While I was repacking some journals, a though crossed my mind. Is it a good idea to mix some STP friction modifier with the oil that you are using to lubricate the axle, brass and wedge? I know of a transmission rebuild shop where they would mix it in with the transmission oil and apply it to the parts as they reassemble the transmission. Is this a good idea? Is the STP additive compatible with journal oil?

Ed

Greetings:
I generally pour a dollup of STP or some such on the axel or bearing or on top of pad during assembly. This was SOP in preparing cars for movement during the Steamtown relocation c.1984-1986. It seemed to help (we didn't have a single hotbox on over 60 cars, many of which hadn't moved more than a few feet in years, many of the axles required heavy polishing and most of the bearings required scrapeing in).
I'm not certain that a heavy additive will wick up through the foam rubber core of a journal pad...
J.David

I also think that the thicker additives like STP would not "wick", so putting it directly on the journal would be the only way to use it. The STP would get diluted by the wick effect bring up the larger volume of jouranl oil that is down in the celler, so it will get slowly diluted and probably have less effect.

Placing the stp directly on the journal would defiinatly increase the thickness of the lubrication layer and seperate the journal from the beaaring quickly and prevent contact and thus friction and wear.

What about using one of the modern teflon containing addatives like Slick50? It shold be thin enough to "wick".

David

OT- Early STP-
I heard about an old trick one motorist used in the days of the Model T. When a bearing was going bad on the crankshaft and one of its pistons, the driver stopped at a farm. He got a slab of bacon from the farmer, wrapped the bearing surface with it and reassembled the piston as best he could. The bacon fat kept the rough joint good until his trip was finished.
O. Anderson

The end of last season we ended up having a axle bearing gaul on our streetcar #21. I ended up cleaning up the axle by jacking up the car, supporting the axle by the traction motor support bearings, running the motor with a DC arc welder as the power supply and polishing the axle with various grades of emery cloth. After that I soalked the wool waste packing in 40W motor oil and Slick 50. So far this year the journal has not given me any more problems.
Roger Mitchell
Master Mechanic
Fort Collins Municipal Railway