A Little Bit of TLC

In January 1972 as part of EMD's Dash 2 series, the EMD SD40-2, a 3,000-horsepower (2,200 kW) C-C diesel-electric locomotive was introduced to the world. 4,175 of these beasts were built.  So of course one must by definition have a fleet of these in their model railway collection.

Mine are not quite as large as the real ones which are 167 tons and 21 metres in length - mine are N scale and hence 1:160  in scale to the real thing and are only 135 mm long. After running for a number of years it is now time for an overhaul. So out onto the workbench they go and are pulled down to the required part level to enable a little bit of TLC to be applied.

First up I apply a small drop of very light oil to the electric motor shaft bearings with a small hyperdermic needle.  I am using the HL653 Ultra-Light Oil by Hob-E-Lube.

Now to the Bogies and get those gears turning nicely. 

First up the worm gear shaft bearings get some of the same oil as the motor got.

Then the actual worm gear gets a tiny bit of HL657 White Greaase by Hob-E-Lube.  I find a small sewing needle makes a good applicator.

With the same applicator and grease, I then put a few dabs of the grease onto the gears in the bogie itself - only a few dabs, as it will spread around once you spin the gears a few times.

That pretty well does the lubing part of the maintenance.  The wheel axles dont really need attention as they are point bearings and really dont pickup gunk (real technical term).  The gear shafts are also fine, as the oil and grease already applied will now migrate all round inside the gear train (hahaha, that's funny - a gear train in a train.... hahaha, I should have been a comedian) and lub up those little shafts as well.

So we move on to the electrical bits. The main pickups of the power from the bogies to the chassis are two metal strips that get a bit grotty (another very technical term) at the actual contact point, so a bit of very fine wet and dry sand paper is used to polish those areas.

Now the motor pickups on the decoder get a polish with the same sand paper.

Of course the matching contacts on the motor itself must be polished up. So the sand paper again gets used on these motor tabs.

And while we are at it, the main power contacts to the decoder get a polish to make sure they pass the electricity and data signals along without interuption.

And that pretty much does it.  So I put the loco back together.

Oh, and of course one last thing - clean the wheels!  Dirty wheels sure muck up the passing of the power and data signals from the track to  the locomotive.  So I put down a piece of paper towel and then apply a few drops of IPA (Isopropyl alcohol) to it and then power up the locomotive and run one of the bogies over the paper and let the wheels spin for a short while.  Swap to the other end and do the same and clean that bogie :-)

Now, where's the next loco in the maintenance lineup...