I have completely disassembled, cleaned, and re-lubed several postwar whistling tenders. However the sound remains marginal at best. The sound is nowhere as clean as the airwhistle in my modern Polar Express set, which I assume has a DC can motor. My postwar whistle sounds range from terrible to marginally acceptible.
Is there some trick to improve the whistle sound?
Earl
Earl,
I'm going to assume you've shot some lube or dripped some lube down into the chamber to get at the bronze bearing. I believe that is the only way to get at the bearing in the bottom of the chamber without actually opening up the sealed chamber. This has always cured the high pitched whine and rumble for me.
I've heard that chatter is caused by a worn brush plate so you might want to check that as well. My postwar tenders whistle pretty well, because all but one was used more on the light side. I think alot of it has to do with wear and tear on the mechanism via the bearing on the bottom and the brushplate bearing.
Hope that helps.
Mike s.
God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
Did you clean those brushes, brush holders and comutator surfaces? Did you clean out the slots between the comutator sections? After doing that, a good ground and proper lube are the keys to making the whistle sound "right". What I've found is that some whistle mechanism shafts are oriented sideways and some vertically. For the sideways versions, I lube the shaft and that bottom bearing real good, lube the top lightly, then lay the tender on its side for a few hours or even overnight to let the oil penetrate that bearing. Then your whistle will scream!
Also bear in mind that these pw whistle tenders are 40+ years old and technology has changed. A brand new tender is going to sound better, but not "better" if you know what I'm trying to say.
Jim
One more thing just occurred to me. Those old pw tenders sometimes need more power to whistle than the newer versions. Crank up the power to around 15 volts and see how it sounds.
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
zeke wrote:so you gett it fixed yet, im curiuos cuz i got one im getting ready to open up
I'm out of town right now so I can;t work on the whistles. I plan to take my worst sounding whistle and try Mike's suggestion to drip some oil into the chamber to lube the bushings. I do remember that some bushings were not accessible and so I could not lube them. All other parts of the motor assembly and the contact coil were disassembled, cleaned, and lubed.
Mike, it sounds like you drip some oil in the air chamber in the blind. I don't remember being able to see the bushing or I would have lubed it.
I will report the results.
I might have gotten carried away with my description. You actually don't get the oil to the bottom of the chamber. The way I do it, is to gently pick up the armature shaft as high as it will go (which is not much) and using a needle oiler I try to soak the bronze bushing and get some oil through the crack/space between the shaft and the bushing.
I like Jim's idea of laying it on it side with the shaft propped out from the bushing so that the oil soaks in. I might try this too.
Hope this helps.
Mike S.
I have been working on a 2466WX tender for awhile now. Discovered that all the impeller blades were broke. Ordered a new impeller, gasket for the air chamber, and brushes and springs for it last week. I've read where repair on these items is tricky at best, but am going to try it. I was able to adjust the relay and get the motor to spin every time I hit the whistle button. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can do the repair!
The above information is about all you can do, as far as I have read. I've had some postwar whistles that work and sound great, and some that don't. A good cleaning and lubrication, done correctly, sure can't hurt. I know postwar whistles can sound good, just not sure how to get one to do it, or if one whistle unit design is better than another. Try replacing the points, cleaning the comutator, and sealing the air chamber. Check the relay to see if it is chattering, and see if the impeller is missing a blade or two. Don't know what else you can do...
jaabat wrote:One more thing just occurred to me. Those old pw tenders sometimes need more power to whistle than the newer versions. Crank up the power to around 15 volts and see how it sounds.
Well, this experience has taught me a few things about postwar whistles. I put all my postwar tenders on the track ,one at a time, to test them and select the worst one for maintenance. When I tried them, I was surprised because most sounded very good. When I tried them previously, they were running with an engine and they sounded quite poor. Additionally, some of the engines slowed noticeably when I turned on the whistle. I am using a modern ZW for power and have several feeds of heavy wire going to the track. By operating the whistle without the engine, I could adjust the track voltage to get a good whistle sound. So the first thing I learned was that the tenders like a little more power then is available with a normally running train.
I selected the two worst sounding whistles and opened them up for a second cleaniong and lube. The first was a 6466W and the second was a 2671W. Both of the tenders had a plastic air chamber. Did Lionel use plastic air chambers or are these repros? Additional cleaning and lube made no difference in the sound quality. Both tenders make a loud rattling noise both before and after maintenance.
After performing the maintenance, both tenders were checked on the track with the shells off. They worked fine. I put the shells on and put each tender on the track, one at a time, and neither worked. I soon discovered that the tender relays would only work in a range of voltages. I reduced the track voltage and both tenders worked again (still rattling). I checked another tender and it worked OK at the highest voltage. I don't know why these two tenders don't.
So that is what I have learned about whistling tenders.
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