen bad advice in print from time to time.

 

The lube requirements for model RRs are not extreme regarding heat and pressure. As for using tranny fluid-I would wager there are lubrcants in it plus, I understand there are plastics in modern auto transmissions. You could probably use butter if you wanted to.

ATF is also formulated to have friction under certain conditions, it needs to allow the clutches to function.  Just reading about all the additives leads me to believe that it would be hard to predict how it would perform in anything but a transmission.

 

As stated, I've seen lots of bad and simply wrong advice in print and on the Internet, however I don't foll it.

 

I took a tip from my LHS (local, HA !! 250 miles away!). Anyway, on their workbench I noticed all that was in use were two products. First, Wahl Clipper oil for axels, pick-ups, and anywhere a light, pure, HQ, oil is needed. Second, the Oster Clipper Gear lube for the gears, also pure without harmful additives..

 

Routine (and I emphasize, routine) maintenance is my key..... 

It's as bad as a colum in the old S Guage herald back in the 1960s saying to use steel wool to clean pick up wheels on Flyer Locos and cars.

That is interesting because I just bought some WAHL clipper oil and planned to try it on a couple of engines. It is slightly lighter than 3 and 1 oil that I have been using. Sewing machine oil is light, too. Clipper oil is cheap-$2'49 for 4 ozs.

You would be well advised to check on the vapor pressure of any lube you use.  It is important that the lube not dry out and become gummy or turn to concrete.  I use motor oil exclusively because the vapor pressure is very low, and I had a loco stored for 40 years and the motor oil that I used to lube it with had not dried out.  I don't like the idea of having to clean off dried oil or grease every few years.  It is not practical when a person owns 100 locos and 400 cars.  Way too much work.

Mobil 1 at WalMart is $0.64 for 4 oz.

I agree. I do it and it seems foolish, yet I keep looking. It bugs me to pay $6 for that little bottle of 106 in the Purple Hall at York. When it ran out I looked on line and would have to add $3 or so for shipping. It also bothers me that what's in the bottle could be anyone of several type oils discussed and possibly even dismissed on the forum. Ebay has several sellers repackaging oil and claiming it's the best for toy trains, slot cars, clocks, etc. Have no idea what's in those bottles either. Biggest problem for me seems to be rapid drying out of any oil on postwar car axles. Have to admit, since I stopped using 3-in-One there have been no more gummy deposits to clean off the axles.

Here is the MSDS sheets on Wahl Clipper oil.
If I am reading them correctly, it is 100 percent white mineral oil.

Is it a good lubricant for trains? ----- beats me.

That stuff on the bay is 100% synthetic. I have two friends that tried it. Over one year later they're still trying to clean the residual oil off everything. We're wanting to enjoy our trains and we're not attempting to solve the mystery of the atom. Over the years servicing my trains has been part of the enjoyment. How many of us can remember what Lionel put into their service kits? Better yet, how many of us remember trying to remove all the dry crusted crud? I think that's why each one of us is wanting the best for our trains. Like the above who enjoys less mess since removing, 3-in-One oil from use on his postwar trains. Some members prefer the use of Mobile One Motor Oil. That's what they prefer. Just as others prefer Labelle 106. I prefer Lucas' Gun Oil, it works for me on all of my prewar pieces. I feel that we all agree on one thing. This isn't rocket science. Let's keep it simple and enjoyable.  

I know that 3-in-1 oil would not be my choice.  I've had many antique guns that were "lubricated" with that and WD-40.  Both products turn into a gummy mess after a couple of years, not something that I'm interested in using to lubricate my trains.

 

There's one I haven't tried. May get a bottle. If it doesn't work out, I have a few other places to use it....

I've tried my MilTech gun oil on them, it seemed to work OK, but I feel motor oil works as well and is much cheaper.