A couple of months ago I opened a prewar 252 engine that wouldn't move.I had gotten it at a yard sale last year and put it on the shelf for when I had time to look at it.Turns out someone put two different intermediate gears on it.Don't even know how they got them on but at least i found out why it didn't work.

jim mcclain posted:

A couple of months ago I opened a prewar 252 engine that wouldn't move.I had gotten it at a yard sale last year and put it on the shelf for when I had time to look at it.Turns out someone put two different intermediate gears on it.Don't even know how they got them on but at least i found out why it didn't work.

That reminds me of an American Flyer St. Paul engine I purchased on an auction many years ago.  It had been re-wheeled.  I was running it and it suddenly seized up!  I looked it over and could not figure it out what was wrong.  Ran it some more and it seized up again.  I finally realized, that although it had been re-wheeled, they had put the same old stripped gears on the wheels and they would not turn consistently.  I had to take the geared wheels off and replace the steel gears that were on the wheels.  Runs fine now.

NWL 

From time to time over the years (usually around Christmas) co-workers have brought into work the train Grandpa owned and that has been run as a decoration around the Christmas tree for decades because it was "broken" and they were hoping I could fix it.  One year the "broken" train consisted of a well used Lionel #252 and a short string of freight cars.  They had tried to fire it up for the current season and it wouldn't budge.  

  I took the engine home and after dinner I sat down and started taking things apart.  I have a #252 and I my impression as I set their #252 on my work table was that the engine was much heavier than mine.  I removed a few screws and pulled off the superstructure.  The inside of the engine was a solid, and I do mean SOLID" mass of gunk.  I dug it out of the superstructure and scraped it off of the motor and frame.  I probed the mess trying to figure out what is was and concluded it was a mix of grease, oil, carpet fuzz, a lot of cat/dog hair, and a number of bits and pieces of stuff that looked like the sort of crud that one will find on the surface of a floor of a house in which people are living.  I took q-tips and grease solvent and cleaned off the outside of the motor, got the screwdriver and pulled the motor apart and cleaned out even more gunk from the motor innards.  Once I had everything bright and shiny, I applied a small amount of new grease in the places where it was needed, screwed everything back together, and put it on the test track. It took off like a cannon shot.  I took all of the gunk and put it in a plastic bag.

  The next morning I brought the engine into work, called my co-worker, and when she came over I told her that the engine was just fine but before I was going to give it to her I wanted to know how many cats and dogs had been attacked by that engine over the years.  When I showed her the mess that had been inside the engine she couldn't believe it.  She took both the engine and the bag of gunk home - one to run around the tree and one to show family members.

  While not exactly a previous repair - I do think the engine had suffered from extreme over lubrication during it's decades of prior service and I have to wonder how it was that anyone could look at the motor and not realize the engine had been lubricated way past what was necessary.

This is a story of a Lionel factory repair!!

           Some years ago, I had a customer sell me a Lionel "O" 156 set. This was the version w/ the 4 wheel lead & trailing trucks. It was very unusual because it was a grey color instead of the normal dark green., and it weighed a ton. The customer also had a letter from Lionel . It seems the customer's father had bought the train new, and it constantly would jump the curved track. The father sent it back to Lionel w/ a letter complaining about the problem, requesting that they make whatever repairs were necessary so his son could enjoy the train. Lionel's fix was to pour hot lead into each end of the nose of the loco. This fixed the track jumping, but 'burnt' the paint. The letter went on to explain that they did not have any of the green paint at the time, so they re-painted the body gray and re-lettered it. They were apologetic and hoped this would suffice for his son.  At some point in time, I sold the set w/ the letter.  DUMB ME!!  Harry  

Back in the day before the service stations there were a lot of on the fly repairs by home tinkerers and repair anything guys. Some were actually quite ingenious as parts were, unless you lived in New York, a world away. 

Nation Wide Lines posted:

Background...  This month, I set out to repair / tune up all of the box cab electric American Flyer engines in my collection.  Some of these engines have sat for up to 10 years in my collection, needing new wheels and other items to make them operate properly.  So far I have completed 12 engines in my quest to do the 14 engines that were identified as needing work.  Engine #12 had me laughing at the previous repairs.

Somebody had re-wired the engine at some point and I noted this odd pink electrical tape.  I thought it a funny color for electrical tape and thought it resembled a band aid.  I replaced all of this new wiring, as it had hardened and the insulation was cracking, much like the remaining original insulation had done.  As I was soldering on a new wire to the headlight holder, I noted this

Sure enough, that is a band aid, used to insulate the brush holders from the body, after the original paper insulator had ripped.  So my thoughts that the electrical tape looked like band aids appears to have been right on the mark.  LOL!

I did not think anything would beat the repair of using wooden dowels to hold a motor into its frame, I had found a couple of weeks ago, but this certainly did.

So let's hear some stories of unusual repairs that you have found over the years.

NWL

Well - I didn't use a band-aid, but I did shoe horn a motor from relatively modern scout into the 2-4-2 Broadway limited engine I had.  The shell had to be dremeled out quite a bit and it was still kinda tight.  I painted the inside of that section with liquid electrical tape to prevent shorts.  Works just fine 

What were they thinking?  Get the train running.  We are very spoiled by our access to repair parts and, at least as important, repair information.  

Speaking of the cat hairs and carpet fuzz. A number of years ago a customer dropped off a very nice Lionel City of Denver set for some minor repairs (new brushes, cleaning, lubrication). As a youngster, he had been given it new as a Xmas gift in the 1930's. As I worked with my machinist's scribe to remove the "stuff" around the axles, I discovered a significant quantity of pubic hair binding up the wheels! I called him and suggested maybe his parents (long since deceased) had engaged in some extracurricular activities under the Xmas tree (probably more than once)! His mom and dad were both French so, C'est la vie! We both had a good laugh about that one.

EEEEWWWW!

Occasionally when completing a work ticket with work performed, I would list de-fuzzing and tinselectomy’s. 

Steve

 Unless dripping, no such thing as over lubing really... just under-cleaned

  Folks often laugh at some of my repairs.. until they realise they work...and often improve things over "factory" design.

Band-aid electrical tape might never be used, but I've filed it away as reference seeing how it worked.... for a loooong time it seems.😎

  I have a Railsound C&O Berk & tender where someone had removed the stainless trim and replaced it all with hardware store, dull brass rod and cotter pins. I can only think they wanted accents to match the C&O logo color. I put stainless back on the engine; never got to the tender yet. I never looked to see if these had red deck &roof originally either. There are also two holes per side for rail mounting and I'm not sure of how many these had new.

"Previous Repairs, or What were they thinking????"

They weren't

Here's one I found on a Lionel 252. Someone used an emory board to hold down the brush holder. Make it work!

Back to original

franktrain posted:

Here's one I found on a Lionel 252. Used a emory board to hold down the brush holder. Make it work!

Back to original

Somebody REALLY wanted to play with their train!!!

Here is an engine I purchased a number of years ago.  This engine originally would have had Flyer's poorly conceived die-cast side rods.  Once the original rods broke, someone apparently created these side rods out of brass bar stock.  

The rods look kind of cool, but are much thicker than the originals.  

At the present, I have removed these rods from the engine due to wheel issues, but I saved them and am considering re-installing them, once I take care of the wheel issues.  

I think our newest  wheel set # AO-1003 w/ the wrap-a-round rims is the right set for this loco.  Harry 

Harry Henning posted:

I think our newest  wheel set # AO-1003 w/ the wrap-a-round rims is the right set for this loco.  Harry 

Harry,

Did you finally make wheels with the wrap around rim and gear hub on the back?  If so, I want some!!

NWL

Yes,  Have #AO-1003b (black ).  # AO-1003o  (orange).  Listed on our own site and also eBay site.  Harry

Harry Henning posted:

Yes,  Have #AO-1003b (black ).  # AO-1003o  (orange).  Listed on our own site and also eBay site.  Harry

Yes, but they have the cast gear on the back.  The wheels on this engine have the hub for the steel gears.  They will work, but I am looking at using original wheels to keep the steel gears, which last longer.

Harry Henning posted:

  # AO-1003o  (orange).  Listed on our own site and also eBay site.  

Harry...You now need to make some more Orange wheels!

We just finished a run of A. Flyer wide gauge tin passenger / freight car wheels # AW-5015. $3 each.

Qty. discounts available.  Harry 

In my nearly 50 years of doing repairs, I've concluded that far to many people should not attempt to repair toy trains. The butchery and damage Ive see is extensive and many times unrepairable. If you have to go onto a web site and say I was running my ### and it stopped, any ideas, your part of the problem. Then come the owners who want to modify and butcher original trains with modern amenities. If you want the new amenities, buy a new train.

Tin

 But I want old trains, sometimes taylored to MY own tastes.

  Sage mechanical advice for some folk, but your purist presentation is the  collectors view of "only original" vs an operators view of "go or no by any means".  I.e. both are other extreme examples akin to "rivet counting" outside the scale niche. The exact type of attitude that kept me out train shows, etc. for 40 years really.

  You can find many prime examples of most trains anyhow; no great loss as of yet imo. "Spilt milk, sopable with a tissue" so far. Drink up.

At least it worked.

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

At least it worked.

I can just visualize, "Git 'er done!"

and remember.....these were toys....not all Dad's were Mr Fix It. And some of these repairs may have been made by the young owners. Some are pretty ingenious if you consider that.