British HO Scale Project 4 - Lima 4F 1970s Steam Locomotive - Restoration and Makeover  

Cheer Paul. Years of losing brushes and springs made breaking down a pancake motor (just to clean them) the last option for me. The submerging in jewellery cleaner was first developed in the 1970s by N Scale modellers. It really does work and will even remove corroded copper from contact shoes and windings. I have sucessfully used this method on Tyco, Bachmann, Mantua, Hornby, Lima, Lifelike, Marklin and Fleischmann motor bogies without any damage to the metal or plastic parts. The addition of Neo magnets (to old existing magnets) is something I came up with myself and there is a video on my channel about it. You just put them on either side - the polarity is the same - and this is what holds them on. The magnetic field is then greatly strenghtened beyond that of the original motor magnets adding greatly to the torque. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fyJ21PycCcU.html

Hi, I watched our German friends submerging their Marklin motors and even complete chassis in cleaning fluid some years ago. I use a track cleaning fluid called SR24 Modellbahnoll and have run my Mehano motors in it with great results. These are now mostly replaced with Piko 5 pole motors which has transformed the running. I do like to strip my Lima motors and clean them by hand "got loads of springs and brushes now", but am slowly fitting 12v CD motors in my Locos. Its still a good idea using Neo magnets, I have some 5 x 10mm left over from my magnetic uncoupling system I made so will try them on the 2 remaining Lima Diesels stiil with their ringfield motors. I like to see what other modellers are doing to keep their old Locos running, I find it usefull and have learnt a few tricks over the years. Cheers, Paul.

It is like remagnetizing without having to remove them or paying the expense of a remagnetizing machine which are not cheap and you might only use it a few times a year.

Yes they are

They were totally underappriciated back in the day, but boy have they stood the test of time while so many expensive Chinese models have rotted away from Zinc Pest.