Rebuilding and Cleaning an F3. Questions!

[msacco]

Had some eunit problems on my 2354 and while I was in there I decided to break it all down and do a major cleaning. Took apart the power trucks completely and degreased trucks, shafts, gears using mineral spirits.
My questions are this. What should I lube exactly.
1) Do I completely grease the worm shaft or just lightly oil the shaft and add grease to the worm geared parts of the shaft?
2) What do you do with the bronze ball bearing piece. Oil in the hole where the worm shaft goes in?
3) Should I lightly wd 40 all other non-painted peices like the truck bodies, etc.
4)Lastly, What about the idler gear. Mine is nylon, so should it be greased at the truck's gear contact point and the motor's.

whew, thanks in advance. Don't want to do this again so I want to really get it right.

MIke Sacco

[3railguy]

Use light oil on the shafts, gear pins, and axles. There should be an oil hole on top of the motor casing for the armature shaft . Give that a liberal squirt of light oil as well as a dab on the shaft as you insert it..

Use lithium automotive grease (the kind that comes in a tube) on the worm and gear teeth. If applied sparingly, lithium grease sticks to the surface and wont sling all over.

The ball bearing pieces is what I think you mean to be thrust bearings. Each ball should get a drop of oil. The trust washer goes on the exposed ball side. The ball/thrust washer side should go away from the case bushings.

When pulling the truck worm shafts, be sure the bearing blocks go back in exactly the same orientation they came out. Otherwise you risk misalignment and binding.

The idler gear should get a dab of grease as well as oil on the pinion.

[msacco]

Thanks 3railguy,
but.....I don't have any thrust washers and according to my geenberg book there aren't supposed to be any. You are right about the blocks or worm shaft bearings, those are what I was talking about. Alhough I mixed up these bearing when cleaning. I remember what side is up on these but I don't know which ones belonged to which truck.
How bad is that?

[andregg1]

Hi
About the ball bearing, if you see some wear, maybe you need to push little bit into, so you can keep the gear away from the body.
Andre.

[dwiemer]

You say you don't want to do this all again, but you should figure out a maintanance schedule and maintain your grease/oil. One of the main reasons so many of these older engines still run so well.
Dennis

[msacco]

Dennis,
I do maintain a maintenace schedule of my equpment I just meant that I don't want to go through the hassle of degreasing and disassembling to this degree in the short term.

Mike Sacco

[3railguy]

msacco, I was probably wrong about the thrust bearings. Many Lionel engines used them and I had a mental block. These washers were often used to make up for longitudinal slop in the worm gear where they would not normally be used.

As far as the truck bearing blocks are concerned, I'm not sure exactly what to tell you. I would have to tear mine down to see. If I remember correctly, the blocks are tapered on two sides and the block is not a perfect square in section. Which direction the taper goes and which way the narrow side goes, is something I can't remember. You might experiment with different orientations that make sense. Tightening down everything, rotating the wheels with your fingers to feel which combination gives the least binding.

You don't have to tear down your engine to this extent on a regular basis. About the only thing sealed from access is the gears. The gear grease should last for years. Just about everything else needs oil once a year or so and can be oiled without a teardown. The motor shaft is oiled by the reservoir you fill through the little hole in the motor case.