Lionel 1511 Repair

Well, good news for me.  I figured out how to remove the motor and now I have a question about one of the parts.  There is a long slender finger bracket that attaches around the whistle body and extends along the motor frame and down into the spring area, pressing up against the ratchet plate next to the main spring.  There seems to be no motion of this finger up or down.  As far as I can tell it just places a small amount of pressure against the ratchet plate?  Can't really figure out what it is for.

Also, it appears to me that the whistle is designed to blow continuously.  Can anyone out there confirm that?

Photos below.  Original followed by a marked up one.

Gene,

James, the"Windup Guy" is the resident clockwork pro. He or Papa Steve are your best bet..IMHO James is so good that I often wondered if he could repair my antique Westminster Mantle Clock.

Thanks Pappy, but I'm just an amateur windup train guy! 

Gene, it appears to me that the part you are asking about is a lever that should modulate the whistle.  Is the whistle port under the left hand arrow in the first picture?  It is very likely that the lever needs to be tweaked (bent) in order to allow it to move up and down properly.  It looks like there is a cam on the big gear by the mainspring the should provide the vertical movement, and the lever should pivot up and down, covering and uncovering the port on the whistle.  At least, that is my best guess by looking at the pictures.  If it is anything like the Marx clockwork whistler motors (especially the prewar whistling CV version) the adjustment can be very finicky... not much range from whistling to not whistling.

As always, I'll respectfully defer to the input of those that have an actual working motor for reference...

James, your comments about the whistle port were my first thought so I will investigate that more.  I have two motors and this one appears to be the best one.  I think all this one needs is a whistle impeller or a new whistle unit, and the bad motor looks like it has a good impeller.  I'll start by pulling this whistle off so I can look under the bracket.  If there is a port under the bracket then I'll work on your proposed analysis.  This unit may be missing a spring of some sort to hold the bracket against the cam on the ratchet plate.  Maybe the other motor will inform me when I pull it out of the shell.  This is like a murder mystery! 

James, pretty sure you are right.  I just played with it a little more aggressively and there is a small port under the bracket on the whistle housing.  I think this bracket is a fair bit out of whack and it's probably missing a spring or it needs to be very

delicately balanced to move based on gravity.  More as I discover it.  Thanks again for all the help.

The mechanical whistler motors from Lionel and Marx are ingenious!  Lots of thought and engineering went into them, especially in the pre-computer days with all the engineering being done with pencil and paper.

The picture below show the two Marx windup whistling motor variations.  The one on the left is the most common, as it is the postwar motor as used in the Mercury whistlers.  The one on the right is a lot harder to find; as far as I can tell they were only made in 1942 and used in the whistling CV.  The difference between the two is the way the flap moves to modulate the whistle; the postwar version is less finicky, a definite improvement on the design:

Steve, you are definitely a master of patience, considering how long it takes me to fix these things...