Hi,
over the years I have done little maintenance on my locos or carriages and when I do, its minimal.
after many years I've made the decision to add 2 ball bearings to all my motors except DC motors and this really helped me a.) reducing cleaning the motor from grime and other foreign objects, I'm lucky I don't have cats or dogs around the layout, b.) oiling is something I hardly do and only if there is excessive noise coming from the gears as the ball bearings prevent the armature to squeal which Märklin tried to resolve but without success over many years (2 different compound of metal and metal to plastic)
this has saved me a lot of time and unnecessary hassles over the years as all my locos have now a 5 pole high efficiency motor.
In the past I have had many repairs done and found the main culprit has been over oiling and therefore creating a negative result, rotor smothered with graphite, brush plate covered with graphite and the brushes were hardly recognizable both with 5 and 3 pole motors.
whatever dirt is on your track with excessive oil it will pick up all the nasties and collect it around the brushes and collector and sometimes the gears as well and this is usually more visible on your freight or passenger cars wheels where the wheel surface is no longer visible and this again gives you a good indication what is going on around your layout.
I've found a fine compound, apparently only available in Australia used around the household to clean things but I've cleaned brass, showers, bath, sinks, any dirt marks and started using on the carriage wheels with an astonishing result from a dull dark gray to a shiny new aluminum looking colour, you could say I've just bought new axles.
In my opinion, although oil is necessary the amount train model enthusiast use is 90% too much and as mentioned above does more harm than good .
to ascertain how good your loco is performing and how well it runs may not due to the lack of oil (always first thought) but the reason may be somewhere else.
look at your rolling stock and if the wheels are black or covered with grime you need to clean your tracks and also sometimes vacuum clean the tracks, excessive oil will finish up on the track and also will ruin your adhesive tyres which than become useless as they have expanded due to the oil.
some modelers feeding this habit (over oiling/grease) creating a merry go round maintenance port folio without realizing they are not getting on top of the cleaning process.
many manufacturers have improved the gears over the years from metal to plastic or have used metals which are compatible and don't have a chemical reaction, for instance steel and stainless steel or different grades of stainless steel.
I would suggest to think twice before going down a path with very little performance gain but rather a continuous battle of wishful thinking and hope to retain the motor in an excellent condition.
regards.,
John
Edited by user 18 March 2017 00:28:23(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified
