I recently acquired a second Lionel 1688 that appears to have been part of a regular pre-war set. Since the shell on my first loco isn't in great shape and the motor on the second is missing some parts, I figured I'd just swap the shells, but noooo. The first thing I noticed is that the e-unit lever is in the back of the unit while the other is on the front. The rest of the motor is entirely different in many ways; the brushes are on the opposite side, only one side of the motor has a vertical frame, how it attaches to the shell is different (the shell is slightly shorter too) and I can't figure out how the pickup slides were mounted. Does anyone have any idea what this motor looks like when complete?
The top loco seems to be the common one (baby blue was not its original color). Note the topside position of the double rivets and the e-unit lever slot. The e-unit from the second loco's motor is removed for refurbishing.
Below, the motor on the top belongs to the second loco.
Below, the bottom motor belongs to the second loco. Note that there is no side frame on this side, so where does the power pickup attach to?
