Lionel TMCC fan motor FIXED! Thanks guys

Motor runs on 5v DC. You can test with a 9v battery, just don't take a coffee break while its running.

Bill

FWIW, I've revived a number of these motors.  Normally what kills them is smoke fluid gums up the bearings.

I spray some CRC cleaner in the holes, then a drop of very light oil on each bearing.  You can see a tiny hole in the bottom, and just put the oil next to the shaft on the top.

I've revived a number of these and they're been running for some time, some several years, none have died yet.

As bill says, 5V or less is good.  If the motor won't turn over on 3 volts or more, it's not working right. 

In case you're wondering how to get it off the smoke unit, the fan pulls straight off from the shaft and exposes two tiny screws.

Thanks guys, I knew you two would have the answer. I have a Z gauge DC powerpack, so I'll probably just hook up some wires to that to test the motor. It's 0-10 volts so halfway up on the throttle should do it. 

John, this is an NOS unit (USRA 2-6-6-2) that I don't think was ever run, so the motor isn't gummed up with smoke fluid. However, if it doesn't start I'll give your method a shot. Any by the way, there are two little holes in the fan to allow you to get at the screws without removing the fan. Not sure why, you have to pull the fan to remove the motor anyway, but I noticed the holes when I was playing around with it looking for the problem. Maybe the idea is that you undo the screws, then pull the motor out and the fan stays in the chamber. 

I have never figured why there are holes in the fan.  As you say, not much you can do with them.   Perhaps your idea is right, I just pull the fan off with a pair of needle-nose pliers, much easier to reach the screws then.

Since you have to pull the shell off to get access to the fan you might want to power up the engine and see if you are getting voltage to the fan. Its usually pretty easy to follow the wires from the motor to the circuit board. It may be a driver or programming issue.

Pete

Well, it's easy to put power to the fan directly first, then you'll know if it's a fan issue.  If not, you get into tracing wires and powering the locomotive with the shell off and seeing what happens.

Just a reminder there are two voltages with different sources for the smoke resistor and the fan. By checking the fan terminals using the engine as the power source would have also told you what the correct fan voltage should be (assuming the voltage source is NOT the problem) obviating the need for a battery or power pack. 

Pete

Most of the fans unplug so it's easy to test simply the fan.  I have yet to see a Lionel of MTH fan that needs anything but 5V, so I don't worry about the voltage requirements.

OK, got the smoke unit fixed, put the engine back together, and it smokes just fine. Fan motor itself was OK. Turns out there were two main problems:

1. The fan was rubbing against the gasket, physically blocking it from moving. This was mentioned in a post a while back, that the gasket could interfere with the fan, especially if the air intake hole was enlarged. There are two reasons for this: the fan isn't pushed far enough onto the motor shaft, or the gasket gets a burr because it doesn't cut very clean when you enlarge the hole. So, I pushed the fan as far as I could onto the shaft, cut away the gasket material above the fan, and bingo, it worked.

2. As is very common with Lionel smoke units made 10-15 years ago, the fan motor was wired backwards. This made the fan turn the wrong way, guaranteeing that it would still be screwed up when I put it back together. Fortunately, I've fixed at least a dozen of these so I checked the direction of rotation before I put the smoke unit back in the shell. 

Now the only problem with the locomotive is a horrendous case of Odyssey lurch. What's the cure for that? I've never bothered much about it but this one is really, really bad. 

Thanks to all who posted suggestions and information. Here's the engine with the repaired smoke unit. While I had it apart I did a full Mike Reagan on it, opening up the air intake and removing the sleeve over the resistor.

If you get the classic "jump" the first time you move after power is applied, I know of no cure for that.  Sell the locomotive or install the ERR Cruise Commander M.