A few weeks ago I received my new Lionel Legacy C&NW AA set and had time this past week to test it out. Everything seemed to be working fine other than the coil coupler on the A Dummy unit was not reliably opening. I could hear the coil coupler vibrate but it would only open one out of five times. I tried using some dry lubricant but that did not help much.
I ordered a new coil coupler for it from Lionel (before their service dept. move) and installed the new one this past weekend. The new coil coupler worked great and opened every time I fired it. However, I now had a new problem. The cab lights on the dummy A unit were doing the three blinking dance of death (for the smoke fan motor). I tried resetting the unit several times but the blinking lights continued. No smoke.
Okay, I’ve dealt with that problem before and had a number of extra fan motors on hand. So I took the unit apart (I like to fix my own problems when I can plus Lionel’s service is now down) and first tired lubricating the fan motor. No change. So I replaced the fan motor with a new one and still no change. My Last Lionel engine that had this problem (three blinking lights and no smoke) the problem went away immediately after replacing the smoke unit fan motor. I tried two more new motors and still no change! The cab lights continued to blink three times! I tried resetting some more and still the problem persisted. I was stumped at this point so went to bed (since it was 1am).
The next day (the shell of the unit was still off) I noticed that the dummy A unit’s backup light at idle (unit not moving) was pulsating quickly which didn’t seem right and it didn’t do this when I first ran it. I wasn’t sure what to try next but knew that the only thing I did to it was swap out the coil coupler. I examined the wires of the coupler to see if there were any exposed wires – nope. So I decided to unplug the new coil coupler to see what would happen. The first thing I noticed was that the backup light no longer pulsated but was steady. I turned on the smoke unit and no blinking lights! I tested it for a while and the smoke unit smoked beautifully without problem!
So next I tried plugging the coil coupler back into its socket to see what would happen. No blinking lights! No pulsating backup light! Everything was working! I have now run it for a full two days and no further problems.
I thought this was interesting and wanted to share my experience with others. I’m not sure what the problem was with the coil coupler plug initially but it only fits in the socket one way. I knew I had it fully seated the first time but perhaps it was making good contact? Whatever it was, it did impact the diagnostic testing of the smoke unit fan motor. If I hadn’t tried messing with the coupler, I would have likely needed to send it back to Lionel.
