racer1

Can’t speak to the rest of the world but here in the US the Novafox is available pretty much everywhere. Parts are also reasonable unless you want the rear arms. Those seem to be a premium but even the wheels can be found for about $12 as for the falcon. Yes I would love a rerelease. Have a near mint shelf car and a pretty nice runner but would like better parts availablity before I run it too hard

You’re a whole lot luckier than most. I killed a king cab diff in a single pack once. After replacing it 5 or 6 times I finally just restored the truck and put it on the shelf until it was eventually sold The new one I just received has a shot diff but the truck otherwise looks brand new. The plan from the start was to swap a stealth but since the SA is back I figured why not give it a try first.

Since the Super Astute has been announced I have seen a large number of original Super Astute parts and parts cars hit Ebay. I just completed a rebuild of a Saint Dragon and purchased a KingCab. Both of these have the notoriously bad Bad Diff. I'm not too concerned with the Saint Dragon as the car is super light and running a stock silver can. The KingCab on the other hand will kill the ball diff in a single pack especially on dirt if it has traction. What would it take to replace the ball diff with the gear diff from the Super Astute? I've heard rumors that it is not a drop in replacement even though the gear cases are the same but no one has ever been able to tell me exactly why?

If you are looking to beat on something on a daily basis without fear of breaking something on every outing, my recommendation would be the 2WD Traxxas Stampede. I have carried one in the back of my car now for almost 15 yrs. It's an old school black chassis 2WD model with and old yellow non-water proof XL5 ESC. Only changes I've made to the truck were upgrading to 32P Pinion and Spur Gears and metal gears in the transmission which later models come with stock. At one point I put a newer Traxxas 2075 Steering Servo in it and replaced the old TQ radio with a newer 2.4 model. The truck literally has 1000's of battery packs through it and It's rare that anything every breaks. I keep it brushed and run S600 motors as I bought a ton of them for something like $5 each about 15 yrs ago. They last about 150 packs or so before needing to be replaced and I go through a set of tires about twice a year but I drive them until they have holes worn in them. If you want to Beat the Mess outta something the Stampede is the way to go. Best part is you can noramlly find a nice running truck on Ebay for around $75.00 or a brand new one for about $160.

Adding a spacer inside the shock on the shaft will effectively shorten the shocks over all length.

Am I the only one that;s not thrilled with this one? It's just a Hopper with different decals. MCI could make those for us for $20

Looks like there's another release re-release Grasshopper coming. As much as like the Hopper I think i'm going to pass on this one. https://tamiyablog.com/2018/08/tamiya-rc-grasshopper-air-jam-2018-edition/

I removed the lower (smallest) leaf spring.

Did a few upgrades to the Bruiser clone this weekend and took it for a nice 8 mile hike with the GF. Also experienced my first failure but we’ll get to that later. During the initial teardown and rebuild a few weeks back I learned that the stock hardware is very soft and should really be replaced. I took a chance and bought a re-re Bruiser hex hardware kit off ebay so I’d have spares when something falls off J. During this rebuild I decided to use the new stuff and keep the stock stuff as spares. Surprisingly everything fit with the exception of a couple screws on the transmission housing. During the first teardown a few weeks back I used a surprising amount of blue Loctite but I’ve still run into issues with nuts and screws working themselves loose when running. On Friday I decided to once again tear the truck down completely and reassemble. I figured that I now have enough run time on it that I know what needs to be addressed and what was good enough as is. Completely disassembled the truck down to its main components. Disassembled the axles, cleaned and greased. Lubed all bearings and removed the motor and replaced most hardware on the transmission. Used a liberal amount of Blue Loctite on the every screw and nut on the truck. During the reassembly I decided to remove one leaf from each of the suspension leaf packs. This was the single biggest improvement in the way the truck drives and performs. The suspension now flexes just a bit more and doesn’t pogo around. I’m considering removing one additional leaf but I’m not sure if that is a good idea just yet. Next I replaced the steering servo with an old Traxxas 2075 I had laying around. The improvement in torque and speed is night and day. Not bad for a servo that cost me nothing. If you need to buy one they are readily available on craigslist and EBay for about $20. I decided to reuse the stock servo saver as it fit the splines on the Traxxas servo but I did take the time to super glue it together to get rid of the slop. Improvement is huge. It now tracks straight and I can turn the tires while sitting still… Amazing concept. Finished reassembly without any other changes to the truck but did use an old mouse pad and cut pieces out of it to place under the body on top of the mounts so the body doesn’t constantly bounce around. Really hate that sound. A quick shake down run in the backyard and I was happy with the results of my work. Keep in mind that this is not a quick project. I had Friday off and it was quiet around the house so I was able to just sit down and do this. All told it took me about 4 hrs to complete. On Saturday the GF and I decided to go on a walk around our local forest preserve. Trail / Path is a little less than 8 miles. I charged up 3 5200mah Lipo’s and we drove to the location. From the parking lot to the start of the path/trail is about a ¼ mile. I dropped the truck and we trekked through tall unkept grass and dirt until we got to trail. Used all three packs and the truck ran the approx. 8 mile loop in 2WD High. The part of the trail that are not paved are hard packed dirt so 4WD wasn’t required. Truck preformed great the whole time. We get back to the starting point and I place the truck in 4WD Low for the trek back through the tall grass to the car. It changes gears without an issue and off we go. About a minute later the truck simply stopped moving. Steering still worked and I could hear the motor spinning. Thinking I broke a gear in the transmission or the pinion came loose I picked the truck up. I reached under the truck to pick it up and the servo box was extremely hot to the point where the plastic was a bit soft. I pulled the body off and checked the motor and battery temps. Both were only mildly warm. The ESC was only mildly warm as well so it seemed like an issue with the servos. Got the truck home and tore into the servo box. I could smell the burnt smell as soon as I opened the box. The servo that controlled shifting was locked up solid and wouldn’t move. I decided to swap in another Traxxas 2075 Servo I had laying around. After the servo swap the truck was back up and running. After a close inspection nothing was broken and more importantly nothing was loose of falling off. I’m very impressed with the quality of this truck and can’t wait for the kit version to arrive. I’m having better luck with this truck than I have with any of the Tamiya 3-speeds I’ve owned over the years. I’ve also used this one more in the past month than I have used all of the previous 3 speeds combines in my lifetime.

Slyda, this is what I was thinking for the gun metal color option. I’m going to go with factory style stripes but changing the light and dark greens for dark gray and black. Great looking hopper there!!

Ok so this one was recently asked for the hornet and I’m finding it difficult deciding on which paint schemes to go with on my upcoming grasshopper restorations. Currently I have an all original box art grasshopper in white as well as the green and black special editions done in box art. Im finally getting around to restoring some of my other hopper projects. They are a mix of used original cars and re-releases so I’m not concerned with originality on these. All told there’s enough parts for about 10 cars. Ive decided to go with a dark steel gray with custom decals from MCI and polished aluminum wheels. I’m also kicking around the idea of a blue version. Again with custom decals and possibly blue chrome wheels. That’s two ideas need to come up with about 8 more plans What ideas do you guys have? What have you seen?

During my build process I painted everything first then had to sand off where plastic parts needed to be glued together. Ultimately it worked fine but I;m going to do it differently when I build my shelf queen. The front end with the Lights and the hoops that go over them should really be glued first then painted as an assembly. Other items you should test fit so you know how and where they will need to be glued then mask off those areas so you don't need to scrap or sand off the paint. If you plan to paint box art then there is a lot more of the body that can be assembled like the front and rear bumpers, gas cans, rear lights etc. I strayed away from box art and gave mine more detail in these areas so it was more work on my part.

I've torn the truck down to bare parts and reassembled it and everything came apart without any issues. I don't think loctite was used anywhere on the truck during the original assembly. Mine on the other hand has a fair amount of the blue stuff holding it together and some things still work themselves loose.

Just a quick update. Been running my Clone pretty often the last couple of weeks. With the exception of a couple of screws coming loose the truck has been great. Ordered the Kit version over the weekend and got the notice that it arrived in the states this morning. Looking forward to the build. I'll document for those that are interested.

While I really appreciate Tamiya increasing the value of the 90+ unbuilt kits I have in my collection pretty much over night. I'm sad to say that I'm walking away from the brand going forward. Or at least new cars. I'll continue to watch Tower and other sites for specials or close outs but beyond that I'm done with Tamiya. I can't justify paying the new MAP for their items. A couple of examples. Picked up the following on my order on May 4th this year. Neo Fight DT-03 for $99.00. Currently $156.00 Hornet Black Met. $114.00 Currently $169.60 Wild One (this one really kills me) $164.99 Currently $251.20 That's almost $90...........!!!!!!! Good thing is I have enough NIB kits to keep me busy for may years to come and enough projects to keep me going for the rest of my life TAMIYA I hope you see this. You lost me after 33 yrs and well over 2000 cars.

I've run into this several times over the years, . I tried everything, Baking soda, air fresheners, sprays etc. The only way I ever completely got rid of the smell was to tear the car down and scrub every piece of it. I like Dawn Dish detergent here in the states. Works great and it doesn't lift well stuck on decals. Nothing else has ever worked. I have a car sitting in the garage right now that's been out there on the shelf for almost a year due this smell. It's on my list of things to clean his summer

Any idea exactly which paint colors were used on this? That paint job is stunning.

This is truly a great build. I have dozens of hopper/hornet chassis's laying around and this looks like the prefect way to bring life back to a forgotten car. I believe I have every part you used in laying around.

Town was Staunton IL. if I recall. If not it was right in that area.

Was in downstate Illinois a few years back and drove by a small resale shop in a small town. They had an original bruiser in the window. I walked in and asked what the lady wanted for it. A couple of minutes later I walked out with a complete bruiser for $25. Bought a "collection" from a guy on craigslist. He didn't really know what all was there and just "wanted it all gone". I believe it was his fathers collection who had just passed away. An hour later I was at his house. For $500 I picked up 13 cars including an all aluminum E-Maxx, New in the box original Hotshots, HotShot2 and Super HotShot. Best of all was a partially built in the box Yokomo YZ834B. He also had dozens of original old decal sheets from Tamiya, Associated and Kyosho.

Had mine for about 2 weeks now and ran about three full 5000Mah packs through it before deciding to tear into it to see how things were working. During those initial packs I had one consistent problem that was more of a nuance than a real issue. The bolt that holds the steering saver kept getting loose and the two nuts that hold the steering to the frame kept loosing. Since I knew I was tearing this one down for a rebuild I didn't bother with Loctite at the time. Beyond nuts coming loose I had only 1 other issue. When shifting into 2wd Low the servo seems to off just slightly as the truck sometimes goes into neutral and won't move until you move the selector switch slightly. After 3 packs and about 3.5 hrs of run time I decided to tear the truck down to see how things were holding up. I'd heard rumors of there not being grease in the Axles etc. During tear down I was happy to see that the only real wear to be seen was on the tires and some scratches on the underside of the chassis. I did find that pretty much every screw and nut on the entire truck was loose. Some were loose enough to remove by hand. Axles were packed with White grease that seemed a bit thin to me but was still very clean. No unusual wear on the axles or gears. Mesh felt good. Hubs still felt tight. Slop in the steering is as good if not better than the Tamiya stuff. One issue I did find during reassembly is that the steering saver hits the metal support if you tighten it up enough to take all of the slop out of it. This was a simply fix. After you have everything screwed back together simply take pliers and move the support brace. It will move just enough to let the saver swing past without contact. Rebuilt the axles with Thick marine grade green grease and used blue Loctite on everything. So far i have another 4 packs run through the truck and everything seems ok. Took the truck on a trail walk with me and ran it continuously for about 2 hrs and about 3 miles without any issues. The only change i'm going to make is to move the ESC outside of the stock electronics box or simply remove the top of the box as the ESC gets hot with continuous running. I'm extremely happy with the truck. It's nice to be able to run one of these and not have to worry about hurting a $1000 truck.

Just bit the bullet and ordered one of these. Should be here in a week. Will post pics once it arrives.

Currently own 1 original Brusier and a pair of re-re's. I don't feel bad ordering one of these as a runner. As far as I'm concerned Tamiya priced these models well out of my range. It was a stretch at $600 but $1000 is completely unattainable. I was in the basement last night looking at all of my unbuilt Tamiya kits and thinking to myself, well I hope that is enough to keep me busy as I'm not paying the new marked up prices. Basically Tamiya just lost a life long customer.

I noticed this yesterday but I'm having issues finding some of the models I want to buy. Unfortunately Tower has been such a huge presents in the states that their aren't a lot of good options. One thing I know for sure is that i'm not buying from them at the current price. AMain has the Grasshopper for $99 - Tower wants $132.....Umm NO!!!

I'd need to count them but I'm guessing somewhere between 90 and 100 waiting to build.