39 replies to this topic

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

What is the ohm reading? That will tell the tale.

Shaved balance. When did champion go to pilot balencing?

Fun stuff.

Fate

[TSR]

Hi Rocky,
The Omh-meter shows .2-ohm for both arms.
Champion used the grinding method of balancing arms from their very first rewinds, the "502" in 1965-1/2, and began using drill-balancing using the same sheet-metal "flat" drill as Mura in 1968 when the black "16D" sized motors came to be, AKA the 525 series.
But interestingly, the replacement armatures for the "617" motors appear to have benefited of this new method before the "525", as spare armatures for the 617 were marketed as drilled before the 525 came out.
Things were so confusing and changing every week at both Champion and Mura at the time that it is really tough to figure things out, but fortunately period catalogs allow to make some kind of sense out of it for all intended purposes.

Dyna-Rewind always used the rotary-file method, that tends to short out less of the arm plates than drilling.

[Horsepower]

TSR- Forgive my ignorance (seriously) but what is the rotary file method? Is that the same as a grinding stone in a Dremel? I'd like to use the least destructive method.

[TSR]

Ted Lech at Dyna had diamond powder coated rotary files that are used in various industrial applications. Their cutting power into steel was vastly superior to that of sintered stone. I am not sure where you can find such bits right now. They were 1/16" and 5/32" in diameter.
It was quicker than drilling holes and more accurate.

[Bill from NH]

Do a Google search & you'll bring up plenty of places with diamond coated rotary files.

[Champion 507]

PdL just emailed me and said one of the two Champion armatures from the above posted picture from ebay has green insulators. That would be the arm in the middle. Of course the bottom arm has red ones. I also posted a pic of my original 517 with blue insulators and I will be doing a restoration of my 617 in my Motor Shop thread of "scratchbuilding" and it has the purple insulators. That's all 4 colors. There are no yellow insulators BY DESIGN. Some of them have yellowed with age, but they were never colored yellow. The 517's and 617's were only available in 4 wire sizes, not 5. Red, green, purple and blue were the colors...we have proof. Yellow would be a 5th color. There was not a 5th wire size motor available.

I'm 99 44/100% sure red stood for #26 wire, green was #27 wire, purple was #28 wire and blue was #29 wire. PdL might disagree but I'm sticking with it. I was right on all the colors, I may be right on the wire sizes too.

This whole thing started when I emailed Bob Rule asking him if he remembered the colored insulators. He didn't so he contacted woody950 and woody made the original post here on slotblog. All I was trying to do was CONFIRM what I thought I remembered from 40 years ago. PdL asked all the former Champion people still left and none of them could remember either. So from there began the investigation.

Most people could care less about what color insulators Champion put on their motors years ago...and that's fine. But we all have little known and less cared for facts that somehow we retain for years and years. How many time have you tried to think of someone's name you knew years ago and it kinda drove you crazy until you remembered it? For me it wasn't someone's name, it was the colors of some silly little insulators.

To all who spent any time trying to find out any information on this thread, please accept a big thank you.

[TSR]

Doug,
A few do care... thanks to you too.
But there are other differences between the 1967 and 1968 517 arms: the lams are not the same.

[Champion 507]

PdL,

I would love to see a pic or two. Do you have any comparing them side by side?

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

doug, to my regret, I have much better memories of the machines I worked on than the names of the people I raced with!

Or even the girls I dated!

And I cheerfully admit that I don't remember the color coded insulators...but as I said, in the day I didn't buy factory arms. Sigh. I rely on you guys for this stuff.

Fate

[TSR]

Doug,
from looking at the insulators, I have to believe that they were "boiled-dyed" with color dye in the same manner as Mura dyed their endbells or we used to dye the green guides used by the Team Checkpoint cars.
Indeed the dye is pale enough to suggest that Champion would have done it that way rather than trying to injection mold thousands of colored units.
I am having the two arms reconditioned at this time (clean, and cut the comms) for cosmetic purposes only as these will never be run again. As soon as that is done and as soon as we will have found the two other colors, I will add them to pictures in the Champion story.
Regards,

P

[Champion 507]

PdL,

I spent a number of years in the model train hobby before slots in the '60's, after slots in the '60's until about 1971 and since 1979. I've also spent many an hour photographing real trains in the 1980's.

The concern in that hobby is that many of the oldtime railroaders both in models and on the real ones are slowly dieing off and if head knowledge they possess isn't documented, some facts may be forever lost and enthusiasts have been encouraged to gather as much info from these people so that it can be preserved for generations to come.

I'm so glad you and others are doing that for the slot car hobby. Where it took a number of railroads many years to convert from steam locomotives to diesels, it only took the slot car industry a few years to go from Pittmans to Mabuchi's to American made Champions and Muras to anglewinders to cobalts and so forth. Technology devoloped so fast that things weren't documented very well and now, 40 years later, there are a number of puzzle pieces missing and they're getting harder and harder to find.

Thank you and others for preserving the history of this hobby. My concern is that the younger generations have not been as interested in model trains, model cars and slot cars as we were and still are. I hope there will be someone there to pass these hobbies off to.

[TSR]

Have no fear, it's all on my hard disk!

[Bill from NH]

Have no fear, it's all on my hard disk!

What's your backup?

[TSR]

Bunchastiks...

[Champion 507]

Is that made by Dell or Apple?