Final Thread About this, I Promise!

did you find a suitable tender yet?

Please keep posting about your adventures!

I could read stories like this about 'saving' models all day. Sure beats the 'electronics are gonna fail' and 'postwar never dies' and 'the new stuff is going to crumble into oblivion' threads...

I wish you could post some pics of the locomotive

grp24 posted:

Please keep posting about your adventures!

I could read stories like this about 'saving' models all day. Sure beats the 'electronics are gonna fail' and 'postwar never dies' and 'the new stuff is going to crumble into oblivion' threads...

you got that right Greg!!!......after the little train show this weekend Im gonna sit down and watch my trains crumble!!

harmonyards posted:

did you find a suitable tender yet?

Not yet...there's a train show coming up on December first that I can attend; chances are slim that I'll find one there, but I'm hoping... 

Mark in Oregon 

prrhorseshoecurve posted:

I wish you could post some pics of the locomotive

I think I did in another thread, but here are some; not great photos, but you get the idea:

Here it is next to my post war #1666, just to show the difference in "scale":

Looking at these now, I think you can see that a valve gear arm on both sides was slightly bent inward: this didn't adversely effect the running, and because the metal is fairly "soft" I was able to straighten them out.

I'm sure you guys are used to this level of detail, but this is my first modern full size Lionel, and I am (still) blown away by how beautiful this is. I would dare say this rivals some of the brass HO scale engines I've had in the past. I've always liked the "fat" look of  Pennsy inspired steam engines, so obtaining this as my first was an added bonus.

Because this is also my first time working with an engine that has a DC motor, but was designed to run on AC (and because I don't know much about electronics!), I wasn't sure that anything other than the motor and headlight would work if I gutted this and started over. As it turns out, the little lamp that illuminates the fire box works (I simply re-installed the circuit board and ran some wires from it to the hot and ground connections), as does the smoke unit, although you all were right, it doesn't smoke as much as one might like. If I were to replace the 27 ohm resistor with one of a lessor value, would it smoke more?

Anyway, there you are. 

Mark in Oregon

PS: I should add here that the service I received from Lionel when I ordered some replacement parts was very good. 

great looker...was it on the bay?

Yes.

I have to rely on that source, since I live in an area where swap meets are few and far between. And yes thanks, it is a "great looker". 

Mark in Oregon

I was watching that...I thought about pulling the trigger but these new fangled electronic trains make me wary. Sounds like you're doing a great job.

Thank you Dave.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I really hated to "gut" the thing, but I figured I'm never going to go the "TMCC" route, and it just wouldn't run (hardly at all) on conventional AC, so why not see how it goes on DC?

One the one hand, I'm glad I did, because now it runs as good as it looks; on the other, it seemed such a waste to dump all those fancy electronics. Someone posted on another thread that it would be really cool if these type of engines were offered in both "plain" and "upgraded" versions. For those of us who aren't interested in all the extras, these beautiful (but expensive) models would then be available to run more or less like our "typical" Lionel post war. Oh well...in the meantime, the hunt for a suitable tender continues. 

Mark in Oregon

I gutted a TMCC model, and a fellow forumite gave me a hundred bucks for the circuit boards, smoke unit, and flywheel.

Think of that - a gorgeous H10 for negative sixty bucks!  Why not just order the tender shell and trucks from Lionel?  If you decide not to do that, there are lots of CLW and Saginaw tenders out there, many without locomotives.  I would trade one in a heartbeat for one of those Lionel scale Hudson Centipede tender bodies.

Hello BOB2

Unfortunately, Lionel does not have the shell in stock; trucks yes, tender no.

I'm sure something will become available someday; I haven't written off other brands, since I technically don't need the tender to be Lionel per se...

Mark in Oregon (that would be the state just to the north of you...) 

Email me about a shell.   I have a scale shell from a Lionel ten wheeler and some tender trucks . 

I am not home until Monday.

jdevleerjr at gmail.com

Jdevleerjr posted:

Email me about a shell.   I have a scale shell from a Lionel ten wheeler and some tender trucks . 

I am not home until Monday.

jdevleerjr at gmail.com

Thank you, I will! 

Mark in Oregon

Steamer posted:

I was watching that...I thought about pulling the trigger but these new fangled electronic trains make me wary. Sounds like you're doing a great job.

They are no longer "new fangled"; now they are, I suppose, merely "fangled", and on the way to becoming "old hat". 

Funny about "progress": I have TMCC and a bit of DCS; I do the modern stuff, almost entirely. Very comfortable with it. I do upgrades. The new-fangled is mostly reliable and long-lived - and so much better-looking and better-running than the old stuff.  

But I do not have an iPhone, nor have I ever even held one in my hand. My little cell phone is turned off 99% of the time, and I consider it mainly an emergency phone when I'm driving. Phone-wise, I'm at the mechanical e-unit level.

  All you need is a $2 bridge rectifier or diode(s) to make that work on ac or dc but one direction only & you'll lose about 1.5v off full throttle, or .7v if it likes half wave dc pulses off 1 diode. 

  It frees up the Heathkit again and can put your favorite ac thottle or running it anywhere, back in play without the board complications. Overrate a general purpose diode or Bridge Rectifier and the diode will be cooler. It is a very common and stable electronic part used in most electronic today. I often just wait till thurday pull them out of curbside electronics. There is always something  laying around, lol

Okay, one last thing:

With the new batting and resistor, the smoke feature is "working"; however, the smoke seems to be more of a "drifting" action, as opposed to being pushed up the stack.

I've had it apart a couple of times. Everything seems to be in the proper place: the felt gasket around the inside opening of the stack, the opening inside the unit itself is clear of batting and debris, the arm and associated mechanism appears to be functioning ok. Yet as I say, the smoke just kind of drifts up and out; seems it should be pushed up and out, like my other smokers. As it is now, the stack is full of smoke, but it's not being forced out properly. This issue happens both on the track and on the bench with the body removed.

Is there an additional seal that I may have removed (and lost) when I first had this apart? I've checked the parts diagram, and there doesn't seem to be anything missing. I can't imagine there having been any kind of adhesive-type sealant, as the metal bowl gets too warm for that...

Just think, if you guys can talk me through all this stuff, I'll never have to bother you again! 

Mark in (warm) Oregon

is the smoke piston moving up and down?

couple things to look at, make sure the piston moves up and down in the cylinder, if its not, make sure the spring is on top of piston, if it still gets jammed, you will have to tweek the position of the smoke unit in relation to the piston movement (and still be able to put the shell back over the smoke unit) if all that is good and the piston moves nicely, you may have inadvertently covered up the air hole with wick material. The piston doesn't make that much force to push air through a bunch of oil soaked wick.

harmonyards posted:

couple things to look at, make sure the piston moves up and down in the cylinder, if its not, make sure the spring is on top of piston, if it still gets jammed, you will have to tweek the position of the smoke unit in relation to the piston movement (and still be able to put the shell back over the smoke unit) if all that is good and the piston moves nicely, you may have inadvertently covered up the air hole with wick material. The piston doesn't make that much force to push air through a bunch of oil soaked wick.

When I had the top of the smoke unit off, I took a toothpick and (gently) checked to make sure the plunger was not stuck; it sprung back up each time, so I'm assuming that's ok. I also made sure the air hole was clear of wick material, as I mentioned above.

So everything seems to check out; that's why I wondered if I'd somehow broke a seal or something. In the meantime, it still runs really well, so there is that.... 

Mark in Oregon

not sure what you mean that the plunger sprung back up......when the arm it at rest off the cam lobe, the piston should be at its bottom most travel. the spring on top of the smoke piston should keep the piston wanting to go down. when the arm is at its lowest point, you should be able to push the piston up with your toothpick and it should want to go back down and rest on the arm. this is a very simple system. there really is no need to seal the lid of the smoke chamber as the plastic lid should create enough of a seal to get a puff. Only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is if the resistor leads that go into and out of the lid are somehow interrupting the puff. 

Thanks for hanging with me on this. I guess I thought if I ran a toothpick down into the air hole, and contacted the plunger, and it sprung back up, that would mean everything there is AOK: Now I'm not sure. I thought the spring was beneath the plunger; you tell me that the spring is on top, which makes more sense.

I don't believe the resistor leads are interfering with anything; at least from what I can see. The only other thing I do see is that when I cut the original lead from the resistor to the hot wire, that wire runs under a micro switch that I guess was part of the electronic circuitry and is still there. I haven't been able to remove that now useless wire, and I can't imagine that wire causing any issues, right? Plus, it seems this is more of a mechanical problem, not electrical... 

It looks to me like in order to pull the entire smoke unit, the cylinders would have to be dropped down, so that the smoke unit mounting screws can be accessed: if that's the case, that's something I'm not prepared to tackle, so I may have to just live with it as it is...

Mark in Oregon

POSTSCRIPT:

I took this thing apart yet one more time, and discovered that the plunger "bell" was stuck in the "up" position; I'm guessing a while back I must have over-filled the smoke unit, and enough fluid seeped down into that chamber to cause the bell to become stuck to the chamber walls. I cleaned the area as best I could, and shot a little contact cleaner down there to help evaporate what was left.

Re-assembled everything, and away it went, nice as you please. As was predicted here earlier, it does not put out the volume that it perhaps would have on AC current (certainly not what I see on Youtube videos) but the fact that I was able to get it all working again is good enough for me. 

This whole project has been a great learning experience, and I thank you all once again for bearing with me on this. 

Mark in Oregon