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Gearbox grease

S

Shaven Wookiee

Registered
10 Years
Joined
Jul 23, 2011
Messages
55
I have a new motor to fit to my ToM trunk and have removed and opened up the gearbox. It is full of dark/black grease/gunk which I am keen to clean up and replace. Does anyone know if there is an ideal way to remove the existing grease and what type of grease I should buy to replace it with? I've owned pins for years now but this is the first time I've ever needed to replace a motor so any advice appreciated. Cheers, Andy
 
I'm not sure on how to remove the old grease you prob will just have to wipe off as much as poss ,grease wise you can get high velocity grease for machinery that is designed for moving parts,car parts places sell it but don't put too much on or t will attract dirt
 
Hi David



Thanks for the pointers. I will pop into our local Halfords and see what I can pick up. I have purchased a gear puller which I am looking foward to trying out.



Cheers, Andy
 
Why do you want to change it ? If I where you I would just leave well alone.
 
I had to open the gearbox up to gain access to the motor. The instructions I was following stated you needed to be really careful not to dislodge gears. I kinda blew that as three of them fell out :confused:. The amount of crap surrounding each one was staggering - I couldn't seven see the grooves on each wheel, let alone know where to put them back. Seemed a good time to clean them up, replace the motor, grease them back up and (fingers crossed) get it working again. Halfords had high velocity but it was too heavy. I have since found an old story on pinballnews and a guy who repairs/makes the gearboxes recommends one called magnalube. Not sure what the missus will think if she sees the google search! It doesn't look freely available though so I am going to pop into Makro to see if they have a better choice there.
 
Great that you found some Paul - thanks for posting. To get the smallest tube (£6.10) will cost £21.66 to have it delivered! Next day delivery at 11.95 and then VAT on both of £3.61. I thought my pinball parts from the US cost alot..>! I have googled the Teflon Grease and there seems to be loads of alternatives which I will get instead. Guessing they are similar/the same.
 
If they don't mind personal pick up, I could nip over and buy some for you maybe next week. I can then try to get it to you for a lot cheaper.
 
Thanks for the offer Calimori, but I have since found a really good supplier who have a wide variety of greases (even a gears specific one) and the postage is £1.25. Order placed, now I just have to hope it all goes back together and the trunk spins better than it did before. Here is the site:

http://www.align-trex.co.uk/glues-greases-c-112.html

Cheers, Andy
 
I should have thought about RC Hellies, there is always another hobby that might have a cheaper way of doing it.
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May be just me, but when ever i have thought ah must replace the drty looking horrible old greese, its bound to run smoother with new etc - it never bloody does. If it aint broke leave it alone :) Most recent was a faulting drawbridge motor. After taking it part, degreasing, cleaning and then regreasing with teflon greese, its as noisy as hell and still faulting!



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jb
 
Finally...the trunk is sorted. I just wanted to post an update to help any others with future trunk woes. The main things I discovered are you need the right motor (Kimballs.com had four left when I ordered), the right tools (a gear puller to get the pinion off of the old motor - i got mine on ebay, but ended up getting 2 as the first was too small. You need the regular size, not the micro...). The next tricky bit was getting the pinion onto the new motor. A vice appeared to be the favoured way, but without one, I used a small clamp and the socket from a socket set. It worked a treat as it allowed equal pressure to be applied and the pinion could be pushed onto the motor shaft. Finally, align.trex have all the speciality greases a pinhead will ever need. I used SuperLube (
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) Synthetic Grease and it sounds good.



With this done, the trunk span, finally at a decent pace and was working well. I then discovered a problem which took an age to find the solution for (but I did!). Every time the trunk was hit on the corner, there would be about half an inch give. This slack, or 'slop' in the gearbox could cause the ball to get stuck on the right side of the trunk. It was also annoying as I knew it shouldn't have any give.



Anyway, the solution involved removing the gearbox again (by this time, I didn't care...) and using a small/round screwdriver bit to tighten collar on the gearbox shaft. The round screwbit is pretty small and mine snapped off in the hole - but luckily it'd tightend first, so if you do ever have to do this, go careful!



Cheers, Andy
 
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