Original 1619W set

The battery bracket and horn relay are missing.
My guess: a battery burst and corroded the bracket, so someone removed it and threw it away.
Last time I needed to replace a ALCO battery bracket, I had a donor engine.

That engine looks pretty good.
looks like the E-unit is corroded from battery stuff too.
also looks like the frame may have been partially repainted.

If the engine was mine:
I would look for an original battery bracket and relay.
I would replace the e-unit.
I would keep my eyes out for a donor frame.

If you go this route, you will need the various pieces of insulation for the battery bracket too.

Again, those pictures make the engine look like it would be worth repairing with original parts.

That's good to know that it's a good enough survivor to try and restore it back to original. I will have to start looking for parts. My wife's uncle had it for a long time, I will have to ask him if he has any of the parts. 

One thing I noticed when running it a little more last night. It flies in reverse for the same throttle setting as forward. 

Is that a matter of dirty forward contacts in the e unit or strictly the way they operate?

Checking the contacts in the e-unit is a good idea, but that is not likely to be the issue.
After checking the e-unit contacts, I'd check the motor.
It could be that a simple cleaning and replacing the brushes could fix your problem.

Postwar Lionel used two different basic motors on their ALCOs with sheet metal frames.
There are a bunch of variations too.

The older ones used a black plastic plate that was mounted at the bottom of the power truck to hold the lower armature bearing. On this one, the staking loosens up, and that lower plate goes out of alignment. When this happens the motor often runs well in one direction, but degraded or not at all in the other.

On the newer ones Postwar Lionel moved the bearing to the metal plate between the field and the gearbox. This eliminated the problem. The black plastic plate was left there as a dust cover. Eventually, Lionel just stopped using it.

I am not certain which motor your loco has.

Can you check the motor to see if it has the plate? If so, is the lower part of the armature is actually running in a bearing on the lower cover?

I will take pictures and post them maybe you can tell me what i have. the power truck has an oil hole in the bottom through a plastic cover between the frame rails. I let it run for a while this morning. it starts out not exactly slow but at 14v on my KW after a few laps it will speed up and i throttle down to 12v for running speed,

Here is what I was able to find. I also looked at the drum in the e unit. All the strips on the drum are very dirty and the plastic portions have some gouging in them from the fingers. With the rusty frame it would make me hesitant to touch it without the intent of replacing it.  

Looks like you have the second style motor. That is the one with the bearing between the field and the gearbox. The plastic piece on the bottom is just a dust cover.

Be certain to lubricate that bearing.

The brush plate bearing doesn't look right. It looks like it might be split. Is there a lot of play (wiggling) at the top?

I'd look for a replacement e-unit. With some careful shopping, they can be found on EBay for around $15.

I will have to take a peek at it next chance I get