What a beginner should do to a slot car

[Gizmo]

So when I got the D132 Street Pursuit set I was super excited. Then, after running the set a while I was disappointed at the Mustangs performance. The car ran loud, the tires didn't grip and deslots were aplenty. We couldn't corner at speed worth anything. I knew all cars were different, which made it more "fun" (challenging), but it was simply just hard to drive. My son loves red, the Mustang was red, I thought he would "own" that car. After he tried it a few times he had no interest in running that car and only wanted to use the yellow Ferrari that ran smooth as butter out of the box.

So, what to do... I read online and took the advice of almost everyone. I trued the tires with sandpaper which, of course, gave more grip, but the car would stutter around the corner at higher speeds instead of deslotting. I thought it was simply just the fact that the guide post couldn't rotate as much as the newer models and dealt with it.

From reading I knew I should also oil and grease it up, but had to wait for the items to come in the mail to give that a go. Well, low and behold they arrived today. I added grease to the motor and oil to the rear axle bearing and BAM!, the car was nearly outperforming the Ferrari. It runs quieter, smoother and no stuttering around corners. A true contender for my humble little track at last.



So why doesn't the set include these handy little items? Who knows, but being a beginner, I feel every beginner should do those 3 things. True the tires, grease the gears and oil the bearings.

Yeeehaaaww! Happy Racing...

[boopiejones]

of all the brands i have, carrera seems to respond best to lubrication. or maybe i should say that carrera responds worst to lack of lubrication.

i have a porsche 997 that i absolutely hated until i added a good dose of lube to the front bushings. i've never seen well lubricated front bushings make such a big difference in a car's handling and accelleration.

[racek]

Definitely! This should get added into a "new to Carrera, read here" sticky thread...

The one other bit of truing is for axle alignment with the tires themselves (eyeball them as they rotate - and are they wobbly?) which was the big issue for my two cars out of the box.

EDIT: Just had a thought - something else that should be done: check the wires for solid connectivity at plug and crimp points for power and headlights.

[DaveKennedy]

Lubrication is a basic for most every brand. A dry slot car is a slow slot car... and a slot car that's going to fail very quickly. I'll stick this to the top of the forum.

[howdy]

do you need special oil and grease for this? so oil on the front and rear axles where they connect to the wheel? and grease on the gearcase? grease in where the motor turns? thanks.

[boopiejones]

whatever you use, make sure it is plastic safe. there are many slot car specific brands and any of the advertisers here should carry lubricants.

i used to use BSRT oil. BSRT is an HO scale company but their oil works fine on 1/32 as well. i more recently bought some slot car corner lubricant. it is much thicker than the BSRT. they both work well.

for grease, i have both parma and slot car corner. they both come in a syringe applicator and seem very similar.

i oil where the axles go through the bushings, a small drop (about the size of a pin head) on each side of the bushing. many cars don't have bushings in the front, so in those cases i just place oil wherever the axle comes into contact with the chassis.

for grease, i turn the rear axle by hand and run a thin layer of grease on the teeth of the pinion gear.

some people also oil the motor bushings, but personally i think it is a bad idea. if any oil gets in the motor and onto the comm, it will kill the performance of the motor until the oil is burned off. if you do oil the motor bushings, do so EXTREMELY sparingly.

[Gizmo]

I got my grease and oil from HotSlots132.com. It's their plastic safe generic brand, since I didn't know any better.

I applied the grease to the area with the blue arrow (see above photo) and oil to where the red arrows are pointing. I didn't oil the motor or front wheel bushings.

[DrumPhil]

HotSlots132 has a nice basic maintenance kit (under $14) with the appropriate grease, oil, and screwdriver for the slot newbie. I ordered one with my first slot track set. I imagine the other CSI advertising retailers offer similar kits.

[tredelijkheid]

Any ideas of getting such a maintenance set in Europe?

Guys,

Great idea - I own 4 DTM 132 cars with lots of performance differences.

It does not really make sense to order something so small ad cheap from the US.
Any European/Dutch readers who know resellers in Europe?

thanks,

Theo.

[markc2]

This is great information !!

How often should you grease and oil the cars in the spots that Gizmo described?

Thanks

Mark

[tredelijkheid]

Certainly a good idea and got to work last evening.

A question for you guys: do you fully remove the components like the axles?
I had to use quite some force to get them out and the only way to get them out was to remove the tires. My cars are Audi's and Mercedes for the DTM theme.

Or do you just lube with everything in place?

Thanks,

theo.

[racek]

Certainly a good idea and got to work last evening.

A question for you guys: do you fully remove the components like the axles?
I had to use quite some force to get them out and the only way to get them out was to remove the tires. My cars are Audi's and Mercedes for the DTM theme.

Or do you just lube with everything in place?

Thanks,

theo.

I did not remove the axles

[DaveKennedy]

You lube everything in place, there's no need to remove them to lube them.

[HMF]

What "off the shelf" lubricant can I buy, as there is not a slot car dealer close? I assume gun oil, and WD-40 are off the list. How about silicone?

[JTAUTO]

oil

I am still a newbie...but I have used synthetic gun oil(safe on plastics)...wd40, deep creep by sea foam, various RC oils and lubes. If I understand it correctly, and I may not..you just do not want to use an oil that will break down plastics or harm electronics. So far I have had the best luck with Seafoam DeepCreep. I have compared with wd40, and have had better results and GOOD results with it. Just a newbies 2 cents worth. Thanks for letting me have it!! If I am doing it wrong please some one yell at me!!