I have an E5 thats built the same way. It needed cleaning. Once I got the body off I found the decoder was soldered to the motor contacts. Not wanting to unsolder it to get to things....I removed the little clips holding the board on. I carefully lifted the gray covers over the trucks just enough so I could get to the tabs holding the trucks in. I was scare to death I was gonna bend the long contact strips on top of the board...but they came thru the process just fine. YMMV.
A little late to the game but, this may be a solution. I do not know how or why this happens, but it has happened on 5 recent Kato locomotives. In each case the motor refused to run. 9 volt battery and still nothing. I pulled the motor on the first unit. I decided I would salvage the brushes, springs and caps. Low and behold, beneath one of the brushes was a small piece of paper. I took out the paper and reassembled the motor and it has been running strong ever since. On the next bad Kato motor, I did the same thing and found the same problem. This occurred 5 times over the last 2 years or so. I have only really had 2 bad motors in all my Kato locomotives. In each of those cases it was a shorted pole in the motor that was the problem and Kato promptly replaced them at no charge.
Hank, thanks for continuing to try to kelp! I took the motor out again. I checked and I am reading 59 ohms at the motor contacts. Sounds to low. I connected the 9 volt battery again, still get the slight whine and no movement, even if I spin either direction. I can not tell how the motor comes apart to look for anything in the brushes. I blew it out but nothing came out. It rotates smoothly. I won't be able to order the motor until second week of July, so I won't have any further updates until then. I will be sure to post when I do. Thanks again, Michael.
Michael, sounds like you have a short between armature windings or commutator poles with no hope of survival. The armature should have continued spinning slightly for a short time when you spun it if there had been any hope. I suggest a call to Kato and discuss your findings and symptoms, hoping to find a sympathetic ear. The worst response would be "NO" which is where you are now. Anything else would be an improvement, and they might even send you a new motor out of the goodness of their heart...never know until you try.
