Refreshing a clockwork Marx CV

Looks great Fuzz. I like that you kept too original colors.

 

Steve

I'd rather stay with the original colours, that's what Marx found suitable so that's good enough for me!

 

Thanks for the kind words!

beautiful work!

       
       


Thanks Dave! Kinda the reason I like the Lionel postwar and Marx stuff. Easy to work on and fun little projects. I don't think I'll ever buy a new Lionel locomotive. Williams by Bachmann, Marx, RMT (I want a Beep) and Postwar for the very few new (or new to me) loco purchases I'll be making. It's kinda tough when you've got all your favourites already and the two or three that you want don't work on your track or cost thousands of dollars.

Better be careful, Fuzz; that Marx stuff can be addicting .

 

Jim McClenin

at first it looked like the bell clapper was missing, but then i realized that from this angle you should see the top of the bell and apparently that's missing, too.  and seeing that it's typically attached to the gear shaft which is present, it doesn't seem plausible that it was removed after it left the factory.  i have see motors without sparklers, but i always thought the bell was on all Marx clockwork motors.

 

i probably should have started off with, nice job on the restoration, but just can't help but be curious about the motor.  perhaps windup guy, James will chime in later on when he gets done with the dozen or so tasks per day he seems to accomplish.

 

cheers...gary

 Very nice job on the restoration, and I'm not just saying that because the Marx Mechanical CV is my favorite locomotive! 

 

The lack of a bell and spring is curious.  I do have a single example of a Marx sparking ratchet motor that doesn't have a bell or spring... however, it is most definitely a postwar version (as the black sideplates and drivers indicate), but interesting enough, it doesn't even have the tabs punched out that hold the bell spring, nor does it have the embossed catch on the intermediate gear to flip the bell spring.  It does have the slot in the sideplate for the spring.  It came in a box of parts, so I don't know what locomotive it was originally in.  As Gary indicated, your motor has the tabs to hold the spring and the embossed catch is visible on the intermediate gear, too.  I do agree that it appears your motor came from the factory without the bell.  I have only heard of one other Marx windup motor without a bell (that appeared to be original) and that was in a Monon diesel... it had the bell, but no spring.  Not enough examples to determine any sort of pattern, but I'll keep my eye open on every Marx ratchet motor I have in my hands from here on out.  I'll also have to read all the catalog descriptions I have scanned, and see if any leave out the "ringing bell".  Marx was famous for stripping extras off the windups in order to meet a requested price point for a retailer; it's possible that one was willing to give up the bell in order to retain the siderods... but that is pure speculation on my part.

 

As a side note, I like to remove the sparkers from my motors, and I generally don't fix the bell spring if they happen to be broken.  Both of those items create a bit of drag on the motor, and I like to get maximum distance out of each wind!  But, if you do want to put the sparker in service, you can glue emery cloth around the sparker wheel - just make sure that the ends have a slight overlap in the proper direction so it doesn't catch the flint.  Sparker arms and flints can be acquired from Grossman (he is highly recommended - I've always been happy with everything I've bought from him).

 

Thanks for posting the pictures of the project, I always enjoy seeing another windup CV brought back to life.

 

 

The photos below show me in 1953 with my Dad's tinplate Marx windup set, and the set today.  I stripped, primed and repainted the loco, renewed the various pieces, etc., and had to rebuild the whole wind up mechanism which is identical to the one you showed.  I ended up buying five others on e-bay to get parts, etc.  but eventually got it to run about 125+ feet on its own with one wind up.

Right on, Lee! That's the kinda thing I like about the restorations... seeing something work that you crafted with your bare hands. Feeling of accomplishment!

Very nice job on the 833, Lee.  I can appreciate the work required to get a windup motor running again... there are a lot of parts in a Marx ratchet motor: