Unidentified motor

[Les Bird]

While sorting through a pile of bits and pieces I came across this motor. i must have bought it for a specific purpose but I now can't remember what. It's clearly never been used. It is five pole and runs very well. Can anyone identify it?

Edited February 18 by Les Bird

[Il Grifone]

It looks Airfix to me, as fitted to the GWR 0-4-2T.

[The Johnster]

I think it might be an Airfix (MW1005 or something), as used in their 61xx and 14xx, in the latter case driving through a CV joint and layshaft.  Not the worst motor of that era, good smooth slow runner but not overly powerful.

 

David Il Grifone posted while I was writing this. 

Edited February 18 by The Johnster

[Les Bird]

Thank you both for that. I just wish I could remember why I bought it!

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Slightly different in detail to the motor in the Airfix GMR N2, but functionally appears to be  the same unit.  It's performance was outstanding, despite the coffee grinder racket. I salvaged one from a very busted Airfix N2 got cheaply and put it in a heavily modified s/h Triang Hornby 9F weighted to 800g for operation outdoors pulling 60 wagon freights. It did this very successfully until it  shifted two wheels on the axles and mangled the rods. Thirty years on it is still waiting reassignment, the GBL Pepp A2 body would be a good fit if the mechanism was altered to 2-8-2.

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

despite the coffee grinder racket

I had an Airfix 61xx, numbered as a 5101, which ran more and more smoothly as it aged, and gave off a not unconvining Class 37 growl, which I grew rather fond of.  It ran through three sets of carbon brushes before the loco succumbed to broken slide bars (spectacularly, the piston rod came out of the cylinder, dug into the ballast, and somersaulted the loco on to the floor), at which point I replaced it with a Hornby with a can motor chassis and a better smokebox door.  This is still in service, but running silently and smoothly on a can-motor idler-gear early Bachmann 43xx split chassis.

 

The Airfix 61xx & 14xx ran very smoothly indeed and could be controlled down to snail-racing speeds once the abominations were disposed of, by which I mean the traction tyres and their grooved wheels.  These examples of Satan's expectorant interfered with pickup, either stood proud or were recessed within their wheel groove which literally tripped the loco up on facing turnouts, and spread crud everywhere, then they stretched and caught on things.  PITAs.  Removal and replacement wheels transformed the running, at the cost of haulage but my 14xx could still manage two trailers on level track and the 61xx could deal with four bogies so long as they were free-running.  On my BLTs this was not a problem, but I'd have liked a bit more pull from the 61xx on the club's exhibition roundyround.

 

The 14xx inevitably succumbed to it's well-known pickup issues, but it lasted well and owed me nothing at the end.  It is still with us in Hornby Railroad form of course, but with retooled chassis and a new motor, having been produced after Airfix's demise by (IIRC) Palitoy Mainline, Replica, and Dapol at one time, not sure which order those were in, before Hornby took it on.It must be one of the oldest body toolings in the biz, and apart from the lack of cab detail holds up well; apparently running is a bit hit'n'miss, and the trade has yet to produce a reliably performing RTR 14xx.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

13 hours ago, The Johnster said:

...the trade has yet to produce a reliably performing RTR 14xx.

I am waiting with interest to see which brand will march out a model on the constructional basis Bachmann have demonstrated on their two recentish 0-4-4T. Basically make everything over the coupled wheelbase in metal, put a light coreless motor behind a gearbox on the trailing coupled axle, make almost everything behind the rear coupled axle in plastic, and accomodate lightweight gear such as DCC tackle there as most convenient.

 

With the centre of balance within the coupled wheelbase, stable traction is achieved, no need for traction tyres. Locomotion should only commission a 'Gladstone'.

[cctransuk]

On 18/02/2024 at 16:05, Il Grifone said:

It looks Airfix to me, as fitted to the GWR 0-4-2T.

 

Yep - the magnets were distinctive; they look to have been produced as a long strip and broken off like squares of chocolate!

 

CJI.

[The Johnster]

Also distinctive were the curved top and bottom plates.  

[DCB]

On 18/02/2024 at 15:54, Les Bird said:

While sorting through a pile of bits and pieces I came across this motor. i must have bought it for a specific purpose but I now can't remember what. It's clearly never been used. It is five pole and runs very well. Can anyone identify it?

 

Its Airfix and a 61XX Prairie or possibly an N2 motor.  Its not the 14XX as the14XX had plunger style brushes mounted though the pole pieces the lower one being extended to take the pick up spring.  I believe the14XX had a metal front bearing support not plastic. The Plastic front bearing mounting is the Prairie motor's ackillies Eel, as it flexes and sometimes melts and the brass insert works loose.  The armature shaft is slightly smaller diameter than an X04  the armature and magnet are fatter and apart from the intended chassis and a tender mount for shar]ft drive to the loco  theses motors don't really have many  applications.   It's often a nasty harsh runner and to smooth out an Airfix 61XX I chucked the airfix motor away and replaced it with a 3 pole  X04,  Triang gears Triang axles in Airfix wheels and lots of other tweaks.    It was better but not great.