Mechanized Robot drive belt & other repair

[robothut]

I will add some pictures and more information soon. but for now I thought I would post a on line place that you can buy the correct drive belt for repairing a original Mechanized Robot. Since I have repaired many of these bots in my time I can tell you that it normaly is a pain to find the correct O ring type drive belt. The belt diameter "inside , outside and thickness" needs to be right for things to work right . A tight belt will cause the robot to run slow if at all since the drive pulley is not geared down for power, the correct belt will fit loosely but not slip do to its thickness / contact with the drive pulley . Here is a link to auto parts place that ships fast and the belts are cheep. There shipping is a fixed $8.66 so you might want to order extra belts or other auto parts at the same time.

http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_o-ring-rubber-i-d-2-3-4-inch-o-d-3-inch-thickness-1-8-inch-dorman--autograde_12029632-p?vehicleIdFromReq=-1&isAllVehicle=true&vehicleIdSearch=-1&searchTerm=64232&showTitle=

in case the link does not work just go to Advance Auto Parts . com and enter in part number 64232. This should be

Dorman - Autograde O-Ring-Rubber- I.D. 2-3/4 Inch O.D. 3 Inch Thickness 1/8 Inch

$1.59

since the original Mechanized robots are 50 to 60 years old at this time most if not all of them have dried out , rotted, broken or solidified drive belts.

I will add a picture of the original belt and the replacement belt side by side and other repair tips for the Mechanized robot soon.

[robothut]

Here are pictures of the original belt "stiff and non moving" and the new belt.

[robothut]

As far as actually replacing the belt in the original Mechanized robot, there are two ways. The Hard way is to make your self some special long metal hooks, then remove the robots Left ear spinner part. If you have a small grain of wheat type lamp from a old toy handy you can push that up inside the robot from one of the leg holes, the left leg would be best and then power up the lamp. Now you can see inside the robot easily. Useing the long hooks you have to custom build you can remove the old belt and install the new one by working from both the left leg hole and the left ear spinner opening. Now this method is very difficult and can take from hours too days to get done, but if the robot has been opened up before or is already showing missing body tabs that hold it together, this would be the way to go. The easy way is to remove the back of the body. To do this you need to remove the gyro part from the top of the head, the chromed parts below the ear spinners and the tabs under the chromed parts as well as the main tabed parts on the sides of the body. On the back of the body there are to main tabs from the gear box that need to be bent out and in the crotch plate there are two tabs in the back that need to be bent out. The ear cups will have tabs on the back side that need to be bent out as well. Now you can remove the back of the robot. In order to put the new belt in it is easiest to remove the left ear spinner so that you can get the belt on the top pulley.

Always when bending tabs on tin toys be sure to bend them slowly. A great deal of heat is generated in the metal at the bend point, slow even movements of the little metal tabs will make the tabs last longer.

[robothut]

Other common problems with the original Mechanized robot are with the motor and the switch. There are two main styles of motors used in the original mechanized robot. the plastic shell and the metal shell. The plastic shell seems to be more common than the metal and red or green plastic seem to be favorite colors for the plastic motors. When a motor in the robot will not run but the light in the mouth does come ON, this would be a sign that the grease on the commutator has hardened up over the years and is not letting the commutator brushes make contact with the commutator. The grease is placed there to keep the brushes from wearing out . It would take almost not time to wear out a brush with out grease on it. More expensive DC motors will use brushes with carbon bits on them or brushes made of carbon, the carbon acts as a lubricant and a conductor but in cheep toy motors they just put a little lub on them and call it good. And for the most part that is good for a few years any way. This why a lot of collectors like to run there toys once or twice a year to keep the grease and brushes in good shape. So if you have a motor that is not running you can then either remove the brushes and clean then and the commutator with a Q tip and solvent then apply some new lub but you might find getting the brushes correctly back in place on both sides of the commutator a bit difficult. so an easy way is to use a spray lub ment for electrical contacts. Also if you have no lube you can normaly get the motor to run "but not like new" by just rotating the motor shaft or other gear in the robot when the power is turned ON once the brushes break threw the crusty old lub on the commutator they will start working again.

[robothut]

The lever switch on the front of the robot can become intermittent or not work at all. The switch has a very nice design in that they wanted the wires running to it to stay stationary . One wire solders to the back of a non moving contact and that is never the problem. The other wire solders to a brass contact that then contacts a steel spiral spring, this spring will rust over time and become a poor conductor. The spiral spring then contacts a metal post and that metal post then contacts the lever brass contact on the other side of the switch. When you move the switch the lever brass contact then connects with the first wire contact to close the circuit. So once the steel coil spring has rusted the best way to fix the problem is to just solder a new wire "leave the old wires as they are" from the lever contact part to the coil spring contact part. You can also try contact cleaner on the switch but the repair will not last as long.

[robothut]

these pictures show the added RED wire to by pass the rusted steel spiral spring connection. It is possible to do switch repair work with out taking the robot body apart you only need to remove the chrome chest cover for some switch repair work.

[robothut]

Lets take this opportunity to talk about flat feet. The Mechanized robot is a very heavy robot and if it does sit on a shelf for many years the feet will get flat spots on them. I do not know of a way to fix the problem other than replacing the roller wheels with new ones from some junker bot. So its a good idea to place some sort of spacer under the robots feet to keep the weight off the rubber roller wheels. There have been threads about this on the drome in the past and even some drome member was custom building and selling plastic feet supports as I recall. But you can use anything from wood , plastic or glass and even magnets can make for nice feet lifters to keep your bots rollers in good shape.

[chilli]

oopps double post