early prewar motors?

[Anonymous]

Ok, I'll start by saying my repair experiance is minimal. I recently purchased a 262 locomotive off ebay. The old girl runs, but is sluggish, and takes a lot of power to run. It has the type 8 motor with a single reduction gear. It also becomes very hot. I took it apart, replaced the brushes , and cleaned the commutator(think i spelled that right). It made a marginal difference at best. It doesnt show a lot of roller wear, and is unmodified, probably not run in 60 yrs. the rollers spark like a small incindiary device. i have heard these early steamers always operate poorly, i have a later 262e with the dual reduction motor which runs much smoothly than its ancestor. I purchased it as an operator, and would like it to run better. Any advice on were to start?

[prewardude]

I don't own a 262, but have you lubricated it? If not, that's where I'd start.

Welcome to the forum, by the way! [#welcome]

[Anonymous]

First thing i did, forgot to mention it.

[prewardude]

Okay, I'll let the others take over from here. Anybody own a 262?

[ben10ben]

The fact that you mention the motor running hot and sluggishly makes me think that you might have a shorted armature winding. To find out if this is the problem, you need a multimeter that can measure resistance.

Measure the resistance across any possible conbination of two of the three commutator plates that you can come up with, and note the readings. Then measure the resistance of the field core. All four readings that you take should be fairly close together, and usually in the 2-3 ohm range. If any one is wildly different, you most likely have found the problem.

The fix is to have the armature rewound, which can be done for a reasonable amount.

[Anonymous]

hello prewarboy, the 262 is a smooth running motor.when you stated it was sparking badly this might be a bare wire due to old age. i have an extra motor for it . it's missing the roller plate but you can swap yours for it and rewire it. if interested send me an e-mail my address is in my profile....tony

[lionelsoni]

The armature resistances should match each other; but there is no reason for the field coil's resistance to be the same, except coincidence in the design. In any case, if the armature measurements matched and the field resistance differed, that would not indicate anything wrong with the armature; and it would be a waste to rewind it.

Even if the armature resistances seem to match, there can still be a shorted turn or two, which would have little effect on the dc resistance measurement but a major effect on operation. Likewise, a shorted turn in the field could go undetected by a resistance measurement. An armature fault, open or short, is likely to cause stalling at the same armature position on each rotation. An armature short may also cause excessive arcing at the brushes at one position. A field coil with a short circuit may get very hot after a short operating time.

[1688torpedo]

Hello Prewarboy262 ! Sounds like the Motor is due for a rewind and new rollers & Possibly new bushings for the axles & armature shaft. Joe Mania of Freehold,N.J. can help you out as he specializes in this type of work. Just type in : Joseph L. Mania on the address section of your computer and his website will come up. Good luck to you......Keith