Get rid of WD 40

[stuartmit]

I got a squirt of WD-40 on my tracks; then my turbine picked up some and is skidding. How do I clean up the mess I made?

any chance a diluted dishwasher detergent would help?  Dont detergents disspell oil? 

[pennytrains]

Dawn always advertises how it "takes grease out of your way".

[stuartmit]

How would you use it? Full strength or diluted?   Rub in with rag or spong?  Then use a "rinse" rag or sponge?  Then let air dry or rub dry?

and what about wheels on turbine?

[Flintlock76]

I'd try rubbing alcohol on a cloth or shop towel.  Soak the cloth and rub the track for all you're worth.

The wheels on the tubine?  (I'm assuming you're talking about a Lionel Pennsy Turbine?)

What I do for wheel cleaning is turn the engine upside-down in a mitre box using an old towel for padding.  Then I take a small transformer with two wire leads with alligator clips on the ends of the wires.  Clip one wire to a pick-up and the other to a ground on the engine, anywhere that'll complete the circuit.  I like the drive rods myself, assuming it doesn't interfere with wheel rotation.

Then I power up the engine so the wheels are turning and use alcohol soaked Q-Tips to clean the wheels.  You'd be amazed how much crud comes off. 

Mind you, you can turn the wheels by hand but that takes more time.

The nice thing about alcohol is it evaporates quickly, no rinsing required.

[stuartmit]

Rubbing alcohol vs detergent 

I understand the chemistry behind both but no guess as to which is better! 

[Flintlock76]

I prefer alcohol since I don't have to mess with water, especially around anything electric.

[Kens std gauge]

The title of this thread may be most accurate: just get rid of WD40. It's a poor lubricant, can damage plastic, and eventually turns into sticky goo. It has no place around trains or really anywhere else in my opinion.

[pennytrains]

Good for frozen, as in iced up, locks.  Maybe squeaky door hinges.

[Flintlock76]

Kens std gauge

The title of this thread may be most accurate: just get rid of WD40. It's a poor lubricant, can damage plastic, and eventually turns into sticky goo. It has no place around trains or really anywhere else in my opinion.

 

It's a good moisture displacer if you get water into anything mechanical and a good short-term lube, but for lubrication there's much better things out there.  I haven't used WD-40 for anything in years. 

[stuartmit]

I do think I've seen those negative comments somewhere about WD-40 but I never seem to remember it when it counts! And it does seem to be ubiquitous! So I tend to reach for it almost without thinking.

my purpose was to loosen up the mounting on the draw bar on a tender which seems to resist moving side to side when the tender rounds a curve. So what is a lubricant I should have used?

[Flintlock76]

I've been using the lubes left over from my copier repairman days.  "Tri-Flow" works very well, and I also use Highside Chemicals "Zoom Spout Turbine Oil," although the zoom spout has a little too much "zoom" so I cut it short to a more manageable length.  One of the posters here (Don't remember who) swears by good old motor oil.  I haven't tried that yet since I've got plenty of the other two.

The turbine oil I got from a local Ace hardware, they had it in the lube/automotive section. 

I don't use anything from a spray can, it's too sloppy.

I've also dealt with that stiff drawbar situation you mentioned.  "Tri-Flow" cleared it up perfectly, I applied it then worked the drawbar back and forth until it loosened up. 

[Leverettrailfan]

I recently started using Labelle lubricants (107 medium oil, 108 light oil, 102 PFTE gear oil, 106 PFTE grease) and I'm very impressed with performance, but you can get perfectly good results using white lithium grease on gear teeth and sliding surfaces, and sewing machine oil on bearings. The best way to apply the latter is to use a toothpick with a drop on the end- much less likely to result in a mess of oil everywhere and allows you to get into tighter spaces if you're careful.

The Labelle lube bottles have very convenient, narrow tips that make it easy to get into most tight spaces so that makes me very happy using them. They are a little expensive but as long as you use them sparingly they'll last you a while I think. So far I've used them to service several trains and I'm nowhere near seeing a noticable reduction in how much oil I have left. The grease I seem to be going through a bit more since a lot of my O and S gauge trains need a touch more of it than HO.

-Ellie