What are you guys using to lube your engines???

I usually use Labelle products (or whatever equivalent my LHS has in stock).

Jeff T,
I've been using, Lucas' "Red n' Tacky" & Gun Oil for years without any problems. There are others on the Forum that use Lucas products as well.
God Bless,

I usually let the nearly naked women take care of it for me.

I use the same thing Farmer Bill uses to fry that southern delicacy he raves about so much.

Hog's Lard



David

quote:

Originally posted by Farmer_Bill:
I usually let the nearly naked women take care of it for me.

I'll bring my trains over tomorrow! This I have to see!!!

hello guys and gals.........
I use red & tacky # 2..............
the woman who loves toy trains
Tiffany

RnT 2 seems to stay ON the gears instead of it being thrown off!

100% pure lard.

Labelle lubricants. I use their 106 grease, and several different weight plastic compatible oils. (Last time I checked, they had a couple of oils that were not plastic compatible).

Marvel Air Tool Oil, thinnest; Lucas Air Tool Oil, slightly heavier; Red'n'Tacky for grease. Been using the air tool oils for years on my HO equipment. They are plastic safe. For grease on the HO it's been white lithium type.

Pete

Labelle has kept model trains running safely for years. I see no reason to try anything else.

Lucas Red n Tacky #2 grease in the gearboxes, labelle 102 on steamer rods, axle bushings,and even noisy smoke unit fan bushings.

Lionel grease and oil lubricants.

I use Red 'n Tacky on the gears, Atlas Conducta Lube on the pickup rollers, and Atlas Motor Bearing Lube on everything else. The Atlas lubes have needle point applicators.

quote:

Jeff T,
I've been using, Lucas' "Red n' Tacky" & Gun Oil for years without any problems. There are others on the Forum that use Lucas products as well.
God Bless,

Pappy

Me too ever since I herd of it on this forum! nothing but good results and all that it's claimed 2 b!

LaBelle, Hob-E-Lube, 3-In-One, Mobil One.

You can flip a coin between any two. They'll all do.

To quote two of the above postings:

"Dry Impregnated Lubrication"

"Nearly naked women"

I don't know what the h**l to make of that.

quote:

Originally posted by D500:
To quote two of the above postings:

"Dry Impregnated Lubrication"

"Nearly naked women"

I don't know what the h**l to make of that.

Fresh topics are long dried up, we desperately need the release of the spring catalogs,or at least some leaks.

quote:

Originally posted by RickO:

quote:

Originally posted by D500:
To quote two of the above postings:

"Dry Impregnated Lubrication"

"Nearly naked women"

I don't know what the h**l to make of that.

Fresh topics are long dried up, we desperately need the release of the spring catalogs,or at least some leaks.

Sheesh, I'm with you

All I could come up with for Dry Imprenated and Nearly naked woman was the song "It hurts so good" come on baby it hurts so good.

David

Red'n'tacky for the exposed gears, Labell oil for the axles, etc. Label white grease for the gearboxes.

One thing I'd be very interested in knowing here is, how would you choose between 102 Labelle gear oil and 106 Labelle grease with PTFE. They're both used for the same thing.

Btw, I think the correct spelling is Labelle, not LaBelle. I've done it the second way myself.

I use Lucas Red n' Tacky for grease, and Castrol SynTec 10W40 oil, it is plastic compatible and doesn't dry up. A quart of Castrol costs $5 or so, versus $7 or so for a little bottle of specific toy train oil.

Lucas Red n' Tacky #2 grease, Mobil 1 5W30 oil.

quote:

Originally posted by win86:
Lucas Red n' Tacky #2 grease, Mobil 1 5W30 oil.

EXACTLY the same here.

I have been using ordinary motor oil for 60 years. I have a 2025 that I have had for 55 years. 45 years ago I lubed it with 20W-40 Valvoline. I ran it for a few weeks and put it away. I took it out of the box about a year ago, and it ran just fine. The oil had not dried out nor gotten sticky. These days I use 5W-20 motor oil and use it for everything including the whistle control on KW transformers. I even oil the commutator which reduces the friction by a significant amount. Make sure the commutator slots are clean when you do this or the oil may release the dirt in the slots and get it all over the commutator. I have been oiling the commutators for about 3 years with no problems at all. I won't use 3 in 1 oil, grease, WD-40, Lionel Lube or similar products because my experience with them is they give problems after a while. My locos run very smooth and start easily. At Christmas, I took a US Army rocket launcher off the shelf which hadn't been run for more than 10 years. It ran just fine.

Actually, I like the grease and other stuff that dries out. I have bought some locos cheap because they were locked up. I oiled the grease to soften it up and they ran just fine.

I talked with a retired petroleum engineer who is also a model railroader, and he advised against using synthetic oils as they might damage the paint. I have no experience with this.

quote:

Originally posted by servoguy:

I have been using ordinary motor oil for 60 years...

A good argument to step up your protection & performance with a synthetic.

quote:

...I talked with a retired petroleum engineer who is also a model railroader, and he advised against using synthetic oils as they might damage the paint. I have no experience with this.

"Might damage the paint" should refer to conventional mineral oils too, including products labeled or represented as "plastic safe" or "safe for use near painted surfaces".

Conventional motor oils are by nature of their refinement process actually impure with contaminants such as reactive hydrocarbons and sulfur that pose more of a threat to painted surfaces than the purely formulated synthetics. Both types have similar additives and detergents that would cause more of a threat than the base oils(and these additives are largely based on the brand of the oil).

The risk with either one is very low in the hobby field unless a manufacturer fails to consider that the product will need lubrication, with the edge going to synthetics.

Throughout all this, the biggest lube worries I have are nagging doubts about whether ALL the gearboxes of modern electronic Asian produced engines have gear oil of ANY kind in them. I've read several reports here of those who found them dry. That I think is more cause for concern than is the particular type of lubricant used. And the fact is, with some engines it's devilish hard to reach the gearbox.

When it comes to it, many if not all the lubricants mentioned here will do.

How are you guys lubing the actual internal gears of the gear boxes?

Labelle #106 grease on gears and 30wt non-detergent motor oil on bearings. Keeps my post-war locos runnin' smooth.

Lucas Red 'N' Tacky #2.

A bit of Gun Oil and a bit of lube/preservative as used on barrels.

 

I don't know any better... Grease comes from a milspec can so... *Shrugs.

 

I think I asked my question the wrong way... what I wanted to know is how you guys are getting the grease in the gear boxes. My MTH manuals say to take certain screws out of the trucks and inject the grease in. The Red N Tacky #2 grease is not available in small tubes which I can do this with. This pretty much says I have to take the actual gear boxes apart to grease them with Red N Tacky. Do you guys really do this every time you need to lube the gears? I feel like I am missing something here...

Matt;

I did indeed Pull the motors from the trucks to put the Red N Tacky #2 in.

However, see the local drugstore for a syringe, they will be fine with RnT2 in them.

I just didn't want to go out to get one while I had the engines out...

In the photo below, you can see the syringes I use.  Any Pharmacy will have them...or even Amazon.com.

 

Labelle or Lionel Oils, and I use grease with Teflon in it which I buy at auto parts stores. I attach a Testors Plastic Glue precision tips to the end to get into those small gear boxes.

 

Mark

I use a lucas 3oz grease gun with red and tacky#2. The grease gun has a fine tip on it that I bought at auto supply store and has excellent control of pressure. The fine tip seals good in the small hole where you pull out the screw. Grease is available in 3oz size. Gun available at home depot. 

Years ago there were a couple of popular automobile engine additives or "treatments" that contained a type of Teflon in suspension in the oil.  I used them in my cars quite religiously and found that I got better gas mileage as well as pretty long usage from the engines themselves.  My '95 Chevy actually ran with the original engine for over 350,000 miles.  Most of these additives, i believe are now off the market.  Some of the names were "Slick 50" and "T-Plus". 

 

They also offered these treatment oils in synthetic oil suspension, although they were a bit more expensive.  When they started to be removed from the market, I bought two quarts of teflon synthetic oil and began using it in a needle point oiler for trains.  Great stuff!  Those two quarts will last me for a couple of lifetimes and I'm convinced that the lubrication it provides is better than any, regular oil, synthetic or petro based.

 

For gear boxes I use a white grease "Lithium" based.  Some of this class of lubricant is also available with Teflon additives.

 

Paul Fischer

I use Lionel grease and Syon oil pen   $ 3.95 each.   Amazon link here

http://www.amazon.com/Products.../ref=pd_rhf_ee_p_t_1

I ordered 2 have them and am using to oil my rolling stock as I clean the wheels.

It works great.