Eldon Slot Car and Track Restoration
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- This video is about restoring and getting your vintage Eldon cars and sets working properly.
Tips here may be of help to owners of vintage slot cars from other manufacturers.
We take a set that has been in the Collection for 6 years, and in real time, get it up and running. A step-by-step guide to getting your sets running, performed on a set with all the typical issues. I have restored dozens of these, and enjoy sharing the experience. Feel free to leave questions in the comment areas. Also, Google toykingwonder to visit my site with other Eldon information, tips, and downloadable manual pages, all for free.
I had this set as a kid that I got secondhand from my brother-in-law, it was fun when it worked
Great to see them in action again
Thank you for all the great information
You are welcome Vincent. If you need a manual, I have one on my website that you can look at or download the pictures. Google toykingwonder.
My brother and I got a 69 set. My mistake was painted my mustang. His Camaro is still pristine. The brushes on our cars were copper. Have not seen any like them since. I also have a 66 Shelby track. It was fun to race 4 cars. You would race against one car, but at the crossover, you had a chance to hit or be hit by the other two.
I still have my camera like yours in the background, with the flash attachment. It takes 620 film. I even have an unopened roll.
You can still get 620 roll film. Get that camera out. You know, I took that old Brownie Hawkeye and used the feature that allows you to manually keep the lens open for a low light or experimental exposure. It was my wife's Thanksgiving dinner setting and the room was not very bright. I placed the camera on a high counter off the kitchen to hold it steady, and then just held down the shutter release for a few seconds. It came out great! Shooting with film can be extremely fulfilling. Try BH Photo if you need more film, they have all styles.
You did a very good job on this video. I've been buying and selling vintage model kits and slot cars for almost 20 years. I sell on eBay under yard_sale_finds or my store name SLOT CAR SALVAGE. The only slot cars I collect are Eldon. I have amassed a massive amount of Eldon's over the years. I would say easily 500 complete cars and 100's of extra chassis, motors, wheel/axle sets and more. I'm not really into racing them at all and I do NOT collect sets. Of course my favorites are the stock cars and the dodge pickup of which I have several in most color combinations. I saw on Facebook a group dedicated to just Eldon cars. I'm not a member but I do enjoy watching what people are working on. One of the reasons I'm commenting is that I read on a post one time on that Eldon group that the translucent Eldon chassis are NOT rare and I see you have one there. I would have to disagree with the member who said they are not. In 20 years I've found maybe 5. Collectors desire them. Anything unusual and original I've found has more value. It's rare to see one on a buggy. Most of mine came with black. I have tons of original parts in my collection that I keep on hand for restoration projects. Other than reproduction tires everything on my cars are original. I do not use resin or reproduction pieces. If you do a series on restorations I think a lot of guys would like to see window glass restorations (removing scratches/scuffs) I have my methods but I would love to see another view. Anyway, awesome job on the details of the video. It may inspire me to actually race a few of my "beater" cars. Not the collectible ones of course! After-all what I'm I going to do with my 200 pounds of old track? I was going to take it to a local auction. Take Care. Kerry.
Kerry thanks for the detailed response. You know, the mind sees what it wants to see. I never noticed these chassis were translucent. Here I am actually showing restoration on the car and I never noticed. If you had told me they were not white I would have bet hard cash that they were. I had to go look right now. In my minds eye they are white! That said, the buggy sets are interesting as there is at least 3 or 4 variations. I have seen a lot with a black chassis. The gold motors seem to have greater speed and run-up than the old blue motors. As far as the Dodge truck is concerned, I got one in my Dodge 3 in 1 set, one of my favorite sets, I also shot a video of that one. I am also on the Eldon Facebook page, a nice group of guys. I think I am at an interesting age because I actually remember my dad bringing home the Grand Prix set when I was about 4, and my uncles and he racing it. I remember him bringing home the Corvette with headlights and the flagman with it in the plastic see through case. I remember them brand spanking new. So part of it is a nostalgia thing. One other item, if you have any of the old headlights and harnesses floating around I might buy one or two off you, otherwise, I am going to experiment with grain of wheat bulbs and rig up some myself. Happy slot car motoring!
@@ToyKingWonder WOW! What a time to be alive as a kid. What is funny is that I wasn't even born yet when Eldon put out these sets. I'm 47 years old and for a guy who didn't grow up with these I'm just hooked on them. I'm hoping the hobby continues with younger generations. I missed out on all the tracks set up at hobby shops in my area, though I've heard from a lot of older guys that I work with how as kids they would go take their "race cases" full of cars and tools for tinkering and spend the weekends racing. A few guys said the hobby started to fail because "adults" would basically take over the tracks and make competition so "important" it took the fun out of the hobby for the youth. I can see that happening I guess. It's human nature to wreck a good thing!!! Grrr!!! Anyway, I do have some of those harnesses but I don't want to part with them as they are original parts and they are very hard to find unmolested. I do have a box full of pretty trashed Eldon bodies that don't have much left on them as parts but some have decent screw posts. I was thinking of cutting the posts from the bodies to use on model car conversions, but I might just sell the whole box. I've seen a few guys on the Eldon group graft parts together. Maybe someone would have use for them. I'll have to see. At this point I've kind of become a hoarder. Not sure why. I can buy and sell any other type of slot car but not let go of eldons. Even when I have 10 of the same car and color!!! I bet I have 200 stock cars in almost every color accept the rare green charger. I do see an "orange" charge on eBay right now!!! Hummmm!!!! Well it was awesome talking to you. I look forward to other videos of Eldon cars if you decide to do them. You can contact me anytime if you would like at my email krday@icehouse.net . I love talking Eldon and I do BUY vintage slot collections in 1/32 and 1/24. Take Care. Kerry.
That was an excellent how-to. Now to get out my sandpaper and start cleaning up my new (But very old!) track. Thanks!
Thank you Rich, let me know the results of your restoration!
Great video! It has been helpful for me with the Eldon sets I have picked up lately. Geat stuff. I'm looking for a couple of the larger transformers too lol
Thank you!
Always interesting whatever you cover!
Thank you sir!
Very helpful.
With the metal pinion and gear you should use a solid grease and never use oil. The oil will get all over the track. You should be careful of not putting too much oil on the axles. Many slot car sites sell the gear grease. For the brushes you can use what is called Braid Juice for better contact.
I appreciate your suggestions. After oiling I test run the cars off the track and oil is not an issue. I have been using these techniques for 50 years. I had my first Eldon set in 1963. I have 25 sets and over 100 cars and most of them I had to bring back from the dead. Except for two lap counters, every single controller, transformer, car, and track piece works. Oh, and the period Eldon manuals indicate light oil on the metal pinion. I have a set that includes the original little ampule filled with oil. Here's a diagram that shows the oiling points.
toykingwonder.com/assets/Pages_2_and_3_200.jpeg
But thanks for your interest.
Thanks a ton !!
I can relate on the roof posts being easy to bust off. I got a set at a swap meet and one roof had no posts at all. Ended up buying a lot of 3 chassis and two bodies off ebay just to get one more good roof.
I used to make my own motor brushes
WhT do you do when you break a shovel off ? Do you have some videos on that ?
Thanks again for this :)
I always used an eraser for ink (try to find one if those now!) to clean the rails on the track.
I have heard that too! But have not tried it.
Hello, thank you very much for this video it will be very useful to me to restore my race track is exactly the same as in your video. I received this race track around fifty years ago and I have just got one. Is it possible to give me addresses to obtain tires and brushes and perhaps other parts? I'm looking and I can't find anything. Thanks in advance Pascal
I found this video very helpful!!! I do have one question though. Noticed the guard-rails. Are they Eldon or from another Manufacturer???
They are the rails that came with these sets. There are variations to the guard rails. These are almost like fencing. Earlier sets had a white version, including ones that had places for little sign stickers to go into. Eldon had a series of variations to parts. There were gray trestles, and orange trestles. There was black track, brown "sand track" for the Dune Buggy sets (although at least one Dune Buggy set came with the traditional black track) and even white for the snowmobile set.
Did you glue and true the tyres, and loosen the body screws to allow the body to float when cornering?
The tires I use have excellent adhesion to the wheels without glue, and I test for slippage. If I find something out of true, I usually toss the tires. I don't leave the bodies loose, I don't think that would give me much of a gain on these 6V models.
Where to get tires
Smilin Rays! Just google him.