Vintage 779 Berkshire sound board.

Maybe this will help: https://www.lionelsupport.com/...3f-9004-53643af0a41b

Grampstrains posted:

Trainlover9943 posted:

Maybe this will help: https://www.lionelsupport.com/...3f-9004-53643af0a41b

Wrong 779.  The one above was made by MPC.

My bad. 

Grampstrains posted:

Those sound boards were sitting on a piece of foam that by now is rotten and dried.  The board is shorting out on the tender frame.  Take off the tender shell and set the board on something more stable.  Lionel does make a plastic board holder for that but I don't know the part number off hand.

 

I did take the tender shell off once to find the foam deteriorated. I tried running just the tender frame plate with the board pulled off the foam and sitting on a piece of plastic. When I first apply power there is an initial crackle of noise. 

I did find this older post finally and am happy to see that there is a suitable replacement sound board available and that it might be caused by the commutator face and brushes being wet with commutator fluid. There was a lot of motor arcing on first run and with r/c cars we would put this on to break in the brushes and it greatly improved performance and broke the brushes in faster. Maybe it makes it difficult for the board to see the voltage difference.

https://ogrforum.com/...138#2415514336662138

Grampstrains posted:

Trainlover9943 posted:

Maybe this will help: https://www.lionelsupport.com/...3f-9004-53643af0a41b

Wrong 779.  The one above was made by MPC.

No worries. I'm 33 and this train set was mine when I was a kid and we're putting it all back together for my son who is 2 now and just really discovering trains. My basement is bigger and a different space than my parents house so I am able to expand it quite a bit and add a small freight yard.  Everything I have is late post war or 80's/early 90's MPC. My locos are MPC and with the abundance of estate finds of eBay I'm trying to keep everything from the same era. Next I have my eye on a 6-18004 pacific then a 1656 switcher. Current motive power is a 8716 Atlantic and a dual motor U36B. 

This is what we have now. As the name says I drive a tug and just got the wing table built before I last left to go to work. I took a bunch of pictures and then had time to think about it for when I get home again. I'm going to extend the wing loop and overhang the plywood off the frame slightly and do the sidings differently. I have a KW now and am going to be able to separate the new from old section to the 2 power circuits of the KW then phase an LW for the freight yard and have a second control station for shunting trains. Through switching I'll be able to hand off track sections between transformers. The best/worst thing I did was buy a book about tubular 3 rail layouts and read the electrical section. It's amazing what you can do!

here you go- from the Supplements - index for Die Cast tenders-Small -pay attention to the note for alternate parts for the rear truck, sound board and tender

Then - the parts pages and the alternate parts page - the alternate is probably the way to go - don't forget to check the speaker

Do you need the engine info?

See attached

Moonman posted:

here you go- from the Supplements - index for Die Cast tenders-Small -pay attention to the note for alternate parts for the rear truck, sound board and tender

Then - the parts pages and the alternate parts page - the alternate is probably the way to go - don't forget to check the speaker

Do you need the engine info?

See attached

Thanks,

the tender looks different mine doesn't have the trigger it uses the 3 wire hookup but I should be able to figure something out

So I dove into the tender. I cleaned off all the old foam and re-taped the sound board. It worked fine with the shell off the tender. With the shell off it works. With the shell on its intermittent, sort of. The whistle works all the time on command which is nice, although I see what people mean by the motor whistles sounding better. I guess we'll just keep running it now and see what happens. It might all be because of the brush drops I put on needing to wear away. 

That's a nice engine, I have one as well.  I must say, I just don't plug in that SOS  in the tender.  I just never liked the type of sound it created.

BTW nice layout, that will be great to introduce your son to the trains.  Looks like it is fairly low, which I also think is a good thing.  Pretty soon your son will be able to stand next to the table and watch the trains.  It will be perfect.   All I can say is to be mindful of dumping trains off that layout onto the floor...  I know I have done it many times and I still have tacks right next to the edge with no protection.....

Dennis Holler posted:

That's a nice engine, I have one as well.  I must say, I just don't plug in that SOS  in the tender.  I just never liked the type of sound it created.

BTW nice layout, that will be great to introduce your son to the trains.  Looks like it is fairly low, which I also think is a good thing.  Pretty soon your son will be able to stand next to the table and watch the trains.  It will be perfect.   All I can say is to be mindful of dumping trains off that layout onto the floor...  I know I have done it many times and I still have tacks right next to the edge with no protection.....

Thanks. I loved it when I was a kid so it's been fun with him being interested in it.  I've got some more work to do. The bare plywood loop isn't running yet so I don't have to worry about that part just yet. I do have more plexiglass to put on the outside edges. He loves to go down and watch the trains but most of the time he's more interested in playing with the matchbox cars from the layout. It makes it nice for me I can get more work done on it with him down with me. 

That's funny, my son also liked playing with the vehicles, both Matchbox and other, when he was that age as well.

As she works for now at least.