I need help, lots of it, with my pre-war #2689W tender!

[steve1946]

My #2689W pre-war tender sounds like a duck in heat!  Here is what I have been working on: The whistle chamber had a broken tab that holds the whistle relay so I securely glued and clamped the relay to the other half of the tab attached to the whistle chamber. (This is the original whistle and this is a pre-war tender but the whistle chamber is a combination of plastic and metal. The back side of the chamber holding the impeller is metal but the chamber itself is plastic)! I glued the relay and tab back to their exact position before the tab broke, whenever that was.  I removed the brush plate and lubed the armature tail shaft, cleaned the armature field face sections, cleaned the, (OK), brushes and brush wells, replaced the cover and lubed the armature shaft.  In both cases I used the lube, (Vaseline), sparingly.  The truck pick-up rollers were cleaned and new wire soldered to both. The overall wiring is correct or I would have gotten a short when tested and/or the whistle wouldn't have sounded at all.  Here is the test sequence.  The whistle was silent, (no power), when the black throttle handle was advanced on the Lionel #1033.  The whistle activated when I turned the orange whistle handle on the transformer.  It sounded bad, (a little whistle, a lot of squealing like it needed lube and a rattling noise like I may have a bearing issue).  I sanded the contact points on the relay and worked with it for some time  and watched the contacts engage and disengage on the relay. They seemed to be functioning correctly.  But when I activated and released the orange handle on the transformer the noise continued until the contacts, (slowly), opened. I shut the black throttle handle to off.  Does anyone have any suggestions for me or possibly a pre-war metal whistle for sale?  Thanks,  Steve

[ADCX Rob]

Did you lube this bearing?

Also, Vaseline is a terrible lubricant for this application... almost anything else would be better except WD-40 or 3-In-1.

Motor oils would be fine. Even better, Mobil 1(or other modern synthetic) in a syringe/needle oiler.

Once lubed, connect the transformer with test leads and hold the tender upside down so you don't have to run it through the whistle controller circuit to work the oil in to the bearing/bushing surfaces. Run it at varying speeds until you get a noticeable improvement, check/relube with fresh, and then track test.