My collection of O clockwork

A nice clockwork Zephyr has avoided me. Have a nice electric though.

Very nice.

Steve

Very nice, Bob.  Is the Marx CV a swing peg?  I sometimes use a Flyer tender with my swing peg CV's, looks like you might do the same.  Thanks for sharing the picture!

Edit - on a close, second look - that has to be a swing peg.  It has the early nose that didn't have the recess for the headlight bezel, and the early sloped bezel.  Marx went to a recessed nose and square bezel sometime in the first year of windup CV production.  Again, thanks for the picture!

little curious about your clockwork Zephyr.

is there a key slot on both sides?

"Both" are swing pegs...in the very far corner is another CW engine. Sad part is I don't have keys for those..the Zephyr has it's own built in key.

Nope, just that side...found a C battery last night and promptly found it had a 3v bulb in it...found a single cell bulb and it works fine now....cool.

Clockwork is fun and this relic still runs fine.

Nice! I'm just about to head upstairs and set up the 0-36 track and try the Zephyr out on that...mine came with a small circle of track but when the train is wound up fiully it has a tendacny to go flying off to it's side. Either too much power or too little restriction...maybe I'll try and not raise the coil brake so high and see what happens.

Do you mean it has some kind of adjustable brake? Curious about that. My Marx M10000 has a little centrifugal-brake mechanism which doesn't seem to work; it runs quite fast (that's what makes it fun), so I run it only on O54 curves with O72 easements.

I was given this other O-gauge wind-up plastic clunker ('Durham Industries') which actually runs pretty good and the automatic brake/governor still works well, so it runs at a fairly steady modest speed suitable for sharper curves.

I didn't notice the other one hiding in the corner... bring it out in the open where we can see it!    Grossman has repro screw-in keys that will fit the early CV's.  I don't know if you have ran an early windup CV before, but the swing-pegs should have a motor with a wheel governor - and those governors are somewhat ineffective.  They tend to fly off the curves if completely wound up, just like your Zephyr.

Ace, I passed up a Durham windup diesel like that a while back; and I've regretted not buying it since then.  It was blue and needed some TLC, but I think it would have been a fun locomotive.  Next time I see one, it's coming home with me!

Ace, yes- the little "stack" on top, if you will call it that, is the brake and is somewhat adjustable{whether it's supposed to be or not}. Said stack is linked to the brake arm inside....I can snap a better pic if ya want, with the body off too.......yell if your curiousity is peaked. 

ok... next question.  on the right (starboard) side, is there a piece of fiber-sheet material riveted to the inside of the shell in about the same area or a bit forward of the key slot on the left (port) side?  if so, you may have an electric 9900 shell with a clockwork motor installed.  that fiber piece is to prevent the brushes from the electric motor from shorting to the shell on curves.  the clockwork motor for the 9900 (at least mine) is keyed from the right side and it is a removable (screwed in) key with a very long shaft.  the clockwork motor is also very unique to the late Flyer models, though i believe the same outline is used in the clockwork Hiawatha.

could you post a picture of the motor, or at least a view of the bottom of the shell?  the weird part is that if it is an electric shell, the battery holder should not be there.

cheers...gary

Ok, per a half an hours worth of far too needed playing{and oiling} they all run pretty darn good...the boy lost interest about the 6-7th time of rewinding them, and his comment was, "daddy, I like the electric ones better, you can control them better and they run longer if you want them too"...ah youth!

So, I now have a bunch of questions concerning what I have.

1st off, the one hiding in the corner is a Marx{sorry, I haven't touched them in eons} but with a curious twist- this one winds counter clock wise and has no headlight but it does have some kind of sparkler but I'm missing the needed piece to contact the grinding stone...pics will show ya...that and the bell on this one rings twice in a row until she's nearly wound out at which point it winds up being only one ding- odd.

Said Marx doesn't have a tender{dissapoints both the boy and I but I never got one}, but has the same couplers the AF Vandy has, so we ran it sans tender.

Here's the pics..chime in as you can or will...you can see I'm missing the AF tender jouranl box, the marx side rails and you'll see the hole on the sprkler arm where something is missing{and the fresh grinding that todays paying left-oops}. Oh, and the S scale boxcar is missing one coupler arm.

Yeah Bob, I would be interested to see pics of that adjustable mechanism!

My Marx M10000 has a bell mechanism which didn't work, but I noticed it when I was working on it. I adjusted the 'bell' so it works again, but when it goes flying down the track lickety-split you can't hardly hear the bell anyhow.

You got it...hold on....back in a few...

Alright, here's AF Zephyr body on{screwdriver tip is pointing at the "stack", and body off for a more clearer view.

Also forgot the other odd thing, the AF commadore has this bulb socket in it...and that's it...how would it light? The AF zephyr has a battery holder and on/off slide...I got nothing on the AF vandy.

Yep, that's what my Marx M10000 mechanism looks like. When I first got it I was concerned whether the "fat wheel" (with the governor mechanism) would go through my O22/O42 switches, but it will bump through OK on the straight route. Thanks for the pics, Gary.

LOL...rookie me! I "thought"..{1st mistake}...when you said swing peg you meant the tender coupler.

Ok, another question, why do marx and flyer wind opposite directions? Both the zephyr and vandy wind clockwise while the marx winds counter clockwise....just because?

Hmmm, seems like there is a lot going on with the locomotives.  First, the easy one - the windup with the sparker is an 833 Marx.  Flints can be bought at a tobacco shop or ordered from Grossman. 

The swing-peg Commodore Vanderbilt (it's also a  Marx locomotive) has had the original motor replaced with a late model (riser gear) windup motor.  The tip off is the 17 spoke drivers and the position of the front crossmember.  That is good for operation - the late model motors are very reliable - it's just not the original motor for a first-year CV.  Some clockwork CV's came with a battery operated headlight; I don't have any examples, so I don't know if yours was a clockwork w/ a battery headlight or an early electric CV that has had the motor replaced with a windup motor.  The some early electric CV's used the same body as the clockwork CV's, so they had the keyhole and brake switch slot.  Perhaps Gary or Steve can verify that for us.

As far as the bell is concerned, the bell spring has to be just the right length to properly contact the bumps on the gear.  If it needs to be replaced, Grossman sells repro springs.  They will need to be trimmed/ground to the proper length.

I got a repro journal box for my AF tender, but for the life of me I can't remember where it came from!  Hopefully, someone will know of a good source for AF parts.

Thanks for all the extra pictures... very neat to see the motor on the Zephyr.

Gary, forgot to answer your question- no, no fiber board inside the shell, only the fiberboard slide for the battery on/off. Add, my key does unscrew, but there's no hole on the right side{viewed from the top} for it to go thru. Does yours have the top brake stack like mine?...your pic is a tad grainy so it's hard for me to tell.

Edit- going by the few posts above where you can see my AF zephyr block...is your the same orientation with the thick end forward..just curious. I may have a late or early model from yours- don't know, but it's interesting that they're different!

Winding direction depends on two things; whether the mainspring winds from the springhub or from a basket, and whether there are an odd or even number of intermediate gearsets/countershafts the in the motor.  The Marx late model riser gear motor has a single intermediate countershaft, while the earlier Marx sparker ratchet motors have two intermediate countershafts.  Both motors are wound from the spring hub.  Since the drive wheels need to rotate in the forward direction on both motors, the direction of spring rotation is going to be opposite to compensate for the different number of countershafts.  I suspect that since the AF Zephyr motor is wound from the hub, it has a single intermediate countershaft.  I know that is a complicated explanation, but it's the best I can do off the top of my head... 

Thanks James, I guess that does make sense now.

Ok aside from this grossman, who makes or sells marx or flyer clockwork parts... and if I can find my old zippo I'll bet there's a spare flint in it...I want to see that marx spark! 

Oh oh...the wife just got on me for killing her battery while running the zephyr head light on the whole time...added to the effect though!...so I need to head out and buy some new C cells for her flashlight{good thing it was the flash light and not something else}. 

I guess I should have included Robert Grossman's link:

http://www.trainpartsformarx.com/shoppingcart.htm

I don't really know of a good source of parts, other than what you can find for Marx on Grossman's site (highly recommended!)... he has keys, bell springs, and trim pieces such as handrails.  If you need motor parts, your best bet is to find either a donor motor for parts or a running motor to replace it.  Mainsprings can usually be purchased from clock part suppliers, but will have to be modified depending on how it needs to terminate in the motor.  This is my favorite source of mainsprings:

http://www.clockworks.com/cloc...ock-mainsprings.html

Other than that, I either adapt parts I can find, or make them from scratch.  This webpage is a work in progress, but it will give you an idea of some of the clockwork motor repairs that are possible if you really want to tackle them:

http://nfrailro.ipower.com/clockworktrainsrepair.html

I just about have a clockwork Ives project done; when it is finished, I'll post a thread on here with the details.  Some of the Marx guys have had a sneak preview, since I used a Marx governor and gear to repair it.

It sounds like you are enjoying your windup trains! 

Is it ORANGE?

So, does anyone have one of the marx whistlers...just curious as to how well those work or sound.

Neat, maybe I can aquire one someday...just because! Thanks for the input.

How about an extended train for ya...check this-

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321095106885?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649