Noisy PS1 smoke unit?

A drop of oil on the fan motor bearings will make it right.

Clem

Hi oil mite help for a little while but ounce you start to hear fan noises it is only evidential that the bearing are on there way out, the motor are cheap on ebay!just click on the highlighted blue web site and it will take you to where you can purchase them cheap!

Alan

http://www.ebay.com/itm/310874...e=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

If that doesn't do it, the fan motors are pretty cheap and not difficult to install.  The MTH fan motor is $6 MSRP.

Thanks all for the useful information! I'll give the oil a shot first (so that is why they sell it at the hobby shop!). Of course that will mean that I'll have to remove a shell from a loco for the first time!  

A voyage of discovery awaits you!

James, 

Something else you may want to try is a new MegaSteam product HERE. Not sure if it would work (I haven't tried it) but may be worth a shot to get some at York. Based on Scott Smith's testing seen HERE and HERE, I'd say it works. 

How does an item called a cleaner quiet a fan motor that is in what is suppose to be the dry sump?  I can see if it helps clean residue off the element, or stack cup.  The fan area should be dry and pushes air into the heat chamber where that fluid would be.  G

George, there was a fairly large thread about that some time back when JT introduced the Eliminator smoke fluid.  It was an untended side effect, they don't advertise it to quiet the fans.

My experiments with it were inconclusive, it did quiet one fan, but several others didn't seem to be affected at all.

This may be an early MTH smoke unit where the smoke chamber and fan housing are one piece.  The heat from the smoke unit element affected the fan motor bearings.  The upper bearing just under the fan was usually the culprit.  I had the first run MTH K-4 and the smoke unit was constructed that way.  I oiled the bearings but that didn't last very long.  After the second oiling, I changed out the smoke unit with the updated design change in which the smoke chamber was separated from the fan housing by a gasket.  Haven't has any trouble since. 

I would check to see if indeed you have a first generation smoke unit.  If you do, changing the motor will only be a temporary repair.  The best bet is to replace the smoke unit with a PS1 second generation smoke unit.

John Interesting.  Just doesn't make sense that it could unless it spilled over and oiled the bearing

Interesting point Bob, I have seen that, but never attributed the design change to a heat issue.  I thought it made it easier to cast.  But you are right, the newer model has a gap, and even the fan motor is gapped to the fan housing an no longer has a gasket between the motor and fan.  G

I think the speculation was something about the vapor lubricated the bearings.  I don't count on it oiling my fans, I have new fan motors for noisy fans.

That is an interesting point about the old smoke units, I did wonder why they changed, maybe that's the reason.

I did like the space between the motor and the case, it also provides more air intake, at least in a limited fashion.

I have used JT's Eliminator on my MTH PS-1 Northern Pacific Mallet. The smoke unit had quite a squeek to it, the Eliminator did eliminate the squeek.