Motor cleaning

Battery leakage implies at least some corrosion, so hydrocarbon solvent alone seems unlikely to help by itself. I've used heated Pine-Sol Original to clean carbs at full strength, but it's fairly aggressive toward brass, which comes out pink. Zinc plating is removed in a few hours, die cast carb bodies came out undamaged. Best find a sacrificial motor to experiment with first. Stoddard solvent didn't hurt electric motors in typewriters and adding machines. The office equipment shop I worked in as a kid used a dishwaher- like contraption filled with Stoddard solvent and a cleaner called Lix that didn't hurt the motors, softened the rubber rollers and readily washed out the eraser rubber and WD-40 residue that gummed up typewriters.

Metals came out shiny, painted surfaces didn't seem to suffer much, if at all. We weren't dealing with corrosion.

The only reference to Lix I could find was this:

Good luck,

bob prohaska

Ultrasonic cleaners work through cavitation, which uses the energy from imploding bubbles to break up dirt and your sooty mess. What want is soap and *HOT* water. I use Dawn Ultra or Dawn Platinum dishwashing soap in my 3 liter ultrasonic bath tub. I sometimes use solvents, but only if I'm certain there are no plastic, rubber or painted parts involved.

I've also seen a few too many underpowered ultrasonic cleaners. Do the aluminum foil test before blundering forward: "How to Test an Ultrasonic Cleaner"

Good luck.

On Sat, 05 Oct 2024 16:29:34 -0700, Jeff Liebermann snipped-for-privacy@cruzio.com wrote: (...)

One more thought. If the motor uses ball or roller bearing, and you've given the bearings a solvent bath, you will probably need to repack them with grease. If they're sealed bearing, you'll soon need to replace them. Please don't ask me how I know about this.

Thanks for the suggestions, the good news is the small amount of serious corrosion seemed to miss the important bits and largely end up on the internal frame of the choo-choo where it's not so visible, and evapo-rust has done a pretty good job of removing the worst of it.

The rest of the guts of the locomotive seem undamaged except for a thin coating of carbon soot on everything.

The battery is for the horn circuit and it even says on the bottom to remove when not in use, sheesh!

Thanks, I picked up a surplus Branson 1200 similar to this one:

The heater seems on the fritz but I had heard of the ultrasound test and it shotguns foil very well after a few minutes in the bath. I figure the heater is probably an easier fix but I haven't had time to peek inside.

I put some of the non-electrical parts inside a ziplock baggie filled with Simple Green and then submerged that in the water bath and that seemed to work great with the purely mechanical bits and it cleaned them up real well, but I had concerns about putting the rotor and stator in the same way.

So long as I let them dry out thoroughly maybe not so bad? I'll probably want to pull the carbon "brushes" on the commutator first, though.

For re-lubing gears I use "Red & Tacky" from Autozone, for toy parts one $10 tube of the stuff should probably be good for a long time

Thanks for getting back, yeah, the varnish/enamel on the windings concerns me a bit so I don't want to use anything too aggressive.

It depends what the winding warnish is.

You know that ultrasonic works by micro-cavitation so you're exposing your motor to micro-doses of superheated solvent, right?

I'm guessing you actually mean manganese dioxide and not soot. so you're trying to clean the chemical spill?

water is probably a good start,

Ok. evaporust is aqueous citric acid and a chelating agent, that will have dealt to the ammoinium chloride spill, and the resulting corrosion.

If it's graphite it is not doing any harm, wipe it off or leave it, but I suspect it may actually be manganese dioxide... which I think is fairly harmless.

Engine de-greaser is kerosene in a spray pack. that should be safe. brake cleaner is a more voltatile solvent but ptobably fine too. there will be somethign from electro-lube also.

Replace with rectifier and super capacitor? they may be a kit available already.

Thanks for those links! Ed

Footnote: If it has bearings, do NOT put it in a strong ultrasonic bath. You may end up with welded together bearings...I've had it happen.