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From: <bp@www.zefox.net>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Motor cleaning
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2024 22:04:28 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
> sci.electronics.repair seems dead so I'll ask here:
> 
> Is there a solvent that's OK to dunk the whole rotor and stator of an 
> e.g. Lionel universal motor in to clean it up? Like say fill a bag with 
> the solvent and parts and then toss it in an ultrasonic bath. Would 
> something like anhydrous isopropyl be appropriate?
> 
> The disintegration of a nearby carbon-zinc battery has made this 
> assembly a sooty mess. 8-(

Battery leakage implies at least some corrosion, so hydrocarbon solvent alone 
seems unlikely to help by itself. I've used heated Pine-Sol Original to clean
carbs at full strength, but it's fairly aggressive toward brass, which comes
out pink. Zinc plating is removed in a few hours, die cast carb bodies came
out undamaged. Best find a sacrificial motor to experiment with first. 
   
Stoddard solvent didn't hurt electric motors in typewriters and adding 
machines. The office equipment shop I worked in as a kid used a dishwaher-
like contraption filled with  Stoddard solvent and a cleaner called Lix
that didn't hurt the motors, softened the rubber rollers and readily 
washed out the eraser rubber and WD-40 residue that gummed up typewriters. 

Metals came out shiny, painted surfaces didn't seem to suffer much, if at 
all. We weren't dealing with corrosion. 

The only reference to Lix I could find was this:
https://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/cmisc_lix.htm
The thread dates from 1997, so I don't hold out a lot of hope.
The thread claims motors had to be taken out, but we never did
it and I never saw one damaged out of a hundred or so machines.

Good luck,

bob prohaska