Maintenance

Original LGB locos and cars are usually aging gracefully and are made to last a very long time. These tips  may help to keep your LGB trains running and avoid mishaps or damage to your treasures.

A Note About Wear and Tear: to fight wear and tear on mechanical components regularly calls for grease. Grease is needed within the motor block starting from the worm gear of the motor through an intermediate gear if present down to the plastic driving gear wheel on the axle. Few people are aware of the fact that metal loco wheels and power shoes need to be greased as well. Putting some lubrication on the tracks will double the life expectancy of loco wheels and power shoes instantly. Once the nickel plating on the wheels is gone the rest of the brass wheel will disappear even faster. So do yourself a big favor and add a little grease  e.g. "W D 40", on to the track. Klaus recommends to spray about one (1) foot of the track about every 150 feet once a week. The wheels of the train will carry the lubricant around the layout.

Watch out for:
Over the years Klaus received quite a number of locos for repair due to faulty mechanics work. To help maintain the value of your LGB loco watch out for these:
 

avoid household glue to "re-place" broken parts
 

check on easy signs for faulty wiring like flimmering lights after repair
 

experiencing a short in your loco right or shortly after repair
 

rattling noises coming from inside the loco
 

Please call before shipping an LGB engine to Klaus. It is best to use the original LGB box the loco came in. But you still have to ensure that the LGB loco CANNOT move at all neither within the box nor inside the package the box is transported in. To pack properly, please call Klaus upfront to re- confirm proper way of packaging. Even slightly loose locos inside the original Styrofoam box can be heavily damaged during shipping/transport. Klaus offers professional specialty packaging which ensures very safe shipping.
 

For further information and advice call Klaus at 770-886-6670 or email at klaus@traincraftbyklaus.com 

When you give your LGB loco to a repair shop in your neighborhood watch out for poor performance  manifesting itself in these possible details

• Scratches on your loco that were not there before you had it repaired 
• Parts are missing that were there before (like handrails, flag poles, lenses, bell, truck springs etc)
• Parts are broken, heavily scratched or dented ( like connecting rods, cow catcher, steam boiler etc)
• Screws from your loco were "replaced" with other screws: on older LGB locos all screws were "silver" colored. If you find black ones instead, yep, you guessed it right....
• After repair your steam loco does not operate smoothly (as in connecting rods are out of sync) because the gear box was not re-assembled correctly.
• Electronic components were glued in with a hot-gun. These glued-on components will come loose and fall into the loco, causing even more damage or stop the loco from operating.
• Glued-on components with the wrong glue will hold their place but if the component fails in the future can not be taken out, because the glue will not allow for that unless massive damage is done to the loco body.
• Hot glue or household glue used in repairing your loco will always lead to damage and decreases the value of your loco when not properly and professionally removed.
• Decoders are not (properly) mounted ! Mounted as on a support plate or similar..... !
  (might not matter as long as the decoder works, but upon replacing the decoder the trouble starts-- again...).
• When driving decoders are replaced they are replaced with undersized decoders. They will operate the loco at first but then sooner than later fail because they cannot handle the applied load.
   

 About soldering:
bad/cold solder joints will sooner or later influence conductivity (of power) or result in loose contact

bare (= non-insulated )wire-to-wire solder joints may cause short circuits
 

soldering leftovers from scruffy work may lead to short circuits
 

About wiring:
wrong cables are connected resulting e.g. in no light
 

cables/wires are not cut to proper length, then stuffed into the loco body. Tangled wires then may cause further damage
 

wires/cables are used that are too thin for the job. They will eventually either fail by either breaking or frying, causing more damage in the process.
 

wires/cables  are cut, crushed or squeezed when the loco is being put together again after repair and will lead to poor operation or short circuits.
 

For questions about your LGB loco call Klaus at 770-886-6670 or email to klaus@traincraftbyklaus.com