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Post  jmendoza Fri Sep 17, 2021 7:18 pm

Because people have shown some interest, I will try to recall some of the memories I have when I worked in Customer service at Cox from 1979-1981.  

We had a small arbor press that could accept any number of fixtures on it's base. The fixture we used the most was for pressing  the prop drive plate on and off the crankshafts. The fixture had drivers, and stops for all the different engines. The engine crankcase was placed on the fixture base pointing straight up, and the appropriate diameter driver was inserted into the press head. The driver pushed the crank downwards until the drive plate splines were exposed and then a step in the driver stopped it from going any further to prevent you from crushing the case.

To press on a prop drive plate, the crank was inserted into the case and appropriate stop block was placed on the crankshaft. Next, the crankcase and crank with stop block inside was place of the fixture base and the prop drive plate was pushed onto the splines by hand. After inserting the proper driver, the prop drive plate was pressed on until the driver's
stop bottomed out. Then we checked to see the crank would spin freely.

Interestingly, the drivers were double ended: one end was for removal, the other for installation, so you simply took it out of the press head and flipped it around for the required operation.

BTW, we never re-used a prop drive plate once it was pressed off because they would come loose if pressed back on again...they are one-shot.

I did previously describe the base, sleeve and driver used to install early Bug series piston rod "C" ring retainers. BTW, we had no provisions for removing the C ring,  This was an obsolete fixture we got from the assembly line and never used it in customer service while I was there.

We also had a fixture to check the squareness of the cases to make sure the bore for the cylinder was perfectly perpendicular to the reamed bore for the crankshaft.  Occasionally, we would get customers who  complained that their engine was still spitting dark grey oil on the fuselage and wing after several runs, which is not normal. This was an out of square case, and we used the fixture to confirm this and also check new cases before we used them for a repair.

Normally, we would not completely rebuild your engine, as that took about 20 minutes. Instead, we would hand build engines that we had tested and broken in, and would offer you one for the rebuild price.  Some customers would want their original engine back, especially if it was one they had won with in competition. At the time I worked at Cox, we had a very limited amount of old-stock tapered cylinder and piston assemblies, so it was sometimes not possible to get your TD .049  rebuilt and have it turn up the revs it used to. Fortunately, most customers sent, or brought in reed valve engines so this was not too big of a problem. We did however spend time building up TDs  from old stock parts and breaking them in to find  real good ones for customer replacements. This was easier than rebuilding them in many cases.

We had lots of new old stock, it was stacked on racks in boxes and in bins which we got from production. This enabled us to build versions of engines which had been discontinued or changed if we needed to. We also had piles of plastic parts for the planes and cars that we salvaged from the returns piles for replacement parts. The packaged replacement parts were handled by the main plant as they were done there and kept in the warehouse. Those were typically for people ordering them by mail. If you were a walk-in customer, you typically got a replacement part for free if it was not packaged. We did have a large engine parts rack in the walk-in customer service waiting area stocked with almost every part for the Reed, Medallion, and TD series, which the girls at the front counter kept stocked.

For those of you who remember the walk-in customer service area at the main building, before it was moved to the Helms building where I worked, it was quite different. They had displays and one of every current plane hanging from the ceiling, lots of free catalogs and literature, and the option to go on a free tour of the plant while your Cox product was being serviced. Leisure made a bunch of changes after they took over, so it was not the same as it was when Leroy ran the company. BTW, Cox had product museum which I'll describe later.
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Post  balogh Fri Sep 17, 2021 11:22 pm

Wow, just another very interesting addition to what I knew about COX.

I think the tapered bore TD engine was given up around 1974 or so. I have a few old stock that feature tapered bore in thin, or stepped wall cylinders. None of my later produced TD-s with thick wall cylinders made in the 80-s and 90-s has tapered bore..

Man, if I could turn back time and just be one of those walk-in customers!

When in the LA area I visited the Quonset huts where the COX story began, they are still standing on Poinsettia Ave., and are home to Santa Ana Diesel co.,  as well as the later East Warner Ave. building - home to a Orange County social service or similar organization,  just to see from where my 70+ COX engines started their trek before arriving to me in another continent..

Please share more stories and details Jim, I am all ears to listen...
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Post  jmendoza Sat Sep 18, 2021 3:39 am

I do know that a year or so before I started at Cox, Dale Kirn returned and put the tapers back into the TD engines because they were not turning the advertised RPM. Kit worked with him and got a hold of a bunch of parts and hand built "contest quality" TDs for competition modelers which were available through customer service. Kit was subsequently promoted to quality control and nobody was designated to continue hand fitting and testing competition grade TD motors. Apparently, the runs they made after Dale put the tapers back in the TDs were , some of the best they ever made. But once Leisure decided it was too expensive to continue the tapered TD cylinders, they quit making them again, and so everyone was scrounging customer service for our stash of tapered TD cylinders and pistons Dale had given us from production. Dale had his own pile of them too, and would sometimes gives us a few to build personal engines with.
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Post  roddie Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:16 pm

I am LOVING these stories!!! Small Cox Logo I Love This Forum!
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Post  944_Jim Sun Sep 19, 2021 11:26 pm

Me too!

I never thought to go look for the old Cox facilities when I was stationed in Cali in the mid-80's. I bet I rolled right by without giving it a thought.

I also never visited Mexico, yet ISTR I looked into the border crossing from a hilltop in San Diego and thinking "not this trip."

Thanks for sharing your memories, Jim!

30D41_Jim in MS
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Post  jmendoza Mon Sep 20, 2021 8:28 pm

Cox used to have a pole out front with small signs hanging from it listing open job positions. Having just  finished my tour of duty in the Army, I was looking for work and used to drive by to check it. One day, to my great surprise, it had a sign that said radio technician, so I pulled in and applied right on the spot. Two hours later I was working at Cox fixing radios, and later, engines too. At the time it paid $8.50/hr. After a little over a year at Cox, Leisure announced they were going to re-structure and break-up Cox into several different locations with the majority of it going to Minneapolis and Texas. We moved customer service from the small Helms building into the main building, and began the arduous process of packing up all the huge injection molding machines, screw machines, Davenports, Acmes, and the rest of the machine shop including the Cox-O-Matics. In a couple months it was all over, and they closed the doors at 1525 E Warner Avenue. I went to work for Tektronics who needed a repair tech to fix oscilloscopes and test equipment.  Never again did I have a job that was so fun, it was like being a blind dog in a meat packing house!

A few years later, Bill Selzer, a past Cox president, bought Cox Hobbies  from Leisure and moved part of their operation into the tiny Helms building on the Cox property. They had no temp control for the hone and piston grinding as that required more infrastructure. Lee Renaud had also bought back Airtronics and was doing the radio service for Cox, so when I went to re-apply, they had no open positions. In another couple years, Bill moved the operations  out of Santa Ana to Corona Ca. into a much bigger facility.

Jay
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