lube GG! 2340

[stuartmit]

have found very little re lubing 2340; cant seem to get cover off loco to get at top of motor.

 

Did find following:

Lubricating Lionel 2340 GG1 | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)

 

I have a book from Greenberg, "operating O and O27 trains"   with a facsimile of a 3-4 page sheet that I believe was shipped with the locomotive, which seems to indicate a process where one locates the battery door, and removes the truck which is on that end. Then a screw is revealed which I cant find, and don't seem to see on exploded view of parts. Further, this reproduced instruction sheet mentioning screws c and d seems to be more involved than what is implied by the OGR forum post above. 

I have put grease on gears, and oil on ends pf wheel/axle assemblies in the trucks, but cant get to oil reservoir access on top of mortor, nor to what I imagine is the meshing point of motor "drive" gear element and the gears between wheels in the drive trucks 

 

 Hope this is clear--not my strongest suit!

 

Help!

[stuartmit]

Sorry. I should've mentioned that I do believe there is an article on this subject in January 2013 of classic toy trains. But I have failed to locate it in my collection. At that time I was buying the magazine, and perhaps I didn't purchase it that month.

[Leverettrailfan]

Looking in my service manual, it seems like the idea behind removing the leading truck (underneath the battery door) is that it gives you room to find the screws on that end of the locomotive. I wish I had a GG-1 of my own to compare, but studying the drawing closely, and a couple images online, I think that the places you need to find screws are:
underneath each nose (two for the battery cover, two for the end of the chassis), and then two more screws on each side, right around the end of the power truck where the chassis ends and the battery door begins. It looks like if you can locate all 6 of these screws, and remove them, you should be able to get the shell off. 

I think I have that issue of CTT as well, I will have to see if I can locate my copy.
Hope this is of some use.
-Ellie

[stuartmit]

Thanks very much For your comments. I ultimately gave up and took it to my repair guy and paid him $10 to luricate the unit which was Worth it to me because of the fact that sometimes when you don't know exactly what you're doing, you can lose parts and then you're really in trouble. Or at least that's my experience. But I do appreciate your comments, and I also have a friend who seem to indicate it's not tremendously complicated, and he further said he hadn't serviced his unit in a while and would do that and make a video of it and send it to me. I would be happy to post it here, except I have absolutely no idea how to do anything on the forum except type and correct my spelling, when I think to do that.

I just read carefully in the repair and operating manual that is printed by Kalmbach publishing and originally done up by Greenberg. What I found interesting, and matching my operational experience with this locomotive, is that there are a lot of things which will make it operate poorly. The leading trucks are easily derailed and there are a number of things to watch for ranging from side play in the wheels to excessive downward pressure on a slider shoe for the electromagnetic couplers. And if you have any uneven junctions from one piece of crack to a neighboring piece or to a switch or a crossover, the leading truck well hit it and bounce, often off the rail so. So real fine track work is very important, I believe. unfortunatel, that's not my strongest suit.

But it seems less forgiving than other locos. Generally, The GG-1 and many steam locomotives are prone to derailment as a result of leading trucks which have no real weight on them. If you stop and think of any of the diesels, their front trucks even if unpowered, are more massive and therefore track better.