Gaiety N2 - stripping and cleaning the motor

There's a lot of old grease and much around the motor and gears which needed removing. But first I removed the pony truck, which is held in place by a large rivet with a split end, closing the split allows the rivet to be removed and the pony truck just drops out;

I'll return to that later.

The motor/gearbox assembly is held in place from underneath with two brass screws which can be accessed when the wheels are removed;

The motor removed;

The motor brushes were removed for cleaning;

The two sides are held together by 10BA screws, the lower ones being countersunk;

Note the contrate gear, unusual in the model railway world.

The unit stripped and cleaned;

For cleaning I used lighter fluid and cotton buds on the whole, although the spur gear attached to the right hand side did have a squirt of Muc-Off and a rinse under the tap.

Here it is cleaned and re-assembled;

Note that there's a screw missing at the top right, above the brushes. The screw holes in the sides don't line up with the hole in the upper motor casting, I suspect that it's always been missing. Since taking the photo above I've used a 12BA screw to take the place of the missing one. I also noted that the unit has been stripped down before.

I lubricated it with clock oil, making sure to soak the felt pads, there's one hidden away at the non-brush end of the motor that can't be accessed without removing one side. I haven't removed the spur gear from the motor shaft, I believe that these can wear and can be removed, reversed and refitted, mine has little appreciable wear so I left it alone. As a rule I prefer to do as little to old motors as possible, they can be quite temperamental when disturbed. At the moment the motor is clamped into a vice and spinning away.

Whilst I was sorting the motor I cleaned the body and main chassis casting under the tap with a toothbrush and hand soap. The next job will be to sort out the driving wheels, which I fear will not be easy.

Paul.