Lionel Sweeper Car Repair

I also have a poultry car that I believe has the same problem as yours, been a few years and I would have to find it and get it back out for examination to say for sure. I believe mine is MPC era, possibly a little later and it seems like the rubber band or bracket or both was broken on it?

Seems like Lionel had issued a better replacement part for the cars, possibly the spring assembly you mentioned? Anyway, I tried finding replacement parts a few years ago and was not successful. If you happen to find them, please post the info on where you get the parts, I will order some as well. And Good Luck with your repair.

I used to sell a conversion kit with a new bracket and 2 springs. When Lionel sold all of it's less in demand parts to North Lima Trainworks, the brackets disappeared. I called Lionel to order more and told me they went to NLTW, called them and was told they never received them from Lionel. Never seen them available again. Maybe someday if Lionel ever re-releases the Chicken sweeper car again they will be available.

Does anyone have a photo of the rubber band attachment for the sweeper car?

Not so much for me. The delicate wire assembly is as designed. I hacked it a bit with a rubber band to give it a bit more pop but, again, it is a homegrown solution

Bad basic design

Le TGV posted:

I may swap to the spring assembly but for now I'd just like to see it work in a satisfying way

See my extensive on line article about Lionel Sweeper Cars .  I will be adding the music wire information when I get a roundtoit.

See the diagram showing the lacing of the music wire.  (buy the smallest music wire available)

Lionel's New Swing Lever Mounting Parts for Sweeper Motion is shown and is no longer available.

The only practical source I found for the music wire is a K&S Engineering bundle on Amazon.  The bundle is $9.17 + $4 shpg and contains two 36" lengths of 0.25 mm music wire plus larger sizes.  (0.25 mm = 0.00984252 inches)

After any of you have repaired your sweeper cars with music wire I would appreciate your feedback so I can update the repair information on my web page.  Thank you

Hi Susan,

I did see your site on the Chicken Sweeper car and I agree that the best solution is the music wire. That said, I would like to see a photo of how the rubber band was hooked up. The Rubber band was a poor substitute that Lionel eventually replaced, but I would like to know how the rubber band was installed. Was it twisted as you show the music wire? Where was it fastened at the bottom? There is not tab for it. How did it attache to the swing lever? Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Best,
Bill Schmeelk

Bill, if I remember correctly the rubber band is laced the same as the music wire.  The rubber band or wire loops over the tab at the bottom of the bracket assembly that is positioned in a hole in the frame.

  The rubber band was one piece and did not attach to the swing lever.  It was just crisscrossed on the swing lever and held itself with the rubber band tension.

I too would love to see a photo of how a rubber can be installed. I just bought a Foghorn Leghorn poultry car. The lever with the Foghorn character was just floating around inside the car with no evidence of any rubber band or music wire. I've read the various threads on this and understand the conversion kit with springs is not available. I think a rubber band would be a quick and easy fix that would last a few years.

If anyone can assist with a photo, that would be great.

The horizontal bar on the top of the bracket in mine is different to the modified bracket assembly in the illustration below.

This lacing diagram for wire and rubber band is included with my website article mentioned above.

The problem with the rubber band is that the band rots. The Foghorn I bought had the rotten piece of rubber just loose inside of the car. I was fortunate enough to get some of Chuck's spring repair kits to fix my cars.

I don't see why the metal bracket couldn't be photo-etched if need be.

Susan Deats posted:

This lacing diagram for wire and rubber band is included with my website article mentioned above.

Thank you for this diagram Susan. It's very useful. So is the article on your website. Before sourcing some music wire, I tried a rubber band that I happened to have at home. It's OK but not quite enough tension to make the arm return properly. With music wire, I assume the horizontal bar at the top of the bracket bends down slightly under tension?

O Gauge Guy, with wire installed the top arm is slightly down.  You can test the wire installation before soldering into permanent position.  Properly laced wire lets the arm swing free and loose.

Here is additional information to purchase wire at a reasonable price.   As promised in the past the search information has been added to my web page at Lionel Sweeper Cars .   Search for "tungsten wire 0.002" then go to "scope crosshair repair wire 0.002") for short lengths to get 12" for $7.  I found the short lengths in several places on Ebay.  12" of wire is plenty to repair 1 car.

I know this is an old post, but i just bought a poultry dispatch car with the rubber band.  of course the car was in excellent TCA grade shape but the rubber band not so much.  after reading the posts i decide to go with a replacement rubber band which was a little too long.  so after routing it i just twisted it to increase tension until I got the action i wanted.   there's a tab on the back of the top bracket i laced the ruber band to and secured it with a piece of fishing line (wondering what would happen if i just used fishing line instead of rubber band,  but hate to undo what I've done to find out).  the teal trick is balancing the bracket so nothing touches.  the rubber band is suspending the whole bracket and sweeper.  hopefully this 12 second video will help.

Never saw this car, but I think I'd just put a little servo motor in there to let him sweep as long as the power was on.

you'd think they would have used one of their vibrator motors in the 50's and 60's  version.  by the 90's motors should have been used.