3662 milk car help

According to this video, which compares several Lionel Milk Cars, the 3662 (starts at 1:23)  should operate rather smoothly - 

Hope you get yours running satisfactorily.

Alex

A little drop of oil on the pivot points, make sure the plunger that goes into the solenoid coil is squeaky clean. Then check the wiring to make sure nothing is shorting, draining voltage, from the coil.

Here is the 3662 Service Information

It's possible that the piston/plunger and cylinder is gummed up.  The performance of mine improved drastically when I cleaned and re-lubed this assembly.  Since I had no idea of what "molykote" is, still don't, I used white lithium grease.

Good luck.

Pete

What is your transformer? The one you are using may not have enough "reserve" power to do the job. I had a similar problem with a 3472 milk car.  After I connected my postwar ZW to the track it worked fine... 

PETE 

       MOLYKOTE is a grey powder used in the rubber manufacturing , and grease for automotive industry  it is very similar to graphite powder they both are very slippery and make one hell of mess in powder form . i worked for thirty years in the rubber manufacturing industry. techman   

Here's a WebSite page on 'MolyKote:
https://www.google.com/search?...e=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Ralph

Great video, Alex.

Ralph

Thanks for the info on Molykote, guys!  I never thought to google it, just figured it was an ancient material from postwar times.

Pete

I think folks have offered good advice.

As Pete mentioned, the problem could be in your dash pot.

Even if it looks to be nice and clean, with fresh "grease", that grease could be the problem. If too much is put in the dashpot, the dashpot will crease so much resistance that the coil won't be able to pull in the plunger. Too little, and the dashpot won't retard the mechanism.

Any chance the plunger got magnetized?  Isn't that a problem with these types of devices?

I honestly don't know, I just remember reading about magnetized plungers on some sort of device so I'm offering the above comment "just in case" there's a chance.

- walt

Any chance the plunger got magnetized?  Isn't that a problem with these types of devices?

Never heard of a problem with a magnetized plunger (as long as the trains are run on AC).

This is often brought up as the cause for sticky e-units. I've never seen it on a train that was run on A.C.

Even if the plunger became magnetized, why wouldn't the next application of A.C. power demagnetize it?

Thank you everyone for all the helpful the suggestions.

Here is where I am at right now.  I disassembled  the entire unit.  Cleaned everything with de-natured Alcohol.   Re-lubed all the pivot points with labelle 106.

I removed the groove pin and I cleaned the plunger, checked all the wiring and solder points..all that looks good and seems to be getting voltage.   I placed white lithium grease in the dashpot/cylinder with care to seal around the opening going out towards the groove pin .

For power I am using one side (variable powered) of a KW hooked up that runs (4) 022 switches and 2 remote control track sections all under separate voltage from that side of the KW.   The other side of the KW runs some accessories, #455 oil derrick, #145 gateman , 394 beacon.  These I can power off through a toggle, but the KW has always handled all this fine as it is devoted to just these accessories, the 4 switches and the 2 RC tracks alone and runs nothing else at all.  

The plunger moves by hand and seems to move pretty easily with little resistance aside from what you would expect from the springs.   

Anyway it still has the same result.   When I apply voltage I hear the coil buzz low, but it doesn't seem to want to pull the plunger/piston at all into the coil.   Once I push on the end of the plunger and push it by hand into the coil it will hold and buzzes much louder, but it just wont' draw into the coil on its own from the start point...even at 20 volt setting on the KW handle.  I'm thinking I need a new plunger coil assembly because either the coil is not activating strongly enough to draw the plunger or as Walt suggest maybe somehow the piston has become magnetized against the coil draw (not sure if this is even possible but who knows).   

thanks again.      

So I bought a new coil and piston/plunger assembly for $10 shipped.   I'll post an update when I make the switch out.  Guess I'll be heating up my soldering iron....

Thank again everyone.

Yes, it's possible to have a bad coil on those cars, you covered the bases on all other possibilities.  Looking forward to read about your, soon to be, successful repair.

May your milk cans always land right-side-up. 

Here's an update.  

I received the new coil and plunger assembly in the mail, and when I had a chance to examine it and compared it to the one I had, I realized what was wrong with my assembly.  For the 2 coil feeds,  the top one that feeds to the front truck was suppose to be grounded to the very corner of the coil bracket.  

As soon as I touch that wire to the corner of the coil frame bracket in the right spot and hit the unload button it worked correctly.   I re-soldered this wire to the coil bracket and low and behold the thing works like a charm.  I'll have to decide to keep or sell the spare assembly.  Sometimes you just  have to see the correct configuration and then play around to solve the problem.   

Anyway thanks for all the suggestions.

So have have a question for you that is a long shot but may fix your problem.  Are you using a fastrack operating track by any chance?  The newer fastrack operating tracks are garbage in my experience.  Some work well, some don't.  They don't allow the full voltage of the transformer to make it to the operating rails.  I believe the problem lies in the controller, but I'm not for sure.  Motorized operating cars work fine on them, but power hungry solenoid controlled cars such as my 3662 milk cars struggle.  I also though I had problems with one of my milk cars, but if I just set it on a different operating track it worked just fine.  On the garbage operating tracks is just buzzes and struggles to activate.  Even if you aren't using a fastrack operating track, sometimes those controllers get bad or worn out connections.  Its hard to notice it because cars with lower power requirements still work fine.

c.demille posted:

So have have a question for you that is a long shot but may fix your problem.  Are you using a fastrack operating track by any chance?  The newer fastrack operating tracks are garbage in my experience.  Some work well, some don't.  They don't allow the full voltage of the transformer to make it to the operating rails.  I believe the problem lies in the controller, but I'm not for sure.  Motorized operating cars work fine on them, but power hungry solenoid controlled cars such as my 3662 milk cars struggle.  I also though I had problems with one of my milk cars, but if I just set it on a different operating track it worked just fine.  On the garbage operating tracks is just buzzes and struggles to activate.  Even if you aren't using a fastrack operating track, sometimes those controllers get bad or worn out connections.  Its hard to notice it because cars with lower power requirements still work fine.

No I use traditional tubular UCS track with separate voltage from 1 variable side of a KW transformer that only powers my 022 switches and my operating track sections.  

As I said once I re-soldered the forward/top coil lead to the coil bracket frame, all works great.  The milk man is very snappy now at 12-14 volts from the KW.  I suppose the coil just lost its connection to the common return, so I was able fix this pretty easily once I realized the problem, and re-soldered it.   

thanks

I received the new coil and plunger assembly in the mail, and when I had a chance to examine it and compared it to the one I had, I realized what was wrong with my assembly.  For the 2 coil feeds,  the top one that feeds to the front truck was suppose to be grounded to the very corner of the coil bracket.  

Neither of wires from the coil are supposed to be grounded to the frame on a Postwar Lionel 3662 milk car. One wire goes to the each shoe and nothing else.
If grounding one of the wires to the frame makes it work properly, then the problem is in your uncoupling track or controller.

But if it's working for you now, I guess you might as well leave it alone.

I just fixed one of these yesterday. After all the text book fixes didn't work, I took 3 loops off the cone shaped return spring inside the dashpot. I did this by using fine wire to tie the three loops together as I did not want an un-reversible repair. I tied the loops in 3 places to keep it even. I tied the loops near the center of the spring as I didn't want anything rubbing inside the dash pot. Car works properly now at 12 volts.

C W Burfle posted:

I received the new coil and plunger assembly in the mail, and when I had a chance to examine it and compared it to the one I had, I realized what was wrong with my assembly.  For the 2 coil feeds,  the top one that feeds to the front truck was suppose to be grounded to the very corner of the coil bracket.  

Neither of wires from the coil are supposed to be grounded to the frame on a Postwar Lionel 3662 milk car. One wire goes to the each shoe and nothing else.
If grounding one of the wires to the frame makes it work properly, then the problem is in your uncoupling track or controller.

But if it's working for you now, I guess you might as well leave it alone.

 

I did try this car on 3 different UCS tracks pieces on my layout, all of which unload and uncouple other operating cars just fine, so I don' think its a UCS track piece or controller problem.  Any chance it could be a problem in the trucks or shoes of this particular car that was somehow preventing a proper ground?  In any event it does work fine now so maybe it's just a mysterious fluke or dirty tricks by the postwar gremlins.  I picked this car up at a small train show untested...my bad.

Now I'm second guessing my wiring but I think it must be correct...from 4 piece flat controller wire... the far left wire to the common bus, third wire from the left to the power bus wire that supplies designated power for my o22s and USCs from KW for voltage, wires 2 and 4 to the UCS track piece on posts 2 and 4.   

I have a 3662 car that had the exact same problem about a year ago; made sure there was no mechanical binding and made sure the piston was clean with a convervative application of molykote, no joy.  Determined the coil was bad so I just replaced the piston/plunger assembly from my spare parts drawer, that solved the problem.

Now I'm second guessing my wiring but I think it must be correct...from 4 piece flat controller wire... the far left wire to the common bus, third wire from the left to the power bus wire that supplies designated power for my o22s and USCs from KW for voltage, wires 2 and 4 to the UCS track piece on posts 2 and 4. 

The wiring from this perspective could be 100% correct, and the UCS might not work correctly if any of the following are true:

1 - the internal controller wiring does not match what Lionel originally did.
2 - the spacer button between the center two switch leaves on the unload side is missing
3 - the ground contact on the unload side is too far away from the third contact.

Here are the Service Manual pages on control tracks.

http://pictures.olsenstoy.com/cd/swt/stcrcs3.pdf

Thank you C. W.   I will be taking a closer look at my control tracks....thanks