I purchased a used modern era 494 rotating beacon tower 6-12966 tried it out and it would not rotate at all. I replaced the drive washer 3520-16 and still it would not rotate no matter voltage. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance for your help, advice and comments.
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Interested... I have the rotating light house. The light will light but will not rotate. Suspect it could be the same as your issue, so I'm interested in the feedback you receive.
Mine makes zero noise. It's not even attempting to rotate.
A friend of mine has 2 of the modern beacons. He struggled as well to get them to work. We ended up getting the postwar repro tops. We also got new drive washers from lionel. That combination got the beacons working. The postwar repro tops have the metal ring and beacon top as one piece which seems to work much better than the metal ring and separate light cover.
Is the base under the drive washer receiving current and is it vibrating? If not, check the connections and repair as necessary. If it is vibrating, try cleaning the underside of the lamp housing and putting some powdered graphite on the fingers.
Depending on how much it was used over the past 25 years or so, the vibrating motor might be shot. If the motor is shot but the light is on, an option is to get one of the old style dimpled bulbs (if the base fits) and a beacon that is made to fit on top of it (works with the heat generated by the bulb).
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