I don’t know what I was thinking…must have gotten so excited that he got the pair that I went temporarily insane. [:D] Sorry Ford and everyone.
Jack
Ralph,
When I received my 2343 AA set, I really liked them. When the e-unit would not cycle, I had no replacement e-unit drum, so it was either repair the drum or set the 2343 on a shelf and wait for a replacement. As the old adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
Earl
I use “E-Bay” quite a bit and rely (Right or Wrong) on the pictures as well as the descriptions. For the most part, I guess I’ve been fortunate. The condition on only two items that I purchased was questionable. In each case, I contacted the sellers and, in both cases, the sellers refunded part of the cost.
Answer: NO Look at it this way: You got the item you wanted. You got a chance to work on it. You are enjoying it. Can’t beat that!
PS. Maybe next time you buy on “E-Bay”, when you open the package, you will find a “real treasure”, something that the seller missed and you didn’t expect.
I"m not sure why you need an original drum. These are replaceable from any parts dealer and don’t affect value. And you don’t have collector pieces anyway.
If you want a lionel drum, I’m sure you can pick one up on their site as they’re making conventional engines again. Otherwise Jeff Kane used to have some original green drums but he’s probably out by now. any repro will do.
Mike S.
I already bought 2 repro black / brass drums and they melted on my NYC F3. I put the original back in which is in worn, rough shape and it seems to work fine until I can take my time and find an original. If you search, you will find where experianced people state the repro drums are junk, and I can confirm they are too.
My santa fe, I just locked it in forward and moved the lever so it will stay in forward for the time being.
Earl,
I did not make myself clear, I’m not debating the act of sqeezing the black portion in, but what I’m amazed at is that you had the concept of squeezing the black portion in and that it might, or will work.
That’s great! If, I thought of that and attempted to do that type of repair I’d damage the part, due to my clumsiness. Believe me, I agree with you, because there were plenty of times that I had to rig something up, due to the shortage of a part, or shortage of money to buy the correct part.
I’m sorry for not clarifying myself with my previous post.
And, Yes. The 2343 ‘A-A’s’ are fantastic.
Enjoy,
Take Care,
Ralph
Not sure where you’re getting them from. But I’ve used many white and brass repro drums with no problems at all. Get them from Jeff Kane and all will be well.
this really isn’t a problem.
Mike S.
Until recently, reproduction drums had copper contacts.
I agree that these reproduction drums, which are typically cast in white plastic, work fine.
I use them in my repairs of “operator grade” items.
As far as I know, it is only the latest round of reproduction drums, which are molded from black plastic, that seem to be made with brass contacts. A while ago, I noted that one of my friends, who is a parts dealer, opinioned that the brass contacts would be troublesome over time. We’ll see whether he is correct.
I did buy them from Jeff Kane and they melted in less than 1 hour or so. Nothing I did wrong because the original is still working, just is pitted and has coggs that are rough. The overall size of the brass contact surface was a lot smaller and lower quality the way it was cut. This is not meant to bash Jeff, his parts are great and his service is better. Just whoever is manufacturing these drums is not doing a good job on the quality.
Try a recent batch of black / brass and you will find the same thing. For sure if yours is dual motor. Maybe a single motor they would work fine, who knows.
While Jeff does manufacture some parts, as well as tools for the ST-350 arbor press, he does not make the drums. .
Good, well at least I wasn’t insulting him then…
Whoever is making them should improve the plastic, and charge just slightly more. I would rather pay for quaility than quantity.
After reading about all of the problems with some reproduction drums, I am now wondering if my drum that was so distorted (shown in the photo on the previous page) was a reproduction. How do you identify reproduction drums?
Earl
Earl,
The black drum that you have is an original. I have seen original drums that are black, red, and green. There may be more colors, but that is all that I have ever serviced. To my knowledge, all repro drums are white.
Well, this thread is going in a good direction then. Im still going through my stock of white drums from Jeff from a few years back. I apologize as I assumed they were still being made.
Maybe Jeff can get the white ones back in production or Olsten’s.
Mike S.
The fellow who had the white drums made is no longer making them. He sold the tooling to another person who may have recently started making durms after a gap of several years.
The drums that are currently being made are black with brass contacts (as opposed to copper).
Lionel is selling these drums.
I don’t know whether Lionel had them made directly, or if they are buying them from the person who has the aforementioned dies. I do know that Lionel used to sell the drums made by the fellow who had previously owned the dies.
I have not tried any of these recently made black / brass drums.
As far as original drum colors go, Jim already listed black, red, and green. There are two different greens, grey, brown and during the Modern Era, there were some clear drums made.
Also, older drums have silver plated contacts, as do older e-unit contact fingers. I don’t know when they discontinued the silver plating.
It may be the lighting, your repaired drum seems to have silver contacts.
As far as I know, nobody has made reproduction drums with silver contacts.
In addition, the black drums only came on the market recently, I seem to recall that you mentioned putting this drum back together again a while ago, before this latest batch was released.
So your drum is almost certainly original.
As an aside, I have a few drums in red, bright green, and black with similar distortion (not as pronounced) . In my case the drums were never installed. The plastic has a different quality to it’s appearance on these drums. It does not seem to be the same time of plastic as was normally used. So there must have been something wrong with the material. (Maybe I should get my Lionel plastics lab out, and figure out what they are made from) 
I only had 1 bad experience buying on ebay I bought a lionel ZW. The seller said it was recently serviced. It turned out it wasn’t. It looked great though ! When i brought this to the attention of the seller he dismissed it . I knew from this response that i wasn’t going to get any satisfaction , so my parting response was that all items he sells in the future should be safe . This unit was serviced incorrectly and was a potential hazzard which is what i conveyed to the seller. The takeaway is that from that moment on i would only buy from a seller with good feedback and really look at pictures. Some sellers do sell items that they are not familiar with and will tell you that. It is the buyers responsibility to make sure they get the best deal and that you are getting what you want. Regards Dave
Call me a dinosaur, call be obsolete, call me hopelessly old-fashioned, but dammit before I put my hard-earned money down on something I want to SEE it.
Maybe I miss out on a lot of things, but so what? This is a hobby, not a religion. Not to me anyway.
I bought a non working lionel nyc F3 circa '54 . Everything looked great … shell / mech. After closer inspection found that one of tabs on the e unit drum was broken. Found one at hobby shop for 5 bucks and was back in business.
True. But like i saild if the seller is reputable , has good feedback , and takes good pictures of item, i feel confident. I also ask questions. If pictures are fuzzy and description is inconsistant i won’t take a chance. I got a deal on a great lionel 1666 that was pristine / orig . To ensure good purchase experience with old trains on line or in person at a train show , you have to know what you are doing because of those few that will take advantage of the uninitiated. Regards, Dave