Joy Line style Marx Motor

[Flat_twin]

Hi,  I have an early Marx M10000 streamliner with a Joyline style electric motor.    The motor runs slowly even at 10 to 12 volts and gets hot if I run it more than a lap or two.  The head light burns brightly so current is getting to the motor frame but I think the connections at the brushes or the brushes themselves are the reason for the heat and slow performance.  

Cleaning the armature surface, cleaning the bores of the brush holders and making the connections at the brushes as good as possible helped somewhat  but it still seems to be getting too hot and not much speed on the track.   These brushes are smaller in diameter than brushes used in later Marx motors so there's a strike already. I tried to resurface them and keep the faces as flat as possible.  Sometimes nothing works like new brushes eh?  The wire at the brush holders make their connection by acting as spring retainers.  They're just pushed thru two holes across the top of the brush holders, keeping the springs and brushes in their bores.  Another odd thing about this motor is that the brush plate is riveted in place. 

I'd like to see a photo or two of a similar Joyline electric motor for comparison.

Thanks,

Mark

[lionelsoni]

You may have shorted turns in your field winding.  Try running it on DC.  If it runs better (not necessarily well), that's probably the problem.  The fix would be to rewind the field coil.

[servoguy]

I suggest you lube the loco with motor oil.  I don't see any evidence of lube in your picture.  This is the most common problem when a loco is performing poorly, and will ruin the loco in short order.

[Flat_twin]

Had I photographed the other side of the motor you would have seen evidence of lubrication.  The only place for lube in the photo shown is the armature axle.  However, you were correct.  Lubrication was one of two problems I found.  When I cleaned and lubed the motor initially I used spray contact cleaner and Q tips dipped in alcohol.  What I didn't see right away was hardened grease around the armature axle on the other side under the small gear.  Once I scraped away the hardened grease, cleaned and lubed again things started moving very nicely.

The brushes, well really the springs behind the brushes were faulty as well.  As I said earlier these are smaller in diameter than standard brushes for Marx motors.  I dug around a found a set of brushes from a Lionel 027 motor which fit this Joyline motor real well.  Now we're cooking!  This train runs on very little voltage now and is very smooth other than a little growl from the wheel gears which stick out beyond the edge of the wheels.  

Here's a quick video.  I love old Marx trains!!!

http://youtu.be/JA8b6T_J8J4