whistle tender help

[djrmmr]

Repairing Lionel whistle unit.  Need to know how to remove plastic disc that moves the air from armature. Is the disc pressed on or is it threaded on. If threaded to remove clockwise or counterclockwise ?? Thanks for any help..

[TrainLarry]

The impeller is pressed on the armature shaft and needs to be pulled off.

It is not necessary to remove the impeller for normal service of the whistle.

 

Larry

[djrmmr]

Understood but the amateur is very tight. Needs to be pulled out checked and cleaned . Thanks for the response .

[cwburfle]

Before you remove the armature, try these two steps:

1 - lubricate the bearing between the fan blade and the armature head with very light oil, and let it soak in. I find that I can get to the bearing by putting the tip of a needle point oiler between the poles of the armature. The idea is to dissolve any old, gummy lubricant that might be there.

2 - If the fan is too tight against that bearing, just give the end of the shaft, which is visible at the end of the fan, a light tap or two to move it just the tinyist bit.

You don't want to move the fan very much at all, otherwise it will hit against the whistle body.

[servoguy]

I agree that removing the fan should not be necessary.  I recommend 5W-20 motor oil because it never dries out. If you use light machine oil or 3 in 1 oil, it is going to get gummy after a short time and you will have your problem back again.  Put some motor oil on it and see if it loosens up.  You can also do this with hardened grease.  The motor oil will soften the grease and make it grease again.  

[cwburfle]

Put some motor oil on it and see if it loosens up.

If his bearing is tight due to old, gummy oil, will motor oil penetrate and dissolve the gum?

[servoguy]

If the motor turns, I believe motor oil will fix the problem.  I had a fan motor recently that had a seized bearing due to the lubricant drying out.  The fan motor was 50 years old, and I had to replace it.  I have never had a whistle motor seize up so that motor oil wouldn't free it up.  WD-40 could be used to wash out the bearing, but then motor oil should be used to lubricate the bearing as WD gets gummy pretty quickly.

[cwburfle]

Thanks for the reply.
There have been a couple of times I used liquid wrench to free a stuck bearing.  Then the bearing had to be lubricated after letting the liquid wrench evaporate.

[servoguy]

liquid wrench is a good idea if the bearing is really stuck