I have an old Marx 1095 Santa Fe plastic E-7 diesel I bought at a railroad swap meet for $3.00. The guy who sold it to me was a Lionel guy and knew nothing about it other than it did not run. I took it apart - it was terribly dirty and after cleaning hardened and sludged up grease off everything, I found several reasons that the locomotive would not run. It had been heavily modified-he installed crude windows and grab irons, and the wiring was all taped up and of different types and gauges spliced together. There were no brushes in the brush wells, and the side frame's rivets had been drilled out and replaced with nuts and bolts without the needed spacers installed. The side frames torqued down so far they were acting as brakes on all the drive wheels. After a good cleaning and some new brushes and springs, the motor unit itself runs like a madman when you place it on the track. As soon as you mount it to the shell, however, there is a dead short and a transformer overload light. I do not have a known good and original locomotive to compare it to, and I don't know if he left something out when he reassembled it. Is there supposed to be an insulating washer between the shell's motor mount and the top of the motor? I am not hugely familiar with Marx, so any help is appreciated.
I see no clear reason why I should grow up...
Maybe some help could be had here?
http://cs.trains.com/ctt/f/95/t/185637.aspx
Joined 1-21-2011 TCA 13-68614
Kev, From The North Bluff Above Marseilles IL.
PLASTIC and the body shorts the mech?!?!? I would guess that the body is shoving an exposed hot wire against the grounded metal frame, so you would need to find the wire and properly insulate it, along with finding a way to keep the wire in the proper position to avoid this mishap when the shell is attatched.
I can't recall if everything under the hood on a 1095 is the same as a 21 (the tin E units), but if the headlight wire comes off the motor assembly via a spring clip, I would unhook that wire first and see if that's your problem. For some reason I have a few Marx engines that don't have headlights because they short out as soon as I hook the light up.
I think that would be the only wire under there anyway, as everything else is on the motor right? Perhaps the motor mount screw is pinching or nicking a wire when installed?
I don't have a 1095 in front of me (the only one I have is in a set, and the box is buried under a few other set boxes...) and I can't really recall how the body attaches to the motor.
Hope this helps, and I hope you will post what the solution was when you figure it out,
J White
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