Not sure if this will help but here are a few lesson’s learned setting up my Post war American Flyer Layout:
Do not spray TV tuner cleaner directly into the motor/brush/ armature area w/o taking off plastic shells first! This stuff eats paint off of steel! be very carefull with this stuff and use in a well ventilated area.
2)Polish your armatures with a dremmel drill and wire wheel they do an excellent job of removing scratches. you locos will creep ever so slow. use scotch bright or sand paper to clean up the brush tips. Check to make sure the springs are making contact with the brushes and are putting pressure to insure good contact to the armature.
Remove all old grease, my Dad’s trains sat for 30 years and it resembled glue upon its removal, and don’t lose those spacer washers on the drive shaft! if your loco travels faster in one direction than in another, chances are one fell out. use a light oil to lube all linkages, and double check everything is free rolling before you re-assemble. Remove only one side at a time when taking linkages off! This will prevent getting the driving wheels mis-aligned.
Practice Soldering, use a fresh clean tip and some rosin type flux (avoid acid core for electric joints), if your solder joint is dull or pitted, redo it, this is a cold weld and will not conduct electricity as well as a shiny clean joint.
Clean trains with an artist paint brush and dish soap, anything stronger will remove/dull paint and destroy decals. Go slow, and stop if paint starts to come off onto the brush, Dry with a air compressor or hair dryer on low heat… I used the wife’s…another topic for lessons learned.
Smoke units usually are burnt at the wick and coil joint if they don’t smoke for more that a few minutes. I have heard to use TV tuner cleaner to revitalize (don’t do it!) especially if you have the red plastic glow smoke tube it will eat it for lunch. I tried rewrapping a wick and coil
Thanks for the tips. I have one American Flyer set I like to run on the floor occasionally. It’s a 336 Challenger freight set and I love it.
Another lesson. I shot the motor brush holes with industrial motor cleaner once and it shot flames!! LMAO!!! Not a good idea. My thinking was reverse on wire wheeling the motor commutator surface. I’ve never tried it but thought it would leave scratches on the soft copper. I’ve had good luck rubbing the surface with a track eraser and 90% isporsyl alcohol.
I would be careful wire wheeling tinplate track on a bench grinder. Too much wheeling and you remove enough protective tinplating that the track corrodes easily. At least this has been my experience with Lionel track. Some people seal it with WD-40 after wire wheeling it.
For sticky reverse units, plastic compatible tunner cleaner has worked well for me.
My smoke unit works fine. I can’t get the friggen whistle to work. I bought a Flyer whistle control thingy and it has a mess of wires hanging off it. I have tried all kinds of hook up combinations with no luck.
The principle that American Flyer used was to superimpose the whistle waveform on the track voltage. In the tender a loudspeaker was simply AC coupled to the track. There were two kinds of whistle generators, called “air chime” and “electronic”, each of which could be used with AC or DC power. The air chime had four wires, black, red, yellow, and green. The electronic had black, red, and yellow, and a 110-volt 60-hertz power cord. If you can figure out which setup you have, I can try to describe the proper connections.
I have the Air chime whistle circuit but do not how to follow it when hooking it up to a ZW. When I hooked it up to my American Flyer 8B transformer all the whistles and horns sounded the same… like a sick cow. So I am looking for a better sound unit for all my American Flyer trains. Any leads?
Great tip for the WD-40. I will make a note of it.