A few years ago I purchased a very nice original Ives 3240, and then later a second one that had been tastefully restored. Both are the early 1912-16 version with the truck chains. Probably my personal favorite toy train locomotive. It wasn't until this month that I was able to run them (it took a while to find gauge one track). Here are some photos and videos of them running in the living room.
In the first two photos they are running together- the original is on the left, the restored unit (which has a replacement roof among other things) on the right.
While the original 3240 ran perfectly with only lubrication, the restored 3240 had numerous problems. Repair of a loose wire to one of the brush holders was the first step, but the motor would only chatter. I brought the loose motor to the local TTOS meeting and looked at it with repair expert Larry Pearson. It's a tough motor to work on because everything is riveted together- no way to get the armature or reverser components out. The photos show the steps in getting the power truck off the loco, removing the motor unit, and then some of the troubleshooting. We removed the insulator under the reverser which revealed the brass strips feeding the contact fingers, but these were OK. The problem turned out to be a finger that was not quite making contact with the reverser drum. With no way to take out the drum to re-tension the finger, a tiny wooden shim was placed behind it and it worked fine after that. This permitted the obligatory double-header seen in the photos and videos above. The 3240's are heavy beasts- the restored one (which does not have the extra transformer inside) weighs in 6-1/2 pounds.
