Lionel Whistle Steam Repair

Now that the WS unit is removed, let's replace the defective motor.  

Usually you can tell if the motor is defective during operation.  The system will give you a specific number of cab blinks and you will notice the WS or main smoke unit doesn't work, depending on your # of blinks and your model.  Check your owners manual troubleshooting.  One will not effect the other.  They always have 2 individual motors, and those motors DO fail sometimes. 

 
This is the smoke unit assembly upside down.  This is the proper orientation for repair.  The smoke reservoir is the metal box.  The impeller motor is visible just above the impeller housing on the left.  

To begin, first remove the two screws holding the motor to the impeller housing. These screw locations are marked on the 2nd close up below.  However, they thread in from the back side.  In the third shot, you can see the housing removed.

 
 
  
Now we need to remove the motor.  Gently touch a soldering iron to each lead and remove the positive (red) and negative (black) wires from back of the tiny motor.  The motor in this image looks like it is attached to the board, but it is not.  It is free.  

 

Once the motor is free, remove the impeller.



And the motor mounting plate with the two tiny screws.  Here you can see the unit fully stripped and the new motors.  



Note the red positive wire.  LOL
A word of warning. The wires that attach to the motor are stiff and have a tendency to break off at the PCB. So handle with care. I almost ALWAYS break one while do these repairs, so don't feel bad if this happens to you. Just solder her back on.

Reassembly:  Is obviously the reverse of what you have learned here.  
But there are a few items to be aware of during this process.

1) The old motors had a + for positive on the original motor.  The new ones do not.  (I know, helpful right?  LOL)
I found that there IS a small marking on the back of the new motor which I assumed was positive.  It was NOT.  The motor just ran backwards.  So you may need to test this with a 9v battery and some test leads before you solder the new motor in place. Here's my first solder job on this motor.  (which was wrong).  To my credit, my pencil tip was nowhere to be found and I wasn't going out to catch the Corona Virus for a simple solder tip.  So I used the equivalent of a Louisville Slugger on a fly leg. (Don't Judge). hahaha.



2) The new motor mounting plate screw holes are in the same orientation.  Just make sure you orient the motor plate to the right at around 2:00 position.  The rest falls into place normally. I HIGHLY suggest using a magnetic set of tiny screwdrivers for this job BTW.



3) Attaching the impeller: Lionel impellers only install one way, with the base facing downward on the shaft.  The trick is to leave the right amount of space between the motor impeller and the motor mounting plate.  Zoom into my image below.  You want half the distance shown.  I showed it this way so you could see the gap more easily.  



Reinstall the impeller housing with the two screws and you are ready to reinstall the sub assembly back into your engine.  

Thanks Gary!  I'm working through some repairs on my bench and took some photos along the way.  It was actually harder to write up the procedure than do the actual repair!  

And apparently I used too many pictures because some went to the bottom of the page... oh well.  Y'all get the idea...