Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2012 7:43:14 GMT -8
Thirty years ago when you'd buy an Athearn locomotive, many times the bottom of the gear boxes would be swimming in oil. The packing, truck side frames, gear towers and sometimes even the body would be oily from too much lubrication.
Fast forward to the present and nine times out of ten your very expensive Athearn locomotive is leaking oil like a Penn Central unit. So much has changed and so much stays the same in the wonderful world of model railroading.
The other day I started a thread about my Union Pacific "Fast Forty" build. The base model is an Athearn RTR undecorated SD40-2 with a 116" nose. I have spent a couple of hours so far scooping out the excess whale blubber in the gear boxes, worm gears, worm housings and flywheels. After I've excavated the grease, I then begin scrubbing the parts in warm water and Dawn dish washing detergent.
In their TV ads Dawn shows wildlife rescuers washing aquatic fowl like ducks that has been harmed by oil spills. Thankfully the birds are only covered in crude oil.....and not the lubricant that the Athearn's factory is using in the models. The grease that Athearn is using has to be some of the toughest stuff known to man. You scrub and rinse, scrub and rinse and keep repeating until you finally have the parts degreased.
On my model the oil had leaked inside the body shell, on the truck side frames and the chassis was an oil slick. So far I've cleaned up one truck, the body shell and today, I hope to get the other truck cleaned out and die cast chassis into the scrub water.
This over lubrication isn't confined to just Athearn's RTR line. I've been finding more and more Genesis models to be leaking oil. Don't think that the over lubrication is just an Athearn issue. I've lately had some greased up Proto by Walthers and Intermountain units. Atlas has been the best as far as lubrication.
Fast forward to the present and nine times out of ten your very expensive Athearn locomotive is leaking oil like a Penn Central unit. So much has changed and so much stays the same in the wonderful world of model railroading.
The other day I started a thread about my Union Pacific "Fast Forty" build. The base model is an Athearn RTR undecorated SD40-2 with a 116" nose. I have spent a couple of hours so far scooping out the excess whale blubber in the gear boxes, worm gears, worm housings and flywheels. After I've excavated the grease, I then begin scrubbing the parts in warm water and Dawn dish washing detergent.
In their TV ads Dawn shows wildlife rescuers washing aquatic fowl like ducks that has been harmed by oil spills. Thankfully the birds are only covered in crude oil.....and not the lubricant that the Athearn's factory is using in the models. The grease that Athearn is using has to be some of the toughest stuff known to man. You scrub and rinse, scrub and rinse and keep repeating until you finally have the parts degreased.
On my model the oil had leaked inside the body shell, on the truck side frames and the chassis was an oil slick. So far I've cleaned up one truck, the body shell and today, I hope to get the other truck cleaned out and die cast chassis into the scrub water.
This over lubrication isn't confined to just Athearn's RTR line. I've been finding more and more Genesis models to be leaking oil. Don't think that the over lubrication is just an Athearn issue. I've lately had some greased up Proto by Walthers and Intermountain units. Atlas has been the best as far as lubrication.
