@john in western pa posted:FWIW, Re: Brush Springs... if it's not broke, don't fix it.. these thing take a lot of punishment and are a PITA to replace. The brushes also last a for long time without performance issues.
Smell, these motors typically have a slight petroleum/ozone odor, motor/armature are not typical replacement items.
I suspect the odor is from the brush contact on the armature which creates a small spark /heat which causes on odor due to petroleum residue on the armature being heated.
Hope this helps.
"Smell" - I LOVE that SMELL! When I was first introduced to Lionel trains, I was not quite 3 years old...My dad would run his Postwar trains the smell (combined with the pellet smoke) was intoxicating to me! I remember my parents laughing at me a year or two later when I would catch a whiff of that similar scent from another different source, my eyes would get big and I would say, "I smell a train!"
