I am in the process of restoring an American Flyer 314AW tender. When I bought it, it was in poor shape and i have cleaned up the e- reversing control and the motor assembly of the whistle unit. All contacts were dirty and commutator's needed cleaning bad. Replaced two wires as well. Now when i close the DC relay on the tender, the whistle unit works real good, spinning away like crazy. The problem is that I can hardly hear the whistle at all? I took the whistle chamber apart to look for spider nexts etc. If I blow into it with my mouth it will whistle real great. I tried reversing the armature field to spin the motor in the opposite direction with no luck. I am really at a loss as to how to get this to blow louder? Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated...
AFFIXIT
OR possibly you believe you have successfully reversed the motor direction but, in fact, you have not and you are getting the same result. No sound or very faint sound. I do remember that being a tell-tale the sign that the impeller is spinning in the wrong direction. Sorry I cannot help you with signal flow just yeat as I'm still a Flyer newbie.
Ensure the impeller is not spinning on the shaft and that the impeler is spinning when the blower asembly is together.
How many volts are you applying?
Jim
Thanks for your reply. I believe by reversing the armature, it does the same thing as reversing the leads. the reason i say that is, if i run it at a low voltage, i can actually see the the direction , the armature is spinning in. I have tried this reversing back and forth, at least 50 times...if it's sucking there is no sound at all...and if its pushing air,,,there is a little...its just so low, that with the shell back on the tender and going down the track, you might as well say there is no whistle unit working? I also bought and put on a new impellar, with no improvement..im about to give up..its sitting on the bench all opened up...but im still at a loss as how to remedy it...
Jim, thanks for your reply...I put a new impellar on it, and it went on the shaft pretty tight. Perhaps ill try a drop of instant glue to see if that makes any difference...as far as voltage...ive tried various amounts, from 8 to 18 volts..It is sitting open on a piece of track on my bench,and im closing the dc relay to activate. The difference in volts does alter the pitch of the sound...but it is still low..i really dont know how loud it should be? as never owning a 314W before...but if i send it down the track with the shell back on the tender,,,it really doesnt sound like there is anything working/running?
bob
Send me your email address and I will send you the scanned image of the diagram.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month