Thanks for the video. I have a 1948 575 that I received for Christmas (second hand :) in 1961. To my knowledge, there are no remaining independent model train stores in North Carolina and this video will be of great help as I will now be doing my own maintenance.

my first job as a teen ager was Lionel train repairman. That was more than 60 years ago. I sill have my Lionel wheel puller. Usually if a loco won't run we cleaned the E unit and the commentator. That almost always got the unit running again. We cleaned them with a hard pencil eraser and a tooth pick. The owner of the hobby shop smoked cigars, We used his lighter fluid to remove grease. We always did the simplest thing first and did not pull the wheels unless loose or broken. Frequently there was a build up of hardened oil and dirt on the wheels that had to be scraped off, A frequent problem was a melted E unit drum, which we had to change out. Sometimes there were broken E unit contacts to replace. We had a special tool for popping apart the E unit. That was usually the only disassemble we did. The coil or armature winding were hardly ever a problem. I've probably done a couple hundred locos. We used a paint brush to dust the loco, a black magic marker to cover scratches and then an over spray of armor all and another paint brush to shine up the armor all. They really looked good when we finished up

Nice work Sir😊

I've never seen anyone toss all the parts into a huge pile before? Wow

As a postwar Lionel collector, when you started I thought to myself all it probably needed was a cleaning of the commutator and e-unit and it should be good to go. For that to be the first time you ever had one apart I was very impressed by how far down you took it, but then realized you are a clock guy so this is nothing new to you. The only time I was thinking to myself you were about to mess up was when you were clocking the wheels at first but you realized you were about to mess up and corrected yourself by clocking the wheels at different directions. They actually should be quartered but should operate well at how you assembled it, just being quartered the running gear has less tendencies to bind up. Nice job!

Usually the wheel are installed at 90 degrees from side to side. This is called quartering. All steam locomotives real or toy are done that way.

Wheels are pressed on. You either need a wheel-puller, or better yet, clean the armature in the housing. Also: leave the main connecting rod on the wheels to keep them in synch. The E-Unit is your problem. Clean that, and it'll run.

That`s a Spicy Meat Ball, you did a nice a job on that there machine me. Marx train motors be a hole lot easier me thinkem.

Never, never, gonna find a boiler face for $10!

A miniature socket would be far better to remove/install the tiny hex screws on the linkage. The pliers slipping has to chew up the screws. Also time saver for video presentation goes without saying.😊 But unless some issue with linkage no need to remove.😊 I’m assuming the total disassembly is just for presentation purposes since no diagnostics was initially shown to mandate it. Why remove wheels for no reason? Be advised wobble wheels can result when repressed on. I’ll be honest this disassembly made me cringe.