Lionel 224E wiring

Was anything attached to the headlight?

Doesn’t currently have a headlight, but that makes sense. Motor still doesn’t turn over if this is just a headlight wire. Trying to get this to run for my neighbor.

Try this:

Okay. Makes sense that the wire is for the light that is missing on this locomotive. I have the wiring diagram, but just wasn’t seeing it correctly. now to figure out why the motor won’t turn over. It just buzzes…as i look at the e-unit tumbler, it appears to be moving, but it just keeps buzzing.

It may be one of the fingers is not quite touching the drum . Take off the screw holding e unit hold in hand and rotate drum as its hard to see otherwise.If dirty or oily give it a shot of plastic safe crc cleaner.

Hard to tell in the picture but it looks to me like the field coil wire.

I'm pretty sure that's the headlight wire, the length is due to the convoluted way it must snake through the front of the engine to get to the headlight bracket mounted on the front truck. I just finished doing an overhaul on my prewar 224, nice little engines

I didn't see the lead for the coil. I also think the above wiring diagram is for the post war 1656,, as the circuit returns to ground after going through the brushes and not the coil, which is how engine circuits of this age get completed.  It took me awhile to figure what you're going through out myself when I had to get a motor like that running.  In my case someone had unsoldered the wires and abandoned the project. Looks like you are facing the same issue. Diagrams are nice, if you're used to reading them. I've done rewire jobs enough that I have mental picture of what to do. If you don't mind, I'll try to explain as best I can how the power gets to where it needs to go. The power (black) wire comes up from the collector and can connect to the solder tab on the E-unit. At the E-unit tab, you can solder the lead to headlight there. There's a short black lead that goes from the tab to the top 4 fingers that make contact with the drum. Depending on where the drum is rotated, the power leaves the e-unit through one of the yellow wires to a brush. It then gets picked up by the other yellow wire and goes back to the drum to be routed to the long black lead that should go the coil. The coil goes to ground at a rivet, completing the circuit. It's the same basic circuit as the diagram, but the motor is grounded differently. So black wire from collector to tab, short black wire to the 4 fingers, yellow wire to a brush, other yellow wire to a brush, long black wire to the coil and Bob's your uncle!! The buzzing you hear is the armature powering up, but because the field coil is disconnected, it can't turn and just makes noise. It's not that complicated as I just made it out to be, and once you get how the circuit works, you'll be able to trouble shoot these older engines. They're a blast to get running despite what they may have been through. I have a post war version of the 224 as well as a 225 and a 226. They're great runners. Any questions, my info is in my profile send an e-mail or text.

Good Luck, Ed Horan

*edited for spelling

Thanks, everyone for the information. I will see what I can do to get my neighbor’s loco running again. This is the second “rescue from the grave” that I have attempted this fall. The first was easy - some contact cleaner and removal of old grease. This one is a puzzle, but I am thinking that Ed Horan’s detailed instructions and Dieseler’s comment about the e-unit will be helpful.

There has to be a connection to the field coil. I'm not seeing it.

@CSXJOE posted:

Try this:

I recognize that drawing, but the 224/224E "O" motor switches the brushes rather than the field.

Thanks for all of the suggestions! The mystery wire was for a missing light, so I rolled it up and slipped it into a piece of shrink tubing. The culprit was the e-unit. The bale was not moving correctly when cycled, so I sprayed it with CRC and then gently polished the copper with a fine needle file. I made sure the solenoid was cycling correctly, and put it on the test track — it was running! This is a great group and I am thankful for all of the input on getting this 224E running again. My neighbor was impressed. I told him he needed to get some track and a transformer and start running it.

Jerry