[R-390] More geartrain rebuild info

[ToddRoberts2001 at aol.com]

I have had pretty good luck using a long Kerosene soak in a large plastic tub 
to clean the RF geartrain assembly.  Several days seemed long enough plus 
occasional breaks to rotate the gears and swish around in all the tight spots 
with a stiff paintbrush so that nothing gets missed. After a days soaking I would 
pour the used kerosene thru a filter and toss out the sand and dirt that 
settled to the bottom of the tub and reclean the tub before soaking another day. 
After about 4 days of this the assembly looks pretty clean and I would pull it 
out, put it on a large soft cotton towel and place it in front of a 
dehumidifier for a day or two and let the warm dry air blow over everything. After about 
2 days of this the RF assembly is bone-dry. It is amazing how dull and porous 
the metal looks after a thorough cleaning and drying. It is not a good idea 
to rotate the gears and shafts when the metal bushings/bearings are bone dry 
like this. What I have done in the past is spray everything with WD-40 and the 
metal would soak this right up and become shiny again and then individually 
lube all the bushings and gears with synthetic oil. With what I know about WD-40 
now I don't think I would do this again. What I will try next time is put the 
dry assembly in a tub with light weight Mobil One synthetic oil and let it 
soak in again for a few days and then let it drip-dry on a big cotton towel. 
Probably expensive and messy to do it this way but I think that is the best way to 
insure the synthetic oil will get a chance to penetrate in-between all the 
split gears and bushings. 73 Todd WD4NGG