American Flyer 293 motor puzzle

I have an American Flyer 293 that I got for Christmas in 1955. I haven't run it in probably 30 years. I came across it in the closet over the weekend and decided to set it up.

The motor on the locomotive hummed, but the wheels didn't turn. Not surprising. I took it apart, cleaned the brushes and commutator, and put some oil on the axles, armature worm gear shaft, and on the brush end of the armature shaft. It ran like a top.

Tonight I was going through the bag of extra parts, and came across the reverse control. I must have taken it out of the system way back when I had no tools. I cleaned the drum and fingers, removed solder and, with the help of a wiring diagram, put the control back into the wiring loop.

I applied power to the contacts, but just got a clicking from the reverse control. I checked my wiring again against the diagram, then took the control out of the loop. I had the power from the contacts going to the brushes and the two connections at the magnet assembly. The armature would start to turn when I applied power, but wouldn't move more than a fraction of an inch. I tried reversing wires on the magnet assembly. I checked the wires. I took the brushes and armature out again, cleaned and lubricated, and tried again.

The armature turns freely by hand, and turns the wheels easily. If I put power just to the magnet, I get a clicking, and the armature is drawn up to the brushes. I'm wondering if the windings in the armature may have gone bad from me fiddling with this.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to look for?

Thanks much for any replies.

 

Brushes are moving correctly and freely, and are in correctly. If there's any cold solder joints it would be the original joints on the spade connectors for the brushes, and on the connections to the magnet. I have all sorts of meters. I checked continuity with the wiring, and it's all good. I used the same 12VDC 1.25A power source today as I did over the weekend. It was chugging along very well over the weekend.

 

Well, I feel like an idiot. I checked the armature windings for shorts or breaks or leaks to ground, and checked the magnet. Everything fine. I couldn't figure it out. Then I looked at the AC/DC converter I was using. I grabbed the wrong one. It was 12V 1.2 amps instead of the 18 volts 4.5 amp power supply I used before. When I hooked up the higher voltage supply, everything worked great.

I hooked up the reverse switch again, but it doesn't work. I'd already cleaned it and checked the fingers, so there must be something else.