Bill Nielsen posted:What’s the problem with lithium lubricants and/or Teflon (I believe Labelle grease contains Teflon). Some other members posting to this thread are recommending them.
Bill in Ft
Well, the classic white lithium grease would dry out and get hard as a rock. Even the stuff that comes in '80 and '90s Lionel from the factory has the same problem. It gets down into the grooves on the worm shaft and solidifies. Anything I buy from that era gets de-greased and de-crusted before I even apply power.
With Teflon (PTFE) the problem is pore clogging. Some trains use bearings made of Oilite, a porous bronze which is charged with oil at the factory, and slowly released it over time. Basically, they are self- lubricating. But if grease gets soft and migrates down the gear shaft to the bearings it can get into the microscopic pores and stop migration of oil out of the bearing. This is something of a worry with the EP additives in Red 'n' Tacky, but Teflon grease is apparently actually designed to do this. Obviously, they don't intend for you to use it on bearings! But sometimes gears and bearings are in close proximity, so I feel better skipping the Teflon.
Dave Zucal posted:High adhesion grease is meant to be used on stuff like weather exposed front end ball joints that are slow moving but experience extreme pressure. The problem with it if packed into a gear box through the lubrication access hole, with higher RPM moving parts inside, is friction heat build up. It's not meant to be used in that type of environment. For those who do like it cause it sticks to the spinning worm gear well, I would remove the cover from the gear box, clean out all the original grease, then only apply it to the worm gear itself, leaving the box empty to help keep things cooler.
This. Since so many engines, especially old ones, do not have enclosed gear boxes, Red 'n' Tacky is ideal for exactly these reasons: think of all those steam engines with exposed gears, or all those diesels with the late-postwar / MPC type motor trucks. Or even the little idler gears hiding under the truck side frames on newer diesels. On my few engines that are built with enclosed gear boxes, the above is just what I do: put the grease where it needs to be and nowhere else.
