Cleaning gears and changing wheels

Ok, so I went to the hobby shop tonight to get the new wheels, and when I got home I found that I already had a set, go figure.






Here is a picture of the disassembled truck. and a close up.

To get at the truck mechanism,

Gently remove the clip over the worm gear, (the gear connected to the motor) A small flathead screwdriver should do the trick. Remove the worm gear and set it aside. Make sure not to lose the bearing and washer at the end of the gear. On the six axle truck, there are three clips holding the truck together, two on the top, and a long one on the bottom. Gently pry these off, also with a small flathead screwdriver.

When you get the bottom one off, you will be able to remove the wheel sets. After that, the truck will split into two sides, one containing all the gears. Be carefull not to lose those gears. Like most smalll parts, they prefer their natural environments of floors and carpets, so keep a careful eye on them.

At this point, I'm changing out the wheels. The replacements that I got are NWSL 42" Nickel Silver wheels, stock #37142-4. I worked on one axle at a time to minimize losing parts. Start by removing one of the wheels from the axle. Gently pull and twist to get it off. Take the bearing off the old wheel, and place it on the axle of the new wheel. Gently push the new axle back into the gear. It is a friction fit, so there is no need to enlarge the hole. Repeat the process for the other side.


Here's the new wheels on the axle ready for reinstallation


There are a couple of things to check before we can reinstall the axle. First, check to gauge with a NMRA Standards Gauge. This will ensure that the wheels are the correct distance apart. The next thing is to check that the bearings turn freely on the axle. If you need to adjust the width to get the bearings to turn, make sure that the gauge is still correct. Repeat this process for the other axles

The next step is to make sure that the gears are free of flash and burs and other things that could bind the mechanism. Use a small file to remove any of these as necessary. On my engine, the gear box was dry, if yours has excess lubricant, this is the time to clean it out of the gears and gear box.

Assembly is the reverse of disassembly. Before I put the worm gear back in, I placed a couple of small drops of Labelle 102 oil and ran the truck back and forth a bit to work the lubricant in. I've read that you can put some Pear Drops toothpaste in the gear box to smooth the gears a bit. I'm going to see how the regular oil works before trying that.

That's it for tonight, I'm heading down the to CP Shoreham yard to check out the Christmas train.