I recently purchased two Atlas N scale Train Master locomotives. One works very well at all speeds and the other is balky until it "warms up". The trucks and worm gears have an abundance of white goopy grease. I tried cleaning the trucks using an ultrasonic cleaner and warm simple green. Did not budge the grease at all. I suspect I will need to disassemble the motor and worm gear drive for cleaning. The grease appears impervious to denatured alcohol. Does anyone have suggestions for a solvent and method to clean out the excess grease?
I don't recommend it. Most white grease is pretty much impervious to anything but hydrocarbon solvents, and since plastic is a hydrocarbon, they will at the very least take the smooth surface off of the gears. They could also make the axles of the gears out of round, and/or change the shape of the teeth. They might permanently soften the plastic, making it weaker. I would take the trucks apart and wipe the stuff off. Wrap a tissue around a toothpick to wipe between gear teeth. Painstaking work, yes, but it won't affect performance if you leave only a very fine layer of the stuff behind, and anything that will strip the stuff could damage the plastic. There are other white greases, but so far as I know none of them are impervious to alcohol. I'd love for someone to educate me if there's one I don't know about...
About a year ago my 40-plus year old HO Model Power sharknose started slowing down more and more, until it just stopped, drawing current, with the light on. I did a complete teardown, cleaning, lube and rebuild. I was very motivated because it was THE engine/train set that got me started in the hobby (and my Dad too, for that matter...). There was a lot of thick, goopy, dirty, pasty grease in the trucks. I pulled the whole mechanism apart and cleaned everything in electronic contact cleaner (also called tuner cleaner at one time). That stuff is very effective and safe on plastic. I rinsed in water and blow-dried with compressed air. Repeat if necessary. Once everything was cleaned, lubed and reassembled, it ran like Christmas 1973. I don't know how your N scale mechanism looks, but it might be possible to clean it off in situ with the contact cleaner and blow out the grease/cleaner mess with air before re-lubing. I did that with a couple of engines that were complicated to take apart.
I took disassembled the worm gears and contemplated taking the truck apart and wimped out. I can be kinda clumsy with delicate parts and I knew the potential was high to cause more harm than good. I did clean off the worm drives of excess grease before reinstalling them. Then I decided to tinker with the decoder parameters to see if I could compensate by adding torque at the low end. I increased start volts and the kick start and that helped, or masked the issue. I will try the contact cleaner next. I have a can laying around somewhere.
I've had good results soaking for a few minutes in Goo Gone, scrubbing with a soft toothbrush and then rinsing with alcohol. Tom L Wellington CO
Heh! My can's old enough to be "tuner cleaner" but it was labeled "electronics cleaner". Young folks might not understand the nomenclature so don't try using it on modern TV's. The can also said "safe on most plastics" so I cut loose on the trucks and worm gears. It did the trick. I don't know where the grease went but it's gone. I knew things were better when I could blow air across the upper spur gear with my compressed air in a can and the whole truck spun right up. Afterwards I put a few drops of Labelle 108 on the worm and spur gears because it looked like all the grease was gone. The newly lubed locomotive runs slightly better than it's partner so I tweaked the CV's and now can declare victory. I will add Goo Gone to my options list for next time. I was really stuck on what to do and not realizing I had all the ingredients right at home. Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. The pair easily pull my largest manifest freight up the 3.5% ruling grade on Shortline Hill.
A fairly large percentage of Goo Gone is mineral spirits and that's what does the real work. The orange scent is for marketing. And if you use mineral spirits or the like and thoroughly clean it out afterwards, it won't hurt the plastic. It is the best thing for dissolving petroleum-based lubricants. Doug
I tried mineral spirits yesterday. I put a dab of goop in a bottle cap, squirted in some mineral spirits, and stirred it around. The goop did not dissolve but maintained its mass. That convinced me that mineral spirits wouldn't dissolve the goop.
I hadn't thought of that possibility. Do you know if there are readily available solvents for synthetic lube? Whatever it is, or rather was, is gone now.
