TRACK CLEANING & MAINTENANCE

A very quick check to make sure your car is working before looking elsewhere, is to put a 9V battery (the square one) across the pickups of your car. The motor should spin over freely and quite fast. If the motor does not spin freely, this needs addressing first. If alls OK, time to look at the track.

MY CAR RUNS UP WHEN I HOLD IT ON THE TRACK BUT WONT GO ALONG IT OR RUNS VERY JERKY?  Track when new or second hand can get a thin film on the rails and this will cause the cars to not move at all or to run along the track in a very jerky motion. You should clean the track rails with an abrasive rubber or by placing a light rubbing paper like Wet 'n' Dry around an old cassette case and rubbing it along the rails lightly until you can see them shinning again. If track is used on a regular basis this will not have to be done. Remember to Hoover the track guide out on completion of cleaning as any grit or debris will find its way into your cars. Run an old car around the track a few times before racing and this will make sure rails are clean and it will also pickup any debris you might of missed.

I HAVE CLEANED MY TRACK, CONNECTIONS ARE GOOD BUT CARS STILL WONT GO? The first thing we have to do here is to make sure that the car is not the problem. Are all the parts in place, ie. pickups, springs and gears. Are the pickups nice and clean, does everything turn freely when the rear wheels are twisted. Have we checked the car with our 9V battery? Tyres rubbing against the chassis will stop the motor from turning. If the small pinion gear located at the back of the motor is badly worn it wont drive the rear axle and car will not move. (you should be able to hear motor spinning if this occurs) Try another car, it's very rare that all your cars will stop working at the same time.

I HAVE DONE BOTH THE ABOVE SUGGESTIONS BUT MY CARS STILL WONT GO. Well now we need to check that we have got power to the track. There are three components that can cause loss of power, the power pack, the hand controllers and the terminal track. Out of the three the most common is the hand controller and its wiring. In the excitement of the race children have a habit of tugging on the hand controllers causing the wires to break in the orange connector or in the handle. Also the spring can break in the handle or the resistor can just fail with age. Put a car on the track and try both hand controllers on that one lane, still wont go, put car on other lane and try both hand controllers again. This should indicate whether you have a problem with the lane or with one hand controller. If one lane works OK with both hand controllers, we know we have power to the track so it would more than likely be a faulty terminal track. This is easily checked with our trusty 9V battery. Put a car on the lane that is giving problems, put the 9V battery across the track rails, the car should move slowly. If you still have a problem then the power pack is next port of call. This will generally just fail, sending no power to the track. The Power pack gives out between 12-18 volts at the orange connector. This can be checked with a volt meter if you have one. (We would only recommend you do this if you are suitably qualified, electricity can kill.)  If any of the three components do prove to be faulty, you will have to replace them as repair is not possible as they are sealed units.