Lubrication of Lionel 182 magnetic crane

they grease they use to use can cake up and become as hard as a rock, you need to clean out the old grease and then reinstall a new grease red n tacky is a great lubricate!

Alan

I cleaned the old Lionel grease from the drive gears on my Lionel 282 magnetic crane that i have had from 1957. I read all of the comments on the Lukas Oil Company Red-n-Tacky Grease and applied this grease to the crane gears and the gear systems on all my locomotives. You should be able to but a tube of this grease at any auto store, I purchased a tube of this grease at  Advance Auto. I started removing the grease from the tube by removing the plastic cap from the grease tube, grease was applied with a small bristle  head Testor's paint brush, this brush works very well in applying the grease to the gear teeth. When done greasing, replace the plastic cap on the grease tube. As a general comment the 5 wire flat conductor cable on my crane was dry rotted and I replaced in kind, electrical contacts were sprayed with CRC  electrical contact cleaner. My crane was not run since probably since  1960 the wire replacement, electrical contact cleaning and greasing of the gears was done in 2017, the electro magnet energizes and holds until released. Your crane and mine is probably on of the best accessory items that Lionel made in the post war era, cannot top the performance of this crane that was not operated in 57 years.

Alan and John, thanks for the reply and help. Two vote to use Red n Tacky grease. Sorry I took so long to reply, found the O-GAUGE forum emails in my AOL spam box ( Verizon uses AOL to run their email operation - not the greatest.

I agree that the cranes are a great accessory. Also think they are one the most difficult and complicated to repair with the 6 wire connections in my case with the 182. In my case I was lucky since after I got all the wiring correctly worked out, the crane ran great. Did not have to deal with any bad coils, motors, clutch assemblies, and bad gears. Thanks again and you two take care.

Ted Walton