A Hafner Marxified With Smoke

[wallyworld]

I thought some others might enjoy this conversion of a Hafner wind up locomotive into a electrically powered engine with smoke.It  has been retrofitted with a chromed dome and stack from spare parts for a  Commodore Vanderbuilt  and the drive if from a Marx 666. The ferrule that houses what will be the headlamp was taken from a chromed pen and will be given a socket from a spare Marx Union Station lamps. Like all Marx engines ( or is it Hafner?) this puppy really smokes. Total cost: $20.00. The cost was split evenly between the Hafner and the Marx 666 drive unit.

Here is a side comparison of the original Hafner spring drive and the Marx unit. Both of them use a slit cut into the motor frame that slides into the shell on the cab side. The Marx unit has two tapped screw holes that serve as the anchors for the motor underneath the 666 cylinders.

Here is a side by side profile of the Hafner shell and the 666 drive unit. This is what originally struck me as being a near perfect match. The most time consuming portion is making a cleat to raise the Marx motor housing an eighth of an inch to sit level in the shell. The shell had no hole for the smoke stack but this took all of a couple of minutes with the careful use of a drill bit.

There were some other modifications to the Hafner shell, such as removing the old battery compartment for the headlight, making the cleat ( held in place by self tapping sheet metal screws) as well as cutting the interior can area to fit the 666 drive in place. The drilling of the screw holes for the motor near the "cylinders" required the flaring out ( bending of the Hafner frame, which was then later straightened. I like the look of this effect which was unintentional as in the finished engine,. All of this was accomplished in a day and if anyone would like to attempt this as well, I documented the process with pictures ( not shown here) and I would be glad to help.

 

This is the cleat I installed in the Hafner Shell.  You can see also the cut I made in front of it.

Here is a top view showing the added stack, dome and headlight Now I can run the Hafner cars alongside the Marx..

[gunrunnerjohn]

Very nice, and truly "one of a kind".

[AF53]

A job well done! Very creative, thanks for the pics!

Ray

[jwse30]

Nicely done! It looks like the body is in real nice shape too. Thanks for sharing this.

 

J White

[rtraincollector]

what can I say other than its a one of a kind and a great job

[wallyworld]

Thanks for the positive reinforcement. I posted it because I know there are others who enjoy modifying Marx, Hafner, etc into new variations. I was inspired by the folks over at the Marx Yahoo Group, who, if you happen to visit their site, has done some astonishing modifications and have come up with stuff that makes mine pale in comparison. It's very enjoyable and fairly straight forward..and I don't run the risk of jumping off a cliff if it doesn't pan out. It took some getting used to the Hafner puffing out smoke..if I ever figure out how to upload a video, Ill post one here.

The repainting that is done by others on the six inch cars that can be seen at the Marx Group  is a sight to behold. I highly recommend paying them a visit.  This car I believe was done by a Mr Eastman ( my apologies if I got that wrong.) His photo folder is a great deal of fun to go through labelled "Faux Marx"

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MarxTrain/

[balidas]

Amazing! Good work. I'm glad to see that as I have been thinking to pick up some wind ups and converting them to electric. You answered a few questions I had come up.

I've also been visiting the Marx yahoo group and yes, they've come up with some amazing things.

[Penny Trains]

I love it!  I'm planning a little Marxist project myself!

Becky