Last night I decided to fix my old Marx 666 steam loco. The center rail slider pickup mount is broken and my makeshift repairs were not working. I picked up a junker at a show for parts (thank you, Marx, for standardizing your motors).
Of course, it required a lot more disassembly than I thought (ie, pulling the drivers), but in the end, the motor was lubed and cleaner than my grease and carbon stained fingers.
Now for the final assembly. Hmm, so exactly how were the drivers aligned? They must be quartered. After all, that is what the prototype does. So, now the drivers are nicely quartered and I spin the wheels to discover that the connecting rods are binding where they actuate the smoke "bellows." Now I know -- Marx does not quarter the drivers. They are supposed to be lined up to mirror each other. Grr...!
Still I had to just try it, so I put in on the track as is. It ran fine . . . well . . . except for the snakelike wobble as it rolled down the track. I'll be pulling the drivers again tonight . . .
I'm busy making mountains and a tunnel with white styrofoam that was headed for the landfill. The key is using a hot wire foam cutter. It seals the surface as you cut, so you don't get 10,000 little white beads. This is pretty time consuming, but hey, the real ones took 90 Million years, right?
