Best way to refurbish classic track?

[WRCRally_Fan]

Hi.... Any ideas how to repair the 'contacts / pins' on the ends of classic 70's track please? Bought some off EBay and have a few with damaged contacts. Was thinking of solder and then shaping them? - thanks in advance for any ideas / thoughts

[Andy P.]

If the pins are completely broken off, i.e. there is no "male" part to go into the "female" parts you can try to solder some metal to make a connection or use a wire to connect the rails together underneath.

Look at the bottom of the 4-way intersection to see how things can be soldered:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Given the prices of decent Sport track though unless the piece is exclusive to Classic, like the Goodwood chicane and pitlane or the tight R2 curve I would not go through the hassle as any track that has the pins broken is likely to be in such bad condition that it will take you hours getting it back into an operational state.

The only other reason is you prefer the surface of the Classic track.

What I did with the Classic track I did not want to aprt with (after spending about 12 hours over 3 days trying all methods from the rubber railway cleaner to the "cola" method and having the track still not work well...) is I covered in in copper tape with conductive adhesive. (Easily found on online auction sites). I was lucky in that the plastic pin was still on the the "male" section and I wrapped the tape around that. On the "female" side I made sure 2-3 mm of the tape went inside so that when the track is put together you get a copper to copper connection.

The tape on the female side might be extremely taught but not so much that it rips.

Other cleaning tips can be found here.

[WRCRally_Fan]

Ok - thanks for the reply - will give it a try

[Andy P.]

😎