PostWar Lionel - Horizontal vs Vertical Motor Diesels

[Jim Rotella]

Matthew, 

 

Thanks for the detailed maintainence tips. Great information.

 

Jim

[Mimbrogno]

Greetings!

I have many different 40's and 50's lionel locomotives, and I have just about every motor version lionel made, except for the Atomic Motor of the 773 Hudson (early model). I also have many years experiance in running these various types, and I know quite well the different charachtoristics between them.

One word of note: the performance of your trains depends to a great extent on how well you maintain them. If you don't keep the motors clean, and the drivetrain lubed, your trains won't run well enough to see any kind of difference.

Horizontal motors are the premium motors lionel made, and were designed to match the true scale speed of the F-3, topping out at 100mph. That's why they run so much slower than the other motors, which run at up to 150-200mph scale speed. They also have much more torque because of the large field coils and the gear reduction.

These motors also require the greatest amount of regular maintance. They don't have to be the noisest things on the tracks, infact mine run almost silently, because I have learned the secret to making them run at ther best, which I'm happy to share with you. The most important part in keeping the noise down is the armature shaft and it's bearings. Most people have no clue that the armature shaft that extends down the length of the motor mount to the reduction gear has to be lubricated, and kept well clean of any debris. The bearings also have to be snugged up tight to ensure there is no slack. The methode I use to overhaul one of these motors is as follows:

First, remove the motor from the locomotive frame, and lift it off while taking care not to damage the wires at the commutator end. Next, remove the brush plate. Now try to wiggle the armature around in it's frame, checking for slack or excess movement. Normally, the armature should be very tight, with virtually no movement in or out or side to side. Now procede with dissasembly of motor unit:

2332, 736, or similar: Remove retaining clip of the armature located at the end of the frame, at the top of the worm gear threads. Pull the armature out, being carefull not to scratch the inside of the housing with the threads. Remove the two bronze bushings and the rollor bearing sets. Now with a fine cloth, wipe down the motor shaft to remove all grease and foreign debris. Rinse the shaft with WD-40 and wipe again to get a polished shine. Do the same to the bushings, using a Q-tip to clean the inside of them. For the roller bearings, soak them in a bath of WD-40 or other cleaning agent to remove as much dirt as possible. Use a toothpick or other fine pointed insturment to clean out the dried dirt and grease in between the ball rollers. After soaking in cleaning agent, rub the bearing in a cloth, rolling the balls on your fingers. Set bearings aside. The inside of the motor frame should be thoughroly washed out removing all old grease and dirt. Use a Q-tip to make sure the inside is completely clean.

Now for reassembly: Put a small amount of light to medium weight oil on the rollor bearings so that they are fully coated without seeping excess out of the bearing area. Now put the first rollor bearing in it's place at the end of the shaft under the armature coils. Then lube the inside of the bronze bushings with a medium weight oil and put them into their proper places in the frame. If you wish to secure the bushings tightly in the frame, wrap them in a layor or two of thick paper or masking tape, cut to less than the width of the bearing on either side. I recommend that this be done because it will reduce vibration and limit the effect of shocks and impacts on the motor. Now set the armature into position in the frame and bushings. replace the end roller bearing and locknut. If any slack was noticed earlier, insert washers between the roller bearing an retaining clip to reduce the amount of excess play. The armature should be snug but not clamped down tight. Finally, fill the inside of the frame with grease or medium to heavy machine oil through the filling hole at the top to keep the bearings moist. I suggest that you plug the hole with cotton or the cut end of a toothpick to keep dirt and debris out. Leave enough sticking out of the hole so that you can refill the oil over time. If done properly, the motor should spin very freely, without vibration or rattling.

 For the motors of the 2333 and other early F3's, the same procedure is used except in regards to the gears. When removing and replacing the gears, great care must be taken not to crack or damage them when they are pryed off. Lubrication is the same except that a very light, plastic friendly lubricant has to be used on the nylon gear. Grease is much too thick and it will bog down the geartrain. Also, when grease drys over time, it can dry out the nylon making it weak and brittle. If this has happened, replace the nylon gear before operating. 

 

Vertical motors come in a variety of qualities. The very best and smoothest running in my experiance are those of the early ALCO FA-2s and EMD NW-2s with the cast zinc frames. Next in quality are the later series that powered the H-66-24 Trainmaster, GP-7, various electrics, and late F-3s. These motors were smaller and didn't have the power ratings of the others, but they still had a respectable performance. The worst operating motors in my experiance (besides Fundeminsions units) were the later 0-27 motors which were built into the top of the trucks. The main problem I've experianced is excessive armature slack, which leads to problems reversing and jerky operation. There isn't a whole lot that can be done to correct the slack, which in some cases is enough to push the armature straight off the axle sprocket.

One last note about oils: WD-40 is not a particularly suitible lubricant to use bcause it evaporates so quickly. You could use it if you wanted to oil your equipment every half hour, but I wouldn't recommend it. WD-40 is an excellent cleaner though, and it can revitalize some heavier grease and oils. It's particularly good at cleaning freight car axle bearings. Put a drop on the axle right inside of the wheel, run it a few laps, and then apply regular light machine oil. The WD-40 runs the grit and junk right out of the bearings.
Also, "3-In-1" oil is to be avoided on all crittical bearing surfaces. When heated up or subjected to excessive friction, it becomes a very stiky tar that will grind out bearings faster than you can shut off the transformer. It does have one use I might add... If you put a tiny bit of "3-In-1" oil on the wheel tread, and run (or hold) the engine on a perfectly straight piece of track, you will get perfectly contoured traction tires that fit the railhead precisly. It's a great way to give that little old 1656 0-4-0 a bit more "Umph".

 

Happy Railroading!
Matthew Imbrogno
-Mechanical Vollenteer, Arizona Railway Museum
www.azrailwaymuseum.org

[Anonymous]

I don't think either type of motor has, in and of itself, any advantage in pulling power over the other.  Any one of  1. the weight of the locomotive, 2. number of motors, 3. traction tires and 4. to a lesser extent magnatraction, will have more effect than the motor type.

You're right about the gear noise on the horizontal motors.  They're notorious for all the racket they make! 

One thing that can rob a lot of power from either of them is dried out grease in the gear boxes.  I've rebuilt most of my older locomotives' trucks and often pried out chunks of old grease that were so dried out that they had the consistency of a cold Hershey bar.  (I usually use white lithium grease - and lots of it - to replace what I removed.)

Another thing that can have a big effect on how much your engine can pull is whether or not you keep the axels on your rolling stock oiled.  Dry axels create a LOT of drag. especially on postwar cars before the advent of needle bearings on the axels.

Good luck!

[lionelsoni]

I have a two-motor 2332, but, as Backtotrains says, I modified it myself by putting a motor into the dummy unit.

I agree that vertical motors are quiet and smooth; but it took Lionel three tries to get to the definitive version.  They started in 1949 with the NW2 and soon put them into the Alcos and GG1s.  But these versions had the disadvantage that the worm wheel was on one of the axles.  The small size of the drivers put the worm-wheel sump dangerously close to the center rail.  I have filed some metal off the bottoms of my locomotives that use this design to get better clearance over O27 turnouts.

The next advance was in 1954 with the Train Masters, where they came up with the clever idea of putting the motor shaft and worm through the center bearing, substantially simplifing the locomotive's floor.

The final step came in 1955 with the F3 and GP7, when they moved the worm wheel to its own shaft between the axles and were therefore able to raise it up fully into the truck casting.  They also took advantage of the smaller motor assembly to move the center bearing inboard of the actual truck center from its former location outboard of the center.  This is why the vertical-motor F3s were able to boldly go through O27 turnouts where no horizontal-motor F3 had gone before.

[Back2Trains]

If you have dual motors in a postwar Lionel Alco diesel, the second motor was probably added. The only configuration made was a single motor. I have owned a set of 2023s since they were new and lately a few other ALCOS as well. All had single motors in the powered unit and nothing but a lightbulb in the dummy. I suppose it would fairly easy to add a motor to one of these but you would probably need to put the horn components in the dummy and relocate the E unit to provide space for a rear motor truck.

In general the vertical motored engines are quieter than the horizontal motored ones because of the types of gear trains used. The horizontal motored F3s are super pullers with especially good low speed performance but they don't run as fast as my dual vertical motored engines. I don't have any of the later F3s with vertical motors, either single or dual for comparison but I do have a 2340 GG1 and a 2321 Trainmaster. Both of these are also excellent pullers and much quieter than the early F3s.

[pgtr]

I'm looking for comments on tradeoffs and performance for these motor configurations found on postwar Lionel diesels. I've got a dual horizontal motor F3, a single horizontal motor F3 and a dial vertical motor postwar ALCO. All have diecast frames and matching dummy A units. I run them on O31 track.

In usage I do not perceive that much of an obvious difference between the dual and single motor F3s. Should I? The dual motor F3 is a little heavier but on the track the difference seems subtle.

The vertical shaft dual motors motors in the UP diesel are MUCH quieter (lack of gear noise I'm guessing) and notably faster than than either of my horizontal motored F3s. Are the horizontal F3s, while slower, better pullers?

Looking for a discussion on the advantages or disadvantages or tradeoffs between each of the 3 permutations (dual horizontal F3, single horizontal F3, dual vertical ALCO) in postwar diesels.

Thanks!