I didn't clean the grease and oil off, just poured the toothpaste on. I made some paper sheds to cover the motors to keep the flying toothpaste from messing up my table. Use the same thing you clean your teeth with, water. I used some Dawn dish soap too. I picked a D-cell battery at first, I guess it was dead as it didn't turn the motor over so I grabbed a battery pack and hooked it up. The reason they ran for two hours was because I was in the North Atlantic in my U-boat hunting British convoys! I did reverse one gearbox for 30 minutes or so.

Perry, I'm partial to Penn Reel Lube myself.