GUNRUNNERJOHN.......,,MTH model # 30-1724-1. 4-6-6-4 proto 3 Imperial Challenger
I think your advice to replace the boiler board AE-1000E32 is the way I'd like to go with this to get the smoke fan working . I'm not familiar with a channel to pick one of these boiler boards up. Not being a tech, where would I be able to get one ? John,the FAILURE occured when I replaced the boiler board with a KNOWN bad one that looked like a match for the Challengers board. Interestingly enough , the fan motor FET Q87 on that board matched the one on the original board and when I installed the bad board the smoke fan motor ran steady at idle and when I rotated the flywheel by hand the fan motor noise matched the chuffing sound. This bad board though was the cause of the loss of motor engagement. On reinstalling the original boiler board I had working motors again but of course, no smoke fan motor noise.🤐 The bad board might be a place I could try practicing detaching an FET 😁 . Any spealized equipment needed?
NORTON..........The drawbar connections are good and tight. I reinforce the female housings at both ends on my steamer's drawbars . Previous posts mentioned the hard to detect cracking that would occur on the female connector housings. I use MTH plastic tender post securing devices to help keep the tender connection in place also.
The only problem I had with the proto 2 steamers was the connection at the engine where the tether mounted to the rigid pin assembly. I had to do some soldering on that small board to correct an intermittent issue.
