I had a a gentleman drop off an american flyer tin plate steam engine. He was a little vauge on the condition and rightfully so. It does not run, missing all drive rods and valve gear, front truck, rear truck, and tender connector and tender. Is there anywhere I can find parts for this. I will post a pic later today or tomorrow. It is pretty beat up, chipped paint and such. I am thinking I am going to have to buy the whole drive assembly. Is it worth it for him to rebuild this engine or is he going to spend a lot of money for something that is not worth a lot to begin with. I don't want to spend a bunch of time and money on this if he it not going to be worth it for him.
Thanks for the advice.
Mike
alco's forever!!!!! Majoring in HO scale Minorig in O scale:)
From the general description I would say to use, or canabalize, that engine for parts for another working engine. Two rail American Flyer can get a little expensive to fix, three rail AF can be very expensive to fix unless you have the parts you need before you attemp the repair. From what I have read there is too much missing for a minor dollar amount on the repair.
If he is missing the tender I would not try to repair it as the tender has the reverse unit inside & has the power pick-up shoes on it, for two rail S gauge.
AF made three rail trains before WW2 and two rail trains after WW2. The three rail AF I know almost nothing about, as far as how it gets its power to the motor.
Far as cost of the repair verses cost of the engine, most AF unless very rare would be too expensive to fix! Also need the number on the engine(three or five digit number), it is by the cab, and need the name on the tender(American Flyer sometimes on the tender and a roadname as well) to tell you anything more.
Lee F.
I always seem to leave out the important info. It is 3 rail O guage american flyer. It looks like the power pikup is all on the engine but not having the tender I can't tell for sure. Does not look like there is any power feeder that would hook up to the motor so I will say it only picks up power in the engine. The reverse unit I am not sure of. It has slits in the tin plate for something but not sure what they are for. I put power to the motor today and it just smokes. probably too much oil and dust accumlation in the motor somewhere. I will dig harder in it tomorrow but I think this motor is done. I found a guy that has parts but he won't sell anything to me because he wants to do the work. Knowing it will cost a fortune I guess.
I will put pics up tomorrow of it.
If you should try to run the motor without the reversing unit, be sure that you wire the armature (brushes) in series with the field winding. It's easy to burn out a motor otherwise.
Bob Nelson
Not being that familier with AF three rail, when you say "It has slits in the tin plate." Where are these slits located, inside the engine or on the back side of the cab?
Along with what Bob N. mentioned about wiring the feild windings, you may need to clean the motor contact area, clean the brushes and armature plate, and slightly lube the shaft of the armature before attempting to try the motor again. To clean the brushes and armature I use a pencil eraser, works great on pre war Lionel motors.
I have found a repair shop or two that won't sell parts but will do the work gets extremely expensive, or Mega Bucks. There are some places listed in Classic Toy Trains that sell parts for AF and Lionel, try to contact a few of these people and see what the results are.
Thanks Lee I will look those up.
The slits are on top of the engine 2 of them one towards the front and one towards the rear.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270526697737&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
Here is a similar stlye to what I am trying to fix. My wife took the camera to work so no actual pics. The difference is that there is no electrical connector access on the one side and no small hole on the other side.
Small Hiawatha Streamliner, I have one in my collection but it is clockwork. You see the indivual pieces showup on ebay. They came with two types of tenders the streamlied type in the picture and a small 4wheel tender for freight sets. If you have access to Greenberg's book on pre-war flyer I would check it for all variations
Tom
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