Richfilth

Thanks for the tips! Turns out it was delta, and I ended up using 4m of 0.125mm wire per pole to give around 230 turns. I soldered it up, touched the power wires to the wheels and brrzzzzt, round and round it went! So that's one little Jinty brought back from the dead. Thanks to all for your advice and support.

Coming back to this topic: I'm going to attempt to rewind the armature on one of these motors, since I've got nothing to lose. But two questions pop up: 1. How much wire/how many turns? I've seen 270 turns and up to 4m of wire used, but that was for the bigger OO scale Triang motors. Are the TT versions any different? 2. What formation for the commutator? Star or Delta? I'm fairly sure it's delta but confirmation would be nice.

Thanks for all the tips guys. The chassis in the picture is actually running ok now, but I can pop up a picture of the stubborn one if anyone's interested. I suspect that it needs a more intense cleaning of the commutator since I only gave it a light rub with acetone on a cotton bud. Once I'm sure nothing's fundamentally broken then all three will be stripped down and cleaned thoroughly to make them shine. I have to be careful because the bottom plate (some kind of early plastic/bakelite) has already cracked badly on one chassis so multiple dismantle/rebuild procedures could weaken it further. Any tips on bringing the metalwork up to a shine? I know not to use sandpaper, but any other tips to get the rust off the coupling rods would be nice to hear.

2/3 working fine now. After replacing the wire from the wheel pickup to the suppressor, the third one can be made to go around a section of track. However, it's really loud (it squeals) and it's nowhere near as fast as the other two. I applied a light machine oil to the worm gear and drive cog but that doesn't seem to have done much, and there's some pretty impressive sparking coming out of the brushes. Any performance suggestions? New brushes? Something more aggressive to clean the commutator? Or is this just the inevitable wear and tear?

UPDATE: This forum has a great rubber-duck effect. It's only when you upload a photo and look back at it on a massive monitor that you realise one of the axles is the wrong way round, causing a short! So that's one engine fixed!

I've recently inherited a box of my father's old trains, which have sat around unused since the late 1960's. It's all Triang TT stuff (we live near the Hornby factory), so spare parts and info seem a bit thin on the ground compared to other brands. There are three locomotives (two Jintys and one diesel shunter), which all use the same motor and chassis: I removed the brushes and cleaned the commutator with contact cleaner, then refitted the brushes. All three motors spin up if you apply power directly to the brushes, but two won't work if the pick-up wire is connected to the brush (the wire that runs to the suppressor and ultimately to the wheel pickup). So it appears that there's a short somewhere on the motors, but I can't for the life of me find it using a multimeter. Here's another shot of the motor: I'm not that experienced with servicing or restoring motors, so if anyone can point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated.