Checking Lionel PW motors

You can ohm out the field coil and the commutator poles to check for opens, shorts, and proper resistance values.

There are many different types Lionel armatures differing in wire gauge, length, turns, and a healthy resistance measuring between roughly 1 and 3.0 ohms.

Set your multimeter to ohms and then test each combination of the 3 commutator faces. The reading should be essentially the same (and somewhere between 1.0 and 3.0 ohms).

In other words, the measurements of A to B, A to C and B to C should all be about the same and within spec.

Then test A to Shaft, B to Shaft, and C to Shaft. All of those should be essentially infinite Ohms (no continuity).

This procedure can be used on most any Lionel armature, however, the specific expected ohm reading varies from model to model.

You can also wire the motor to an AC transformer for testing like this:

Thanks that is the info I needed John

This is the simplest diagram to get a Lionel motor running.  Swap the brush connections to run it in the other direction.

Thanks for the info. tried it and found it was the e-unit. Now to get that working.

for e unit there are a couple of you tube videos that are pretty good, keep in mind that they can be a *****.I use a 2-56 screw and nut thru the side plate to help hold it together. Make sure the prongs on drum are all good contacts clean also

. Good luck

Jim

Thanks will check out the you tube John