Yesterday I un-boxed my lionel scale B&O F3 set after five years in storage. I oiled all three units and put them on the track and powered them up. All was fine and they ran well, but I noticed the dummy "A" smoke unit was inop.
After removing the shell, I found the fan motor was not running. After further disassembly, I finally got the motor removed from the smoke unit casting and tried powering the motor with two AA batteries. The motor remained dead as a doornail. I tried "awakening" the motor with a 9 volt battery and still no motor response.I then hooked the motor up to my old DC powerpack and (judiciously) applied some voltage in the normal and "pulse" settings and still could not get the motor to run.
I did notice that there was what appeared to be smoke fluid wetting on the surface the motor mates to the chamber casting. I wiped it off and upon further trials with the battery, it would be wet again shortly. Having no operating motor at hand, I decided why not try to "dry' the motor of the smoke fluid. And so, I went and put some isopropyl alcohol in a cup and dunked the entire motor in it and swished it around for a few seconds before removing it and drying it off while shaking the unit to remove anymore fluid that might exit the three holes in the motor end plate. Once I had it dry, it was time to try some juice from the power-pack. Much to my surprise, the motor started sputtering momentarily and finally settled into a steady running rpm. It then also ran on the battery power source.
I reassembled everything and tested it and it ran normally. It's running normally today as well ( I did re-oil the top bearing prior to re-assembly).
My take on this is you may want to try this before just assuming the motor is dead when it may really be flooded with smoke fluid. This unit was initially stored "wet" to try to keep the smoke unit batting from drying out too much. With two house moves and extended storage, the fluid found its way into the fan motor over time.
Hope this helps some of you with similar issues.
