There are (as far as I know) two types of toaster mechanism. The first is the old-style mechanical, which uses a heat-sensitive (bi-metallic?) strip or wire that expands when the toast begins to reflect more heat (and turns brown) and pushes a trip-lever and pops-up the toast. The other, more modern kind of toaster mechanism is electromagnetic. The easiest way to tell which one you have is by pushing down the toast carrier with the toaster unplugged. The old mechanical kind will stay down, but the newer electromagnetic style won't, because the electromagnet requires power. I recently bought an electromagnetic-style toaster from a thrift store. The coils heated up, but the carrier wouldn't stay down. I took it apart and used a multimeter to test as many of the various components in place on the board as I could. The transistor (a small black cylinder with one flat side and three wire 'legs') seemed bad. I desoldered and removed it, checked the part number printed on it and looked on the 'net for...