Best way to troubleshoot non-working #60 trolley?

I would use a meter and start checking continuity.  You may have a cold solder joint or a broken wire. I would also check to see if you have power at the end of the wire coming from the middle rollers.

There should be continuity between the pickup roller, and one of the tabs leading to one of the brushes. The contact on the sliding bar may not be contacting the underside of the fiber board where the field wires. Resolder the wires from the field to the contacts on the fiber board. Are the brush springs still having enough tension?Is the pin that the roller rides on clean? 

If its really "hit". Cycling the bumpers a bunch may break up, or clean away, old chunky grease separating contacts. Oiled axles, & clean, non-oxidized wheel treads, and rollers? Frame at bushings rust free? Following the power/continuity with a test lamp or meter is next.

 

Not all that long ago I had a trolley that would not run at all in either direction.

The problem turned out to be the electrical contact between the reversing slide and the chassis. There was so much grease and dirty that the slide was not making contact. Carefully cleaning the slide's channel, the slide, and the contact plate resolved the issue.

 

You can test for this problem. Use a pair of test leads. Touch one lead to the pickup roller, and the second lead to one of the terminals on the contact plate that covers the reversing slide. The motor should run in one direction. Then touch the wire to the second terminal on the contact plate. The motor should run in the opposite direction.

Thanks to all for the advice.  Will follow up with results.

I took the whole shebang apart and rechecked all the solder joints, put in new grease and gave it a go.  Had to give it high voltage to get it going, but it finally took off.  The slider is making contact correctly but the trolley is not reversing.  It runs in one direction no matter which contact is selected.  I'm thinking that I have the wires from the field soldered incorrectly.  I have one green wire, one red wire and another green wire with some red twisted on the end.  I have the red wire soldered to the brush.  The other two are soldered to the contact plate.  I did it this way because the red wire was hooked on one side of the field winding and the green and green/red were on the other side of the winding.  I was following the way my other trolley was wired - two on one side and one on the other.  Should the green with red on the end go to the brush instead?  Thanks/KC.

It sounds like you have it wired incorrectly.

Here is the schematic for the trolley.

The red/green pair get soldered to one brush connection.

The single red wire gets soldered to one contact plate lug, and the single green wire gets soldered to the other contact plate lug.

Power gets soldered to the other brush connection.

 

Larry

I have a #60 trolley that runs but it sounds like I put nuts and bolts in a blender?  I am thinking this isnt good lol  Any ideas where I should start?

Start with cleaning and lubrication.

 

Well  -  after re-soldering and testing, I was back to square one.  Doing a search on the forum I saw many mentions of broken wires.  This was the problem with mine, the red wire was broken in two places.  I can rewind -it doesn't appear to be too hard.  Am I correct in that I need one red insulated wire and one green insulated wire wound evenly and then connected up as TrainLarry says?  Where can I obtain this kind of wire?  It's much thinner than anything I have on hand.  One more question - on my working trolley the field is wound with just copper colored wire.  Am I correct that two strands of insulated copper wire were wound achieving the same results as using colored wire?

I don't own one to compare with at the moment, but will answer with this. In Lionels, there are two types of semi-clear laquer coated field windings. One uses a single wire, often red. The other uses dual field uses two wires wound together, connected separately, on the same area of motor frame. The two wires are used -vs- one, to wire for reverse in a different way.

(they perform the same function, one wire for is rev./ one is for fwd). I'll try and find a wiring diagram for each if I have time, but have been quite scattered/busy.

  In theory you can rewind armatures, and fields. I have done it a bunch, but I can seldom get the same amount of wraps the machines do. So I usually just find a new part. If I did wrap it, I'd seriously investigate converting to a single winding.(personal pref.) 

Laquer wire is available at Radio Shack unless it was recently dropped. Don't use rubber insulated wire, your field wont be as strong because of looser wires, and number of wraps will be lower.    

The colors on the dual field are green laquer and red laquer

The color of the wire matters little. The gauge is probably a little more important.

If you rewind with a single strand, I don't know how you will reverse it.

 

 

It is a dual field by directed by the slider, so as CW noted, reversing is an issue. But you do still have one field if the other is burnt/broke an aftermarket e-unit board without neutral might be used to avoid a rewind.

Heres a link to an OGR thread with a good #60 trolley diagram