Hey, Everyone!
First, thanks in advance if you can help me out.
I've owned a Lionel Y6b (model 6-28085) for a few years now, and while it runs great, the smoke has never worked. After overhauling the units in several older engines I own, I finally decided to give this one a try. I've spent quite a bit of time researching this on the internet, but it seems most attempts to repair this type of issue on this particular locomotive lead to "the parts aren't available" and end at that. Hoping to either fix this one, or retrofit something else into it. Here's where I am with diagnosis:
1. I have the engine apart. I can affirm that the smoke heating element get very hot, and a small wisp of smoke does in fact come out of the unit when running.
2. The fan motor spins freely, but here's where I'm finding problems.
3. Using a voltage meter, it appears there's little to no voltage going into the harness feed for the smoke unit fan motor, but it's a little hard to tell since I have a voltage meter that "oscillates" various numbers up and down until it detects a steady current. When the engine is at "idle," should there be constant DC voltage on the wire lead to the smoke unit motor? Or does voltage only go to the motor when the engine is moving and "chuffs"? If I try to touch the leads with my meter while the engine is moving, it looks like a volt or two might be going to it, but it hard to holt the meter, make solid contact, and direct the engine to move at the same time, lol. If there should be constant voltage going to it, I guess that means the AC regulator is toast. As many have found, though, that (part no.cs-691ACRGE01-p) is no longer available. Is there ANYWHERE I can source one, or maybe a non factory part that could do the job?
4. As for the motor itself, I took the smoke unit apart and bench tested it. If I hook the motor directly to an old DC voltage HO scale transformer, it does absolutely nothing, regardless of how low or high I crank the transformer up. Sprayed electrical cleaner through it as well, but still nothing. Could I have a dead motor as well as a bad regulator? I've never gotten any of the flashing cab light issue that some people say signals a bad motor.
5. Or maybe the smoke unit PCB (cs-691SSMUFS1-p) is bad, along with the motor? I see for wires leading into the PCB from the locomotive harness... brown, white/black, red, and black. Any idea which ones I should be reading to make sure I'm getting voltage signal from the locomotive to the PCB?
In light of the obsolete parts, I'm fine with junking the whole setup if anyone knows a good source for a replacement unit altogether. It's probably the nicest engine I own, and I'd love to get it working 100 percent.
Thanks!
Jonathan
