Trouble with Gear towers for Geeps

I've had a customer ask about other folks having troubles with the gears in the Geep trucks.

Has anyone else experienced issues with the gears in the trucks? I know you have to keep any speck of grit out of the gear towers, but this customer says he has had several gears go bad due to grit. He's wanting new gears, but MTL is currently not able to supply those particular parts due to the down time with SDK.

Loren,
no problems at all, but if there is grit in between the gears no suprise in my opinion, things need to be clean, especially with this small components.

Seriously? The customer knows what the cause of the gear wear is, and yet wonders if others have had the same problem? This isn’t a Geep specific problem and I’m sure there are many others out there that have experienced this same problem (and with other locos besides MTL’s), but have not dug into the reason for the poor running. Or they don’t know how to disassemble a loco and hence, don’t know what the real reason their loco doesn’t run well - they just buy another loco while the old one sits in a drawer… or they bitch about MTL, or Marklin, etc, from that point on.

Also, the word “grit” is subjective to ones notion of what grit is. Are we talking dust mixed with oil, or are we talking micro-sand, or bigger ballast? Further, one piece of “grit”, let’s say a piece of Z scale ballast, won’t kill a gear. Grime, on the other hand, is usually the biggest root problem of gear wear whether it be oil mixed with metal wear or oil mixed with dust/dirt. This sticky residue, loading up in the gears and pushing them out of depth, will wear gears down well before their time. Combine this effect with larger pieces of grit and it only hastens the wear.

But if this person knows they have a “grit” problem, perhaps they need to do more frequent and more thorough cleanings. One word of caution; If a loco has run with grime in the gears for any length of time, and then the grime is cleaned out from the gears, the loco may sound noisier than it previously did. This is due to the gears now running looser after the wear, but should have no real ill effect as long as the gears are kept clean and lubricated. This is all subject, of course, to the amount of wear in the first place.

The big question is; Just where is this customers “grit” coming from, and what can he/she do to prevent it from getting into the gears if/when they are able to be replaced with new gears?

Joe

Loren none here in my fleet but I have done a fair bit on maintenance on other's loco and I think the main question is where does this grit originate from. I have found that with light oiling and continuing to run while building a layout can lead to all sorts of things. Ballast that is not bonded, dry wall compound dust mix either of these with a bit of oil and you have a pretty fatal grinding paste if not cleaned out. If the truck gears are gone then I suspect from my experience that the complete drive train is severely damaged. a complete replacement is probably what is needed.

regards Garth

garthah wrote: ...I think the main question is where does this grit originate from. I have found that with light oiling and continuing to run while building a layout can lead to all sorts of things. Ballast that is not bonded, dry wall compound dust mix either of these with a bit of oil and you have a pretty fatal grinding paste if not cleaned out...

I'm sorry, but didn't I just say all that?

Folks should not worry about their trucks going bad unless they keep filthy track and don't clean off the debris before running.

The customer admitted he ran his trains while doing lots of dirty tasks on his layout. Hind site now tells him he should not have.