60 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

The Golden Screamer:



NO! NO! Not THAT Golden Screamer... Wilson's Golden Screamer:



Here's an ad from...





Here's the data sheet included with this mid-1965 motor:





OK, there's the facts but why leave well enough alone... let's tear the sucker apart!



Stink'n 12v armature... I hate stink'n 12v armatures... let's put in a brand new 5v arm!



YIKES! That's brand new.

To be continued...

[Tex]

Oof! That's fugly.

[havlicek]

Yikes, Rick... I guess that arm was found in a submerged shipwreck off the coast of Costa Rica on a salvage dive by a team of intrepid underwater slot enthusiasts!? No big thing to clean up and balance the arm as well as cut the com, but is that white stuff all over the wires the insulation?... or was it originally copper-colored and that's some kind of oxidation/crud?

-john

[JohnnySlotcar]

Lets just name her Golden Smokey!!!

[Lone Wolf]

Looks like that arm was found when they cut open the belly of that magnificent fish .

John, whatever that white stuff is, all the Wilson hi-po arms I have are coated with it.

And Rick, I must thank you. I had a set of those brushes with the springs on them lying around and could never ID their application! Now I know. Some of these Wilsons can perform very nicely. I think the fact that they look like "toy robot" motors probably hurt the sales of these things.

As they say here in NY, "Yo, make it nice." (Which by they way I am sure you will do.)

[Mike]

I've often wondered about the Wilson motors. I've never built a car around one, and, have never seen one in action. I'll be following this one. My guess would be all go and no whoa!

Have a chassis in mind, Rick?

[dc-65x]

I bought two of these arms, both sealed in their boxes and both are rust buckets with light grey coated wire .

Here's an arm all cleaned up with the comm and laminations polished. The comm and comm wires are wrapped in black Keviar thread (I know, I know but Kevlar is so much easier to wrap than Nylon thread!).

The whole thing was flooded with epoxy and hit with a heat gun to turn the epoxy into a water consistency which really helped it soak in. One of the poles was very HEAVY so a static balance really helped smooth out the motor:



Next I added the usual "hop up" ball bearings to the end plates. I cheated and used Slick 7 brass axle reducers as the Wilson oilite bearings are 1/4" OD . I also tapped the motor mount screws for 2-56 machine screws:



So the motor buzzed up nice, only drew .5 amps and ran smooth... and HOT after a few minutes at 3v . So... in keeping with the 1960s hop up tradition of drilling holes into everything in sight, I took the motor can with only one small breathing hole on each side...



... and drilled the snot out of it :



Here's the can of a thousand holes:



It still runs hot . I think it looks cool though .

Now for the big decision. Do I run it with no label:



A clear label with "WILSON EXPERIMENTAL":



Or a white label:



Chassis time...

[munter]

Everytime I read a thread by Mr T I am knocked over by the before, during, and after pictures... it has just happened again.

[don.siegel]

Amen to that! Looks great Rick and I would definitely go with the clear Experimental label - looks very fittingly Skunk Works worthy!

"Drilled the snot out of it" - is that I technical term for machinists? didn't know that one, but it definitely looks very cool with that hole pattern.

I've had a bunch of Wilson motors sitting around for years, including those low-voltage arms, but since the first and only one I mounted in a car (maybe even a Screamer) had absolutely no go, I wasn't too inspired to keep trying.

What I really like about Rick is not only that he does great project, but he actually finishes them!

Don

[dc-65x]

Have a chassis in mind, Rick?

I'm making a 1/16" brass pin tube frame with these modified Mabuchi FT16D motor brackets:



I drilled them for motor mounting screws and slotted them to allow the motor to come out.

The motor got cocooned to protect it from acid flux:




Here the motor and my rear axle alignment nizzy is set up in my Rick's Jig ready for some frame rails:



This gizmo is a neat stepped bending mandrel to bend the main frame rails:



I used the mandrel again for the rear axle brace:



It also beefs up the bearing mounting tubes:



Here's the bottom view after I put the buff to it:



A few tweaks of the rails to keep things interesting:



The spiffed up center section:





Time to finish her off...

[Mike]

Nice... and light. This thing might actually work! Do I see some "Paper Clip" influence in there?

It will be interesting to see how it runs.

Excellent!!

Mike

[TSR]

!!!

Please don't we want to see her run!

[Duffy]

... and drilled the snot out of it

Yes, Don, it is a trade term. Snot relief was a big concern at this time, as will be seen in all the varied hole patterns in magazines from the day.

It's a little known fact today, but "Run-Out" meant something entirely different back then.

Duffy

[don.siegel]

Thanks you, Mr. TechnicalLanguagePerson, it's good to hear from the highly qualified experts, leveraging their core competencies to irrigate our knowledge base in a customer-centric corporate culture...

Wait, I'm off work for the next four days, I don't have to talk like that any more!

Beautiful chassis, Rick. Very interested to see how this one runs... and what will Ms. Goldie Screamer be wearing on the fashion runway, body-wise?

Don

[Duffy]

Lissen, dood, if that guy actually landed that fish aboard that sit-upon kayak, he's got my respect and nobody's got much to add to that!

I've been watching Rick's space-frame builds lately, using those front and back motor plates, and remembering: last I raced, in Santa Rosa, CA, early '66, these were standard equipment - we were running F1 bodies, cut down low as we could get, and our chassis typically had the top tubes bent down almost parallel with the bottoms just forward of the front mount, with the bearing's height of room in reserve and the front plate just tacked on: when an arm blew (only once a night if we were lucky) we'd wrench the plate forward, swap in a new motor* and push everything back into place and straightmostly, and get back in the race.

So, no, the motor really wasn't "in for the duration."

Duffy

*Most of the older guys had a motor or two in reserve; I was fifteen and poor, and ran just one. One night I was leading the race when my suicide wind let go, and they held up the race while I tore in and fixed it on the spot. What grand guys! -'cept the purse was rigged and was divvied among the Regulars anyway. Ah, to be young and stupid again. Heck, I'd settle for young.

df

[Pablo]

Sweeeet!!!

[Bill from NH]

Duffy, did you run something that looked like this?

[dc-65x]

Yes, Don, it is a trade term. Snot relief was a big concern at this time, as will be seen in all the varied hole patterns in magazines from the day.

Duffy

..... and what will Ms. Goldie Screamer be wearing on the fashion runway, body-wise?

Don

It will one of these three :

[TSR]

If you look very closely above the pits on the picture above the Neerpasch Cobra coupe, you can see my ugly mug...

I would pick the Simon Maser 151, it looks so cool!

And besides it was a favorite of clear plastic body makers in the day...

[Duffy]

Rikky---DoTheMaseratiDoTheMaseratiDoTheMaseratiDoTheMaseratiDoTheMaserati!!! D'you need a bod? I'll send you one!

Duffy, did you run something that looked like this?

Close, but we ran 1/16" drop axles so the whole front end was down low. And instead of a bracket, we'd solder a tube in crosswise and bend our longerons after the rear motor plate to meet it.

There's been argument about when ball bearings became common, but I remember my last chassis of this sort (~Feb. '66) having 1/8" BBs in the rear and running front wheels with BBs installed on that 1/16" wire, all off-the-rack. I clearly recall sneaking money out of my sleeping Mom's purse for those precious BBs, so that's proof enough for my shrink if not for you lot.

Duffy

[dc-65x]

DoTheMaseratiDoTheMaseratiDoTheMaseratiDoTheMaseratiDoTheMaserati!!!

It's one of my all-time favorites, too.

[TSR]

I was right above their pit for the nine hours or so that they lasted in the race. Andre Simon was at the wheel much of the time.

The car had been entered by Maserati France, owned by Colonel Simone (no relation with Andre Simon). The other driver was Maurice Trintignant; he was in the car rather briefly. The car had the fastest speed down the Hunaudieres at over 190 MPH, a scary ride with discussible aerodynamics. The big 5-liter V8 was burying the Ferraris and was the equal of the Ford GT there, but the car had other issues, that of poor brakes, a slow shifting bulky transmission, and its handling was not the best. It eventually succumbed to various electrical ills... but what a gorgeous car it was.

It ended in the Rosso Bianco collection and now I believe in the Louwman collection in Holland.

I also love the color scheme in red with those stripes... Hawk made a 1/32 scale injected plastic kit of it that is not so bad.

[dc-65x]

That's really cool, Philippe. That makes the car even more fun to build.

Thank you.

[Alchemist]

Wow - that is a stunning motor, Rick!

I remember when the Wilson motors first came out at the SF Playland raceway - they were the hot topic and the cars I saw that ran these motors sure were smooth and had a unique sound to them.

Your motor can mods look "cool" - pardon the pun, Rick! Hahhaha!

Ernie

[don.siegel]

Great choice of cars, Rick - I vote for the Maserati too, but any of the three would be great!

Thanks for the story, Philippe: did you know that a book recently came out in French, something like The Colonel and the Maserati?

Were there really that many of these vac-forms made? I only remember the Pactra offhand... but there were a couple versions of the 151, another favorite...

We're working on a 151 for the Bordo vintage race next year (LeMans theme), and I'm trying hard to make it over-powered and ill-handling! These were really narrow cars it turns out, at least in 1/24...

I don't remember seeing any Wilson motors at the time, even though Chicago was not far from Cleveland... (Inside joke: the company was called Wilson's of Cleveland but was actually located in Florida!).

Don