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Reply to "Gearbox Grease—a slippery subject"

@swrr posted:

I agree with Pat in that I have never seen grease attack plastic.  My concern about Tacky is that it is so viscous that it may prevent adequate release of heat in a plastic gearbox cases which are sometimes found in 2-rail locomotives. The excess heat could weaken or warp the plastic.  This is an educated guess from someone with a degree in chemistry.  I may be wrong or I maybe right. Regarding lubricity, the NGLI specs maybe a guide.  

Just curious. if that's your concern and you're open to considering anecdotal evidence (because there are admittedly no facts or actual incidents of gear failure to to support your theory), why not discount that fear of plastic gear warpage based on the numerous accounts of those on this forum that have used Red and tacky for decades on our 2 and 3 rail heavily run engines  without any such effects (a simple forum search will bring them up, since this is an often discussed subject)?  This includes lots of RMT beeps, Lionel MPC era product from the 1970s and other engines that are loaded with cheap, plastic gears. In fact, here is a post by one of the best techs on this forum giving you his anecdotal take (but in his case, I get it. Its not like this john guy knows anything about trains nor has he been working on them for decades)  -

I use Red-N-Tacky for gears, hasn't failed me yet.

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Honestly, I'm not looking to pull your chain. I'm just trying to see if there is any rational basis to stop using the lube that I've been successfully using for the past 20 years for my hard run trains (along with numerous others, which also happens to be used by MTH in their Lubrication tutorial videos), particularly for engines with with plastic gears like you've flagged.  Again, I'm not trying to convince you to use one brand over any other nor am i saying that mine is better than yours, etc. In fact, use whatever works for you and don't stop. I'm just trying to get a handle on the critical  statements you've made about Red and tacky to determine if i should somehow change and use some other product or even remove it from my trains.  Fortunately, so far, I haven't seen anything to warrant that.  

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