Ever pull a new car out of the box, run it hard by holding the rear wheels up, and rev that motor up to hear it sing? I really never had anyone say - "don't do that" in the 1/32 crowd. But I have been told not to do that many times in the 16D/Group 12 crowd. And so now I will apply the advice to 1/32 motors as well. These days I am using a commonly published procedure according to OWH's Monty Ohren of Best of the West Slot Cars. I have tried deviations of fluids and durations, mostly ruining a dozen or so motors in the process. It might seem extreme, but it has been done for a long time and is sort of under the radar in 1/32.

    The bench set-up takes a little prep to be ready for it on a regular basis. You need a spot to power the motor and control the speed to the lower 1/4-1/3 range of maximum - that's about 3-4 volts give or take a volt or two. Here's my bench rig.

    This example is for the SCX 42B. Some care is needed to pry the front of the motor out of the motor pod. It does take quite a bit of pressure to do so. I have heard a story or two about damaging the pod when doing this, but I have done it at least 100 times without a failure.



    It is a simple task, at least for me, to solder on a good length of wire to the motor terminals, roughly 18 inches. You just gotta resist running the motor, it is very tempting.


    Now in a glass of cold water, submerge that dude and run it for about 60 seconds at 3-5 volts. I don't get fancy here, my controller is hooked up on this test rig and I just run it at low speed. If you run it longer, you begin to "use" the brushes without benefit and possibly damage the commutator. This run grinds the brushes in to seat perfectly with the comm and shines it up as well. When the water settles after 10 minutes or so, you'll see tiny gold flakes on the bottom of the glass. Now if I had run this motor up to top end without doing this first, the extreme heat would groove/scar the comm and top performance is lost for good. At this point, no . . . do not run that motor up. Not yet.

    The water needs removed and so do the remaining flakes and brush dust particles. Alcohol dunking does the trick. Here's one of my son's shot glasses that let's me get the alcohol dunk done without wasting a lot of isopropyl. Man, I use a lot of it for this hobby. Get the whole motor submerged, especially the comm; and then run it for 30 seconds or less at the very low end. Out of the glass and then pat it dry. Spin by hand and help the inside to dry out. 15 minutes or so and the rest of the alcohol will evaporate. If you are in a hurry, compressed air will dry it in a few seconds. The answer is still no! Resist running it up.


    The next thing to do is to oil the bushing. You can be sloppy back near on the output end. Be very careful on the comm end bushing - just a dot. This needs done as a regular race prep too.
    The final prep is to glaze the comm with lighter fluid. I would have said naptha, but I'll save you the Google time. For this, run the motor at very low speed and douse the comm with several drops after the motor is running. Else, the dang thing will flame up and the glaze is not quite as nice. Keep it running on low for 30 seconds or even a little longer.


    Now that's all the temptation that I can resist. I run that sucker up to full throttle and see what I have. The most serious guys will laugh at that- they'll never run one up until race warm-ups. And then only on the track, never unloaded on the bench. But I do. I like it! Then I run it up some more. image You can really annoy everyone in the house with this, expecially with 100,000 rpm motors. It's a blast!