#671 engine cleanup

Bulb smoke indicates very early model.  Over lube unlikely to be cause of this problem.  Does it have an e unit, if it does clean and check wipers correctly touching where they should.  Could you have gotten water in the motor from the cleaning, if so dry out?  Check brushes and clean commutator.  Check wires not shorting or disconnected.

Bill

Is the wire plug in the RH socket on the motor? Is the return spring in the reverse unit present?

@ogaugenut posted:

Bulb smoke indicates very early model.  Over lube unlikely to be cause of this problem.  Does it have an e unit, if it does clean and check wipers correctly touching where they should.  Could you have gotten water in the motor from the cleaning, if so dry out?  Check brushes and clean commutator.  Check wires not shorting or disconnected.

Bill

Thanks Bill! It does have an e unit that I did remove before washing. The motor was also removed before the wash. I cleaned both of those pieces with alcohol. I thought I did a decent job on the commutation but I can redo. I did install new brushes and springs. I will go back and also check the wiring. Thanks for the tips. Dan.    PS: when you say wipers and correct touching. Where us thst exactly...on top of the unit?

@Chuck Sartor posted:

Is the wire plug in the RH socket on the motor? Is the return spring in the reverse unit present?

Thanks Chuck! The wire plug is on the left socket. The only two springs I've seen were on the two brushes. I will move the wire plug. Thanks Dan

I purchased a Lionel prewar 224 at a show last fall that was in very poor condition. I did a complete engine and tender restoration which I have done many times and installed new brushes and springs in the engine with very poor performance. I replaced the brushes and springs with the ones that came with it and now its one of my best performers. I read somewhere that the new brushes today are not as good as the old ones but I'm no expert on that.

Inside the eUnit there is a rotating drum with partial metal coating.  There are four (I think) fingers that rub against the drum.  Sometimes these fingers get bent or corroded such that they don't make electrical contact with the drum.  Very big pita to put eUnit back together after disassembly.

Bill

This is a one year 1946 model.   Horizontal motor.   Try putting the old brushes back in.   Why?   There are some brushes with a higher resistance/ohm rating.  The resistance drops the voltage to the motor.   And they get hot.    The brushes should have about .2 ohms.  The bad ones have 2+ ohms.    I usually clean brushes but only replace them if they are worn way down.

You want the plug on the left so the E-unit cycles.  With the plug on the right, the E-unit is disabled.  Looking from the back of the engine L/R  Cycle the E-unit 3 times to check reverse and forward.

If the original E-unit, Moving it and the wires around could cause a problem.    Removing tension on the fingers that touch the drum.     75% of my engines from this era have needed an E-unit rebuild.

I use electrical contact cleaner to clean the rollers on old locos.  Spray it in where the roller runs on the shaft.  I find there is often resistance built up there.    It could be used on an e-unit also, but it might mess up the plastic drum, so it is a last resort before rebuilding the E-unit.   

Pictures of the wiring and e-unit would help.

FYI - from Olsen's CD. May help now and in the future.

On a 1946 671, the e-unit fingers are solid silver. They may need cleaning, but they do not oxidize.  The silver e-unit fingers are worth taking care of, as they are excellent performers and no longer available.  As for the high resistance brushes, that is something of a puzzle.  Motor brushes conduct power not only from the wires to the commutator bars, but also from commutator bar to commutator bar. It is the bar to bar conduction that results in most of the sparking you see when the motor is running. One thing that can be done to reduce bar to bar sparking is increase brush resistance.  This reduces current flow bar to bar. To compensate for this the line voltage can just be increased to overcome the increased voltage drop in the brush.  The result of this is hotter brushes. But carbon can take very high temperatures, so this may not be much of an issue.   Lionel may actually have been looking for an improvement when they increased the brush resistance. On DC series wound motors, even large motors like 600 volt traction motors, the maximum bar to bar voltage is about 22 volts. So with Lionel’s three bar commutator they are right at the edge of the maximum acceptable bar to bar voltage.  The bar to bar arcing is the cause of most commutator damage. As you clean up the commutator you can see the erosion of the copper adjacent to the slots from the arcing.   How I deal with this issue is to use post war brushes in post war motors and have lots of engines so I spread the wear around.

@charles mcdaniel posted:

I purchased a Lionel prewar 224 at a show last fall that was in very poor condition. I did a complete engine and tender restoration which I have done many times and installed new brushes and springs in the engine with very poor performance. I replaced the brushes and springs with the ones that came with it and now its one of my best performers. I read somewhere that the new brushes today are not as good as the old ones but I'm no expert on that.

I did notice that the new brushes I purchased on ebay had more if a silvery tint, not like the sort of copper color that was the originals. Maybe that could be a difference. Thanks for your input Charles. Dan

@MED posted:

FYI - from Olsen's CD. May help now and in the future.

Thank you for the parts diagram. I learned alot . It will be helpful. Very appreciative. Thanks Dan