Beetle Box Woes

[mosiac]

Got an old MB chassis given to me and got the bits and pieces needed to get it going, put it all together and installed radio gear, admired my handiwork while battery charged up, turned it on, took off, click,click,click click,click,click,click click. Figured it can't do much harm and finished the pack as it was so good just to see it in action. Stripped it down and the minor gear on spur has lost a tooth, question is how do I clean 15-20 years worth of grease and gunk off the other gears before re-assembling?

Cheers in advance for all advice.

[Mad Ax]

WD40 is very good at breaking down grease and should be safe on plastic and metal gears alike. Just give everything a good spray, work at it with a nailbrush or old toothbrush to get all the grime out, then rinse it in hot water.

Small amounts of washing up liquid will be fine on plastic gears as long as they're not left to soak too long. I cleaned my original Grasshopper gearbox out with washing up liquid and hot water but there was some grimy residue left behind in the gear cases that the liquid couldn't bread down.

Don't be tempted to use strong degreasers like Mr. Muscle as they could dissolve or deform plastic gears or make them brittle. Similarly it could damage alloy pinions and mild steel components. I would also avoid degreasers sold for car engine bays for the same reason.

If all else is unavailable, diesel is actually a good degreaser. Just use it outside and wear rubber gloves 'cos you can never get rid of the smell DON'T use petrol - it degreases well but has an unnerving tendency to catch fire very easily it may also damage plastic parts.

All this advice comes free of warranty of any kind. Please don't blame me if you set fire to yourself or melt your gears

[billg4]

simple green works wonders