# Taking Apart a Lionel Engine



## Suamico Pete

Folks on this forum have been very helpful to me in the past - hope my luck holds. I have a 246 (2-4-2) Lionel scout steam engine with Magna-Traction that runs slow. I have cleaned the wheels, torn it down to the brushes and cleaned everything I can get access to, but I can't separate the two halves of the motor body housing because the drive wheels are holding it together. I would like to get a look at the armature and see if it needs cleaning. So here are my questions. 

1. How are the drive wheels fastened to the axles, pressed on or threaded? 
2. Is it wise to take this engine apart, assuming one can remove the drive wheels from one side? (Hate it when you open something up and all the little spring-loaded parts go flying in every direction.)

Thanks in advance for your help.
Suamico Pete


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## tjcruiser

This might help

http://www.olsenstoy.com/246.htm


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## gunrunnerjohn

You can clean the armature without splitting the case, just clean it through the holes. Once you take the wheels off, you're in pretty deep, that wouldn't be my first inclination.

FWIW, I've owned two of these, and neither ran right. If the symptom is randomly it just stops with the light bright, good luck ever getting it to run properly again!


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## Suamico Pete

Thanks to tjcruiser and gunrunnerjohn. The diagrams that tjcruiser sent pretty well convinced me I didn't want to go further into it. Gunrunnerjohn, you have given me sage advice. I did clean the face of the armature as you described. The engine runs, but is slow compared to 3 others I have. I will leave it as is and live with it.

Just won't use it when I want "to take a fast train."
Suamico Pete


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## tjcruiser

I had a very quick look at one of my (other) Scout motors. Looks like the bakelite motor halves are held together with a clip on either end. Pop of those clips, and the motor halves will separate ... but only fully, if the wheels are removed out of the way.


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## Suamico Pete

*Taking apart a Lionel scout engine*

To tjcruiser. Thanks for your help. Where I'm stuck is I don't know how the large drive wheels are attached to the axles on the motor. Are they pressed on or screwed on? Any thoughts?
Thanks again.


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## tjcruiser

Usually just pressed on with tight friction.


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## rkenney

This arrangement works pretty well for pulling wheels. Takes a little finaglin' because it is really a puller for faucet seats. It's available at HD or Lowes and much cheaper than an "official" wheel puller.

A 4" bench vise will press them back on.


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## gunrunnerjohn

The problem with pulling the wheels is you have to get them correctly quartered when you put them back on. While these are geared together, you still need them close enough so the rods don't bind.


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## Suamico Pete

Thanks to everyone helping out on this question. To gunrunnerjohn's comments about wheel alignment, I just had this experience on a Marx 4-6-4 #1829 engine. Due to age and wear one of the drive wheels slipped a gear tooth or 2 and got so misaligned that the engine could not run - it was locked up by the drive bars connected to the wheels. Took me a while to figure it out, but I got the alignment back and it runs better than ever.

Thanks to rkenney for the great tool pic - worth at least a 1000 words.
Suamico Pete
PS. This is really a great forum, thanks to folks like you all.


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## Big Ed

Just be careful with the puller that you don't break the wheels flange.
The wrong puller won't grip the wheel right and break it.

Some buy the cheap pullers and do a little grinding so the puller arms fits the wheel better.
Different wheels have different flanges, so if you buy multiple cheap pullers, you can grind them to fit different wheels. Just mark them somehow for when you need them again you know what puller will work on what wheel.

When I say cheap I mean the price, and they are cheap enough to make up different pullers for different wheels.


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## tjcruiser

Yoda?


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## Big Ed

plato83 said:


> In it something is. Now all turns out, many thanks for the help in this question.


You mean there was something stuck in your wheels?


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## Suamico Pete

To tjcruiser. It took me a while to understand your one-word question - but when I got it, I almost fell off my chair laughing.

I'm learning that forums bring all kinds of comments. My thoughts are that we should always be respectful and learn to laugh at ourselves and with everyone else. To that end, may everyone reading this have a great evening and a wonderful tomorrow.


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## tjcruiser

Thanks, Pete. It is all about having fun.

That said, the post to which I was responding (still seen as a quote in Ed's post) has since been deleted ... a spammer new member, now gone.


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## Big Ed

tjcruiser said:


> Thanks, Pete. It is all about having fun.
> 
> That said, the post to which I was responding (still seen as a quote in Ed's post) has since been deleted ... a spammer new member, now gone.


I forget what he/she/it listed as a country, but the reason I answered is that I thought it was just a foreigner who couldn't project his/hers/it's thoughts into English.
I thought he/she/it read the thread and fixed a problem that he/she/it had and was just thanking the site for the thread. 
I just wanted to clarify his statement.....help him/her/it out a little.

How do you know that wasn't the case TJ?:dunno:
Did something else he/she/it did must have set off the BAN? 

You are behind the curtains, so I don't see what goes on behind them.:smokin:


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## rkenney

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"


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## tjcruiser

The person posted another completely off-topic, nonsensical comment in another thread. A telltale sign.

TJ


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## gunrunnerjohn

They occasionally sneak through. When approving new members, one of the key things I look for is what country they say they're from vs. what country they are actually from. When it's half a world away, I'm pretty sure it's a SPAMMER. 

Since we've been approving every member, the spam issues have been way down, but they still manage to slip in.


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## Big Ed

gunrunnerjohn said:


> They occasionally sneak through. When approving new members, one of the key things I look for is what country they say they're from vs. what country they are actually from. When it's half a world away, I'm pretty sure it's a SPAMMER.
> 
> Since we've been approving every member, the spam issues have been way down, but they still manage to slip in.


I saw the country but I forget now what it was. It was far away.
I just thought maybe he couldn't get the words right and I was trying to help a little convey his thoughts to the forum. 
I didn't see the second post TJ mentioned.

I noticed Vs-admin changed the way you have to confirm a search here too when your not logged on.
It used to be the first letter of the word wheel or how many letters are in the word cab.

Now you have to do a puzzle, which I think is better then what it used to be.


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