More on the banana whistle. The fellow who had it sent to me for repair - on the 392T frame. An interesting device with a few problems. He wants it to be working with as little as possible differnece from original appearance. Here are a few photos, observations and questions.
Note the brush holder held on by pins - comapre with screws used in later models. For comparison here it is next to a Flying Yankee whistle. Note that from this we see two sizes of banana whixtle chambers. It will be interesting to hear the diffenence in tone. I'd expect the Yankee to be a tenor and the big guy to be the bass 
It was said by the owner to barely turn and then jam. So first step of course was to change color of brushes and commmutator from black to copper.
Then applying ower with the mechanism held together with two pins and my fingers, motor turns and then jams. A little looking and thinking and I realize the problem is the brush holder isn't keeping the armature shaft straight because the pins aren't tight. Looks like I need to drill and tap for screws.
Any comments from opne who has had this problem before ?
I'm thinking maybe Lionel began with pins and then when they realized they wouldn't hold after maintenance change to screws. Is the pinned brush holder an uncommon variatrion found only in the earliest whistles ?
Looking at this photo, you can see that it looks like the backplate was once removed and then replaced using something that looks like glue, probably to make it air tight.
Then there is the mounting. The whistle wiggled on the tender - very loose. Turns out the reason was the mounting pad. Looks like Lionel mounted the whistle to the bracket with a spacer pad to damp sound transmission to the tender chassis. The spacer is now a flaking hard black material that migth at one time have been rubber, or something else. With what do I replace it ? Need to get something in there to keep it still when mounted. Can't see a non-destructive way to separate the parts and insert a new pad. Thinking of shoving in some thin wood to stabilize it.
After seeing that, I looked at the Flying Yankee and see the same problem, but so much as to make it very loose.
Looking forward to comments on this one.
