Lionel 229 Motor Help

A few pictures to hopefully help!

Something to try, remove the screw for the lower motor brush, wire brush the screw and screw contact area and replace screw tight.

Good luck!

It sounds like you may have a bad armature. Use a meter to check. There is a video on you tube by Shamus Mcclain. Search lionel pre war humpback O gauge motor check he shows you what to look for in an armature. I always unwire the e units to see if the motor will run by itself.If it does then you know your problem is somewhere else. Let us know what you find

"The motor field winding also starts to smoke."   That is a very bad sign.  Usually means a short in the winding, pulling amps and making heat.   That leads to no-go very quickly.   

Checked the armature and it shows an equal ohm measurement across all three parts so I think it’s ok.

I found that the wire for the top brush was bent in and touching the frame which I think was causing it to short. The motor runs forward now (when the e-unit behaves) but I can’t get it to run backwards. When it started running the bottom brush was arcing pretty bad so I’ve ordered a replacement set.

Any tips on getting the e-unit to cycle consistently? I occasionally have to tap it to get the plunger to drop.

See my E-unit notes.   It may be time to rebuild it. 

Vibration can cause the plunger pawl to make a groove under the teeth of the drum.  Gravity drops the plunger/pawl.  The groove inhibits this.  Remove the drum and using a razor blade/xacto blade cut/smooth away groove built up portion. Or replace the drum.  Reassemble, you should be good to go.

Yes if you got it to run armature is good try rebuilding the e unit plenty of videos on you tube. Can be a pia but rewarding.

Thanks all, I’ll get to work on the e-unit and follow up.

Still waiting on e-unit parts… In the meantime, what should I lubricate on this (and other) prewar motors and what do y’all recommend as a lubricant?

Maybe make sure you do not have one of those 90 year old wires grounding through the insulation on the chassis at some point also.

I was looking at my photos of my 229 and noticed the brush plate and frame is different then what nab014 posted. Here's a look at my photos of the 229 I worked on (problem with geared wheel lucky I had a extra complete motor). Did Lionel change the motor later?

Yes there are two versions of the prewar four-wheel motor chassis.  I think the original poster's is the earlier version made with parallel plates, similar to the 1666 motor, and also similar to the one used on the 2034 in the 1950s.

The one in your photos is all die-cast with an easily replaceable plastic (instead of fiber) plate for the roller pickups.  As far as I know, that's the later and better design.  It was further upgraded in 1948 with two-stage gear reduction.  This prompted some number changes, i.e., the 1654 became the 1655, and the 1665 switcher became the 1656.

My own 229 has the later die-cast motor.  I want to swap it to a 1656 double-reduction motor for two reasons: (1) More gear reduction translates to smoother, more consistent running.  (2) The double-reduction motor doesn't have the large gears on the wheels which are incompatible with certain types of switches.  It's a great-looking loco that deserves more track time!

@Dennis Holler posted:

Maybe make sure you do not have one of those 90 year old wires grounding through the insulation on the chassis at some point also.

Yeah, I found one the other day, I need to run through everything…just have to be careful not to break any more insulation in the process!

I was wondering the same thing about the different motors. I recently purchased another 229 and it had the plastic pickup plate and the brush mount was completely different. Made me think a previous owner might have thrown a different motor in one or the other. Thanks for the history lesson!

I did some research and in David Doyle prewar Lionel book they said the motor was changed mid production 1939-42 with the e-unit lever from back of the motor to the front. It would be great if we can get a a photo of the top of nab014's loco to verify this. My photo of the 229 shows it right behind smoke stack. Thanks!

Sure enough, I’ve got one of each!

The locomotive with the plastic roller plate has the e-unit lever at the front of the locomotive.

The locomotive with the fiber roller plate has the e-unit lever at the back of the locomotive.

Thanks for confirming that. Prewar Lionel has lots of variations as they improved there line.