I wonder if I might add a few words about the paint debate. I am a collector from England (not too many of those on this forum, I guess) and I occasionally run my Lionel trains at exhibitions. I don’t have a 1666 but I do have the 2026 which is basically a post-war 1666 with a smoke unit.
As far as paint is concerned, I work on the basis that I want my trains to look nice when they are running in exhibitions. So unless any of my trains are valuable (which the 1666 certainly isn’t) then I would rather it looked good than that it bore all its 60+ year-old scratches and looked like the walking wounded! So I imagine it all depends what you want the locomotive to do for you. Does this help?
I see both points on the repaint. Since it has a lot of sentimental value to me I may, leave it as is. Were it not for that I’d repaint it without question. I uploaded more photos of the rebuild. My service manuals with parts diagrams should be here today. It definitely looks like I’ll need a new E unit as the lever is gone.
I figured out how to post pictures, lol. Her is the Eunit pictures. Obviously I need a new one. Motor inside the assembly hums when I touch both contacts directly at the motor but won’t turn over the assembly. Clean and lube in order I believe.
Not sure what the drum is. Is it part of the E unit. I’ll be getting a whole new E unit. Please forgive my ignorance. I got a copy of a service manual and while there is decent info in it it is sparse. Whatever happened to good old exploded diagrams?
I disconnected the motor from the drive so that it isn’t pulling the gear box. When I apply power to the Brush Holders on the frame it jumps a little but won’t run. Am I doing something wrong here? I have it drawn below as to where I am connecting the transformer leads.
I took the motor out and cleaned the brushes, pole surfaces etc. Motor moves freely when turned by hand.
Disconnect the wire leading from the pickup to the e-unit, the wire going from the e-unit to the field coil, and finally disconnect the two wires from the brush plate. Once the e-unit is disconnected, you can test the motor.
Connect one wire from the transformer to the frame of the locomotive, and connect the other wire to either one of the brush holders. Connect the one wire from the field coil to the remaining brush holder. The other end of the field coil is already grounded to the locomotive frame. When you apply power, the motor should run. You can make it run in the other direction by switching the wires connected to the brush holders. For example, if the motor ran in one direction with the one wire from the transformer connected to the right brush holder and the field connected to the left, you can make it run in the other direction by moving the wire from the transformer to the left brush holder and the field to the right.
I had actually removed the two white wires from the solder tabs that lead to the brushes.
I’ll see what I can do in the morning. Dumb question here, is the field coil the thing that looks like a motor winding between the e unit and the motor in the frame ?
1666 is a great engine. My dad got me one for Christmas a few years ago (I’d requested something both prewar and diecast); he did not anticipate that it would turn into a “project” engine, though! I learned a LOT working on it, and now it runs just famously. A good puller, too, especially for a pre-magnetraction engine. The 1666 got me started in the “metahobby” of train repair. Now I enjoy repairing steamers almost as much as running them.
BTW, Olsens is a great resource. Keep nosing around in their Library; they have service manual articles about motors, e-units, transformers and the like. Very useful, but not always filed exactly where you were expecting to find them!
Thanks for the information. I also found out that the drive mechanism is the same as the O scale 264 save for the roller contacts on the bottom instead of the sliders.I wish they had old fashioned exploded drawings of each model to make it easier to order parts. I really just want to make this one work since it was my uncles. It was dropped a time or two as evidenced by the class lights. I drilled them a little to give a round shape and I am working on a lens as the stock wouldn’t fit. Other than that the body is in great shape.
Just FYI, the drum is (was) the shrapnel you show in your first picture. Your second picture shows a larger, more representative chunk of it rattling around in the unit. It is the red plastic round thing with copper contacts, and its purpose is to provide the electrical switching needed to make the engine change direction. Bypassing the e unit as you did, you wouldn’t notice it had disintegrated. Now that ol’ 1666 is up and running, your old unit is irrelevant, so “never mind”…
I wish it was up and running. I was able to veryify that the motor and the field coil are good and working. I am still going to get an E unit and get it into proper working order.
Just thinking off of my rocker here. Is there a front pilot from a switcher that will fit the 1666?
If I end up running it on DC I may put a chuffing smoke unit in it and wire it for constant lighting. One thing that I hated about trains from when I was a kid is that the light barely glows unless the train is running fast.
The light put out by an incandescent lamp varies strongly with the voltage (as the 3.5 power). So a lamp that is reasonably bright at 14 volts, for example, puts out only 9 percent at half that voltage. It is also a lot yellower at the lower voltage.
An LED connected by a ballast resistor, on the other hand, puts out light almost directly proportional to the voltage. The light is therefore not constant with voltage; but the difference between 14 and 7 volts is very hard to see (at least, I can’t see it) and the color doesn’t change at all.
Richmond Controls sells what they call “golden white” tinted white LEDs that mimic the color of an incandescent locomotive headlight. I have slightly reduced the diameter of a 5-millimeter LED to an interference fit in the headlight hole of a 2-6-4 2026 and flattened the tip to match the original light-pipe shape. I’ll bet you could do the same with your 1666.
HI, I have a disconnected wire on my 1666. It is the wire from the area at the top of the picture where the “Y” is located. Can you tell me where it connects?
