E Unit Drums

Contact   Henning's Trains Tel: (215) 362-2442, they can fix you up with the drums.

I've been considering taking a trip down there (I haven't been down since the 75 years party) for this, but I was just curious to get more info about these drums first.

If you ask big Harry (the ol' man), he can probably tell you all there is to know.

Reproduction E-unit drums have been on the market for years. Even Lionel was buying drums from the guy who reproduced them.
The  equipment to make them changed hands and sat idle for a while. Then the fellow who purchased the equipment started running them.

Someone also made reproduction drums in black plastic.

I don't know who is making the red ones either.

Which color drum to use? They came in more colors than green, black and red. During the modern era, they even came molded in clear plastic (avoid them, the clear plastic is brittle and the ends tend to break off).

In short, I wouldn't worry about the color.

The 1,000 dollar question: should you use original or reproduction drums? Depends on the cost. I see the red reproduction drums offered for $30/10. At what price can you purchase originals?

I only use original drums (light green) on my own equipment. I use reproductions on repairs.

Be aware, I have received a few reproduction drums with flash over the contacts, and I have received reproduction drums with the contact segments misaligned. Most have been fine. (These were older reproductions molded in white plastic).

I have some of the black reproductions, but  I haven't used any yet. I want to check the dimensions first.

I have not had any of the red reproductions.

I've used a number of the Henning's drums in repairs, no problems.  I do inspect them for any issues before I stick them in.

If you're replacing the drum, I'd probably recommend replacing the contacts as well, then you'll have what's pretty much a new E-unit.

I keep plenty of e-unit renewal parts around, drums, 2 finger contacts, 4 finger contacts, spring washers and rivets for the switches, and even switch handles.

I only change what needs changing. Sometimes the contacts are fine. But if they are worn or damaged, they certainly get changed.

Thanks for the info everyone. I usually keep e-unit parts (along with other common parts) around as well, but I ran out of usable drums and didn't realize it until I needed one. I also found a few other parts that I am running low on (including contact fingers) that I need to order.

So, what's the price on the original drums?

I don't need to know who has them.

What color plastic do the Hennings drums have?
Do they make them?
I know Hennings makes a lot of parts, but I did not think drums were among them.

Hi Mike!

Most prewar motors that I have worked on had Black E-Unit Drums & a few had green or even red. I once saw a blue drum too.

Originals are better when you can find them. I know one repairman who hates the repros as the plastic is more often out of alignment as mentioned before.

Give Chuck Sartor a call as he may have what you are looking for at: 1-303-638-8357. As an aside, most postwar drums were red & some green also. Take care.

The Henning's drums are black, at least the ones I still have left are.

I have several original Postwar Service Station drums.  They are either gray or green.

The commonly available original drums I have seen are light green. I also have some tan, grey and clear ones. (I checked)

I also have seen neon green drums made of a different material. These are often badly distorted.

If you look carefully at the drums you may notice some differences in how they are constructed, namely the pin holes in the ends of the drums, and the mold number cast into the end of one of the nibs.

One of the club magazines published an article on E-unit drum colors. I think it was the TCA.

It was the January 1985 issue of the TCA Quarterly. The Author came up with 24 variations.

Never thought of collecting E-unit drums.

Here is my start.....

I am not certain about your white one. It may be a reproduction. (Lionel did sell them in the Modern era) I'd have to look at it closely to tell for certain. The lighter green one next to it is the one that seems to be readily available.

Thanks for the info!

What about clear?  G

Jeff Kane @ the Train Tender also carries e-unit drums.  Have ordered them from him and repaired many eunits.

Just to give you another dealer in case.

Ben

The clear drums were a mystery to me until I purchased a bunch of NOS, Modern era e-units from a guy who was a local service station during a good part of the modern era. A number of them came with clear drums.

Since then, I have also run across a few modern era locos with clear drums.
Therefore I believe them to be modern era production.

As I mentioned earlier, the clear drums seem to be made of a brittle plastic, the tips seem to break easily.
I also have a few NOS clear drums.
I don't think I would use the e-units with the clear drums, or the replacement clear drums. To me, they are just a curiosity item.

By the way, in the 1960's Lionel produced some relays for another company that was based on the e-unit. One of the differences was the arrangement of the contacts on the e-unit drum. The contacts for the inner fingers were not set at 90 degrees to each other. According to a letter Lionel sent to their service stations, some of these special drums were accidentally mixed into the Lionel parts stream. I have only seen a couple of these drums. I think they are molded in the light green plastic, pictured 2nd from the right above. I'll go check in a bit.

I took a couple of pictures this morning.

The bottom picture shows one of the special relay drums I mentioned in a previous post on the left. Notice how close together the inner contact segments lie. The black marks appear to be magic marker. The drum came that way, I think I got it in a lot of NOS e-unit drums.

The top picture shows one of the commonly available green drums, along with three reproduction white drums. These drums were also sold by Lionel, who purchased them from the fellow making them.
One difference, which may not be noticeable in the picture, is the finish on the metal contacts. the Lionel ones are very smooth, and generally have some patina. The Reproductions have scratches / miscellaneous tooling marks in the metal. They do work OK, if you check them for flash and straight contacts first. I have only had one or two bad ones.

I had some original and reproduction black ones in the drawer too. My original black ones have silver contacts. The reproductions have copper contacts.
Maybe they made some originals with copper, if so, I don't have any.

Unless you feel the burning need to keep this 100% original, I can't imagine why you'd go to the trouble of trying to find "original OEM" drums.  The repro drums work fine, and other than looking them over for defects, I just use them.  I suspect that the factory OEM ones were produced with defects as well at times.

As I posted earlier, it all depends on what you have to pay for originals. If the difference is insignificant, then why use reproduction parts?

I see the red reproductions offered @ $3.00 each in lots of 10.

That's less than I paid ($3.50 each) for the white reproductions the last time I purchased a dozen. I may have paid as much as $5.00 each for originals, I'd have to check my notes.

I use reproduction drums on repairs because there is a finite supply of original drums out there. If they weren't any good, I wouldn't use them.

I saw online a source of NOS drums 6 for $30, which I didn't think was a bad price. I also saw the reproduction ones 10 for $30, which is better, but I've dealt with a lot of reproduction parts, some of which are fine, and others which are junk. When I close up an e-unit, I hope to not have to open it again, so I wanted to make sure that I put good parts in there. That's why I asked.  Thanks for all the info guys!

I do not like the reproductions. The ends are too short or malformed or the contacts and plastic do not line up. I search for originals at shows even if they are used. I can typically pick them up for $1 to $3 each.

If you're finding repro drums in that condition, you need to consider a new source.  I've had none of those issues with the ones from Henning's stock.

I noticed that the ends on some of the reproduction black drums in my drawer didn't look too good. I don't remember where I got them, probably EBay.

Because of the variation in quality of reproduction parts that Michael R. mentioned, I avoid buying many reproduction parts through the internet. I want to see those parts first.

When my repair shop was open, I got my replacement drums from Jeff Kane at The Train Tender. In 14 years I only had 1 with a cocked contact. And from the damage to the package, I think something heavy got dropped on it in shipping.

I did use a buffing pad on one side of a 4" variable speed grinder to clean any oxidation off the contacts before installation.

C.W., sorry for the late reply (had my knee "scoped" yesterday). I totally agree with you on the clear drums. I've repaired the e-units on two of the 1981 issued #8100 746 "remakes". In both cases the end tip had failed on a clear drum.