When I was working on the motor of the 230 I wrote about above, I noticed that the commutator had what looked to be an unusually wide brush track.
Actually what I was looking at was the brush tubes rubbing on the commutator. At the commutator end of this motor Lionel used a collar slid over the armature shaft to handle the thrust. This is part 400E-119. This part is wide at one and narrow at the other. The wide end goes against the commutator and the narrow end against the brush plate. It does not seem like the best design.
The brush plate is a fiber material and in this case the narrow end had cut into the fiber material allowing the armature to move toward the brush tubes. The brush tubes can be adjusted further away from the commutator, but this would have increased the free lateral for the armature. I decided a better plan would be to add a shim to the armature shaft to prevent the commutator from moving toward the brush tubes. Lionel washer 600-129 seem to work well to reduce the lateral movement. It is 0.218" OD, 0.135" ID and 0.025" thick. It is made from Zxtel 101, a nylon like material. I found that there are also some washers sold with this same part number that do not fit. There are either a poor reproduction or a modern Lionel part, which has been redesigned, but using the same part number.
I installed the additional washer against the commutator. Otherwise I may have taken too much lateral out of the system. This is what it looked like ready to install back in the motor.
I reassembled the motor and checked to be sure the reduced lateral did not result in the armature being tight. It did not, but if had I could have sanded the washer a little to reduce the thickness. The motor is now all back together and runs well.
