I remember a Cox Tee Dee that was either a .15 or .19. I am thinking that it was a .15 but, I am not totaly sure on that. At any rate I am trying to locate one to purchase. I would like it to be as close to "New In Box" condition as possible.

Thanks for your time.

Dan

I don't remember Cox making them that big but Tower carries the .09 size http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...1&I=LXB443&P=7

Dauntae

They made like three different 15's. The first one was a real hot reed valve rear carb job. I don't remember the name. But it looked like a Thermal hopper. If you ran it very rich it would, as likely as not, start running backwards on you. It was hard to get started in the right direction in the first place. Needless to say, it ran in either direction equally well.

They had the Tee Dee .15 which was a front rotary valve design that ran a lot more consistant than the reed version. It would only run one direction. Later on, there were R/C versions of this one made.

Then there was another that looked a lot like the Tee Dee but was a cheaper sport engine. It was called the Medalion I think? It was rather mildly tuned. To see one and then see the other sometime later, you would think you were looking at the same model yet when you got them side by side, you would definately know which was the Tee Dee.

The T D stood for Thimble Drone which was the name before Cox and then Estes.

To my knowledge, they never made a 19.

There were .09's in the TD and Medalion lines too.

Jim

Jim There was never a manufacturer before cox and they date back somewhere to about fifty four or so. The original offerings were called Spacehoppers. Spacehopper, Tee Dee, Medalion and the Bee series were all just marketing names for a huge variety of types over the years with differant induction and throttling among other things as you mentioned in sizes of: .010, .020., .049. .051, .074 and .09.

The only larger engine ever marketed by them was the Conquest .15 a front rotor engine that was quite popular in controlline racing and with contemporary freeflight. These were later produce with RC carburators. They were excellent performers and still have quite a reputation. there was never a .19 (mass produced anyway)

Dan

This is the engine you are looking for. Cox sold the rights to it before the Estes buyout and RJL in Ca. still produces new ones periodically to this day and are a made in both Ukie/freeflight version as well a carburated RC version.

John

John,
I agree with you about the conquest being the last and best and I appologize about leaving it out. The original subject was Tee Dee. I didn't intend to get into a contest here.

However, you are about half wet about the older engines. It must have been before your time? But 35 - 45 years later it makes little difference, does it? The name Cox didn't come into the picture until along about 1955. However they could have owned the company all along but they didn't go by that name? What in the world do you think the name Tee Dee or TD came from (it was Thimble Drone)? It certainly didn't mean Touch Down or Too Dirty, or Tom Dixon, Top Dog, or Timothy David Cox?

After the Babe Bee .049 came out, it was followed two or 3 years later by the Pee Wee .020 which looked like a small Babe Bee.

I had one of each of the .15 size engines. The .15's started coming out about 1960 for the reed valve version (It was called the Olympic .15, it looked like a giant Space Hopper and I had one in a class 'A' Spacer.) They wanted to be competitive in 'A' 2.5cc free flight. I know it ran circles around my K&B 15. But it was so tempermental, it wasn't worth having. The Tee Dee types, which ran real nice, didn't start to come out until a couple years later. The .09's came out about that time as well as the .010's, .020's, .049's, .074's, and .051's under the TD label. I had a Medalion 15 (cheaper version of the TD on a Nobler Junior along about 1969. The Medallions just didn't quite make it. They were the OS LA series of the market at that time. (A well intentioned idea that didn't work so well in real life.) I think they dropped the .15's along about 1970? During the late 60's and early 70's there were a lot of variations of the Babe Bee style engine. Some had more power, some had bigger tanks, and some had no tanks.

The space hopper (It cost about 4 times as much as a Babe Bee)had most of the competitive free flight market that the Atwood Hornet didn't have. But Cox completely captured the .049 sport market with the Babe Bee at $3.49 along about 1955. They did it with simpler manufacturing techniques and automation. They put everyone else out of business with it. It truely did run better than the OK brand and the others. Cox was the most innovative and progressive model company at that time.

I understand that their demize was due to a heavy investment into slot cars in which that market suddenly fell by the wayside in the 70's? Estes came along and cut the offerings to the bone in order to survive. I didn't keep up with them after that.

I may have missed a time frame here or there so anyone is welcome to jump into action.

Enjoy,

Jim

Cool Jim, thats what I love about Cox there was such a huge variety even the Cox folks had difficulty telling what was what. OK I never was aware of a .15 other than the Conquest. And I agree with you as to Cox's first arrival on the market place, as I said there or about 54 which I think close enough to 55, like you said that long ago. The whole thing on the name deal is simply untill Estes the manufacturer was always Cox and all the other names were/are model/marketing names.

Now To really have fun getting into Cox 'Product Engines' is mind boggling, literaly hundreds of variations were made to fit particular designs each year with special configurations for an individual model. For example the freeflight helicoper which had to have special tank arrangement. Even the Cox parts manuals never quite caught up to the Product Engines.


Thanks Jim a stimulating conversation

Your friend, John

When I was in my late teens, I would by all the cox's I came accross for 50 cents a peace. Mostly from kids younger than me. You just would not believe the variations in the Babe Bee series alone as to port design etc.

I never knew which was which because all I ever saw was just the engine or maybe a ragged part of a fuselage attached to it.

I would mix and match them and put them on simple free flights that often flew away even with just an eye dropper tank.

Enjoy,

Jim

I'm far from being an expert on Cox engines but about all I know is that TD, in whatever size, meant crankshaft induction. I wasn't aware that there was a TD version of the .15's although I have two versions of the reed valve .15 (one is ball raced the other bushed).

in addition to the Space Hopper .049, there was also a Thermal Hopper. The looke simular.

Jim

Lets see, on the subject of Cox i5's and the name Cox comes from Leroy Cox who founded the company in the late 40's. His first products were cars and they were powered by A cameron 15.It's quite a collector piece now.
As to 15 the first was the Olympic with ball bearings, nice red and blue anodizing, and yes a really hot reed valve motor. It would only start backwards when over primed and weakly flipped.
The next was the Sportsman 15 which was a detuned, non ball bearing version of the Olympic. The Tee Dee 15 came out in the early 60's, and was made in 2 versions. the first with the ball and socket and 2 port cylinder. To keep the motor from blowing up they came out with the MK2 special which was a single port and was at that time the only T.D with a wrist pin, it did have a high speed buzz though.
The Medallions came later and were origionally quite well done both as an R/C and C/L with a very clean venturi carb and a slider muffler. Quite innovative even today. eventually though they had only the sleeve throttle.
The last design was the Conquest designed by Bill Atwood who also designed the T.D series. and believe it or not the Wen Mac T.D was the trade name of the motors and ready to fly planes made by Cox. Thimble Drone meaning a lot of power in a small package.
At any rate the Conquest was eventually sold to K&B who produced the motor for a few years but dropped it somewhere around 1988, don't hold me to any dates the memory is too fuzzy for that.
Then Meccoa bought the castings and remaining parts,however it took almost 5 years for them to get any motors out. To my knowledge they are out of stiock now and have been unavailable for some time. Hopefully they'll make another appearance as they are really a great running motor, even better if you can swap a Rossi P/L for the Cox one.
This is the chronology as far as I remember it. Like everyone else here the memory blurs after awhile, but that were all really great running, light , motors in many ways light years ahead of their competators.

Oh yes forgot that the first company that I remember buying Cox was Leisure Dynamice in about 1970

Good Memory Dennis. I had one of those Cameron race cars for a few years. Used to run it on a piece of control line. I would start it with my bicycle turned upside down. One cold day I got my thumb caught in the spokes and it ripped my thumb nail off. That really hurt with it being cold and then I had to peddle home. The car eventually met it's demise when the wire broke and the car centered itself on the only steel post around other than the one it was tethered to. I really enjoyed that car.

Jim

I am only thinking back to the late 60's, as I am not all THAT old, but I remember seeing "Thimble DroMe" still printed on some Cox products. Not droNe, as I remember it. I had the cars and the plastic C/L stuff. This from Webster's:

Main Entry: -drome
Pronunciation: "drOm
Function: noun combining form
Etymology: hippodrome
1 : racecourse <motordrome>
2 : large specially prepared place <aerodrome>

I am not nit-picking, I am just trying to clear my memory! In '69, I was 8, and we moved down to Santa Ana, and were within bicycle distance of both Mile Square Regional Park, and the old Cox factory over on Warner Ave.. For my 2 older brothers and myself, that was like moving to heaven. My middle brother would often go dumpster-diving behind the Cox factory. He would come home with many treasures. The trash would actually be full of cars and planes and engines in various non-working states. Didn't take much to put together working units. Some time later, they fenced in the place, and actually had a guarded entrance. Made it hard to sneak around back and hit the dumpster.

Craig.

That's right. I couldn't remember exactly yesterday. I was thinking Drome but the word wasn't in my mental dictionary. Any way, glad you could share memories. I actually had better fun with the car anb boat models that with the planes. The best plane was some simlance of a PT 19. It had a symetrical aluminum foil wing. It was real nice untill you crashed. The wing wasn't repairable. The newer ones had a single sided plastic one.

jim

I have one each of all the Cox .15s and I ain't selling any of them. The Conquest was designed by K&B for Cox as I recall (Bill W. and Roger T.). K&B took it over when Cox gave up Marketing it.

DJLyon, the Cox Conquest was designed by Bill Atwood, his last design before he passed away. K&B had no part in the design other then assuming the rights to the motor from Cox. If you can find pictures of the experimental 29 and 35 that Cox prototyped but never produced you will see that they had a lot of the conquest in them and they were designed before the 15