urban warrior

Good Evening @ All! Maybe some of you remember when I was posting a picture of a completely "overgreased" gearbox of a Tamiya Super Sabre from 1987/1988 this February ... after a lot of cleaning the day of reassembly did finally arrive. My old friend and I were sitting together rebuilding his Super Sabre from when we were in our early twenties. With some printouts from the old manual we started with the gearboxes My old friend Torsten totally focused on the frontaxle build We decided to go for aluminum knuckles instead of the original plastic ones. And after several hours "she" was standing on her own wheels. Maybe the tires are the wrong way around. 🤔 Anyway ... easily changeable. Resurrected after 36 years ... in Germany you got the legal entitlement to put a special license plate for historic vehicles on your car when it becomes 30 years old. Proud of a fine days work and in awareness of some final minor mods and adjustments we closed the todays "Workshop Thursday". The already done "hop ups" are complete ball bearings and stainless steel screws (where possible) and aluminum steering knuckles. We could re-use the chassis tub, gearboxes, driving hardware, dampers and body. Changed had to be wheels and tires, and the suspension arms. Next on the list is cleaning up the body and get it repainted. And putting in some electronics. Now I am thinking about getting a Hotshot so that we can do some "Heritage Rallye Races".

Well, that's a nice idea. My primary intention was to get the kit because of the tracks and sell the chassis. The more ideas are posted, the lesser I'm willing to let the chassis go. BTW, back in the late 80s I had a Suzuki SJ410:

Actually, the front wheel well lines up quite perfectly, moving the body to the front by modifying the posts will move the misalignment to the front. The tires are Louise CR Griffin 1.9 and the wheels are some I found by chance at eBay recently, if you mean the shiny ones (which where the last pairs). The other rim is some generic stuff from eBay too, casted metal bead locks.

Why sad? Fried motor?

Hi All, since I discovered the Tamiya Quadtrack system, I am becoming a fan of it. But how to get those tracks w/o spending too much money on them? One idea was parting out a Tamiya 58704 kit, selling the chassis to regain some bucks. Here's the victim: The Idea was to build up the chassis to runnig condition and then find an interested buyer. But I came across some "show stoppers". First I tried a set of FMS Mashigan wheels and a set of TRX Bronco wheels. Just to find out that 120mm tire diameter is quite much to fit under the body w/o setting it to high. So I was looking for alternatives: Louise CR Griffin with 106mm diameter, experimentally mounted on some Toyota aluminum rims: Looks quite funny and not too bad. But I discovered that the center of the wheels doesn't line up with the center of the wheel wells: That's a nasty surprise. I had the idea of turning around the suspension arms to get more wheelbase. What looked promising at first glance: But the downside is the angle of the dogbone of the rear axle: So, at this point I am out of other ideas. Why do they do that? Changing the body mounts would shift the misalignment to the front. By the way I wanted to avoid the wheels of the Tamiya 58589, since I don't like the look at a Land Cruiser body. Is the wheelbase of the 58589 differing from the 58704? Any suggestions are welcome.

Funny enough that Tamiya Re-Re'd a lot of their old kits, some quite in more or less original layout, some with some (well thought out) alterations (Bruiser RN36) ... but the King Cab or Hilux Monster Racer were never part of that. And I fear they will never be. No idea why. The chassis was very cool, only the ball diff was garbage, at least if one didn't know how to set it up correctly. Admittedly I fragged mine. Still having a new built chassis with a Thorp Dirt Burners diff, an unpainted body but w/o wheels & tires. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I don't like it either. It's a shame what they did to the Clod. Colorwise and more worse the horrible 4x4x4 in the grille. Not mentioning the strange "birdcatcher" on the bonnet.

I am personally not really that sad about it. Not because I would applaude for someone failing. That's always bad. It's just that shapeways never really was an alternative for me getting 3D printed parts. If it wasn't for the exorbitant prices of things that would have interested me. It's more the quality it seemed to have in the early years. I never had parts ordered there. But modelling buddies from my sci-fi modelling forum ordered some parts there. And a lot of them deteriorated in surface detailing quite fast if not protected with primer, paint and laquer. And if you wanted "the good stuff" you had to pay "some good bucks". I have to kick myself in the pants quite seriously to get my own two printers running more frequently.

I know that I am late, but I was on vacation over two weeks, so please forgive me. We have a quote for that, here in Germany: "All electronic appliances are working internally with smoke. If it spills out, then its broken." Cheers Martin

I totally forgot about a trip I made with my TRX-6 in late April 2022. I met with another RC crawling enthusiast at the "Saienstein" close to the "Eschbacher Klippen", which together are crags of a quartz vein that runs 6 Km through the Taunus. Admittedly I really love how the axles are moving over the terrain. This car seems to be nearly unstoppable. Sometimes only limited by its body shell, which is protruding a bit too much at the front and the rear. But it was a blast driving over the rocks! Although I am not such a big fan of the Mercedes body shell, it looks great. And off it went. I am planning to get rid of the Mercedes body and go for something more vintage. I am still collecting pictures for ideas. Cheers Martin

You got a nice one there! Maybe one of the best performing RTR chassis out of the box. I always wanted a TRX-4 Chevrolet Blazer as addition to my Bronco, but then Traxxas released the TRX-6. And I love "multi-axle-chassis'"! I am actually at the point where I believe that "tuning" a Traxxas chassis is something for masochists. I made the experience back in the days when I owned a E-Maxx. An AXE FOC may be OK, but I won't do much more with a Traxxas model. I may become a bottomless pit. I revived my experiences with my TRX-4 Bronco. Yeah Racing metal axles, weights and tranny case. The weights did not fit onto the axles w/o some modifications. And much more hassle with it. Just my two cents.

Hello @All as every year we spent our holidays in Austria and once again my TRX-4 Bronco went with us. As a real unfortunate surprise I had my first "wildlife accident". I was so focussed keeping the model on track as we made our way down to a "little" creek (called Wolfbach), that I ran over an adder, which layed stretched over one side of the track. I only realized it, when I already rolled over it with the front axle. Understandably "she" was quite embarrassed and showed it to us. The adder behaved like a large rattlesnake, although it barely protruded an inch left and right over the width of the Bronco. Luckily the adder remained completely unharmed and it was just the shock for both of us: Then we went for some "beauty shots" at the creek: "No dear, they don't feed on apples!" I love it, when I find the right environment for my models! Some days later we were on the Großglocker High Alpine Road again and we were able to find a nice spot for the Bronco. "Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba" (If you know the intro from Disneys "The Lion King") If I only have had more time there ... but we were on a hunt (with the camera) for marmots and ibexes and it became late that day. But we got lucky! I love it! The best wife of all and me plan to take the Bronco with us again next year. And we plan to do a tour around the Margaritze Reservoir again. Keep fingers crossed!

As long as you're aware, that you have to do some mods to get some performance out of them, they're a nice thing to start from. I have some Willys Jeeps from a similar manufacturer. My actual issue is to get better motor/tranny combos that fit under the body.

Well, regarding RC's my "darkest time" was my wedlock. Eleven years with funds at the edge and not much sympathy for my hobby from my former wife. But that's nothing compared to other folks fate. Who all have my sympathy. My wife is long gone. After that I told all the following women "You get me with my hobby or you won't get me!" Since I am building models since I was eight or nine, it has always been "my thing". There was nothing where I earned more relief than building models. And even today I feel like being eight or nine (actually you can put a "fifty" in front of it ... ), when I am opening an new model kit, either static or RC. I've seen some people starting with our hobby and quitting some years later. It really depends on what you get out of it. For me it's clear, they will put a model and tools together with me in my coffin. Actually there is a phase where I am a bit frustrated. I left my former company after thirty years with some payoff and an employee pension. I still have to work until 67 to get my official pension. But I don't find a work which makes me lucky. Even though I am 59, I am not too old for the $h!t. I trained my former colleagues using our SAP system shortly before I left the company and believe I am still able to learn what is required to do the job. Most companies just look at the age. But my models still keep me alive. Regarding my opening sentence, there is a joke here around: And old couple is celebrating eighty years of being married. And when they asked the man about this time and if he remembered if there was a best part in it, he answered: "The ten years as a POW in Russia!" (If this is too offending, let me know, and I will delete it.)

This is a story of very mixed experience for me. A lot of years back I was tempted to put a (at that time relatively new) Novak SS Brushless system in my Tamiya Hummer. Admittedly this was way too much power and I had to add a gyro to keep the Hummvee on track (Well, power is nothing without control!). Apart from that I found it great. The next was a HV MAXX system for my Kyosho Twin Force. Also worked great, but got hot in the heavy rig quite fast (especially with summer temperatures). I always wanted (or expected) more from the brushless technology, because (as some here already mentioned) it's more efficient (you don't waste so much energy with electric brush sparking) and capable. Not to forget that brushed motors always need to be "silenced" (supressed) with capacitors. But I was not always happy with brushless solutions. My worst experience is/was a system from Hobbyking. Maybe it's because it needs more tweaking at the setup. I don't know. You can see the mess below (yes, way to many wires and I would need to shorten them significantly) in a MST CFX and a Tamiya CC02 Chassis: Then there came Hobbywing (not ...king!) with the integrated Fusion line. Less wiring and one component integrated into the other. You just have the wires for the receiver and the batteries (OK and the switch as well). Admittedly no solution for excessive and fast driving, but the ideal thing for scale, trail and crawling. And this is not so "noisy" as other brushless systems (especially sensorless). But you need the extra space, since it is more on the 550 side than on the 540. Here it is in my TWS Jeep chassis. A real tight fit with the grille: When I built my Dynahead I thought I give it a go with a Tamiya brushless (sensored!) motor. I believe it's running a bit more roughly than with the brushed motor added in the kit. So I am not that content with this solution either. I still use brushed motors, especially in older models. But for my "mountain goats" I will go with Fusion. OK. it's quite expensive but it saves a lot of space and is quite adjustable. In principle there is nothing bad about brushed motors (except "sparking"). And for people like me with (on some models) a quite low mileage, maintenance won't be an issue. Remembering back in the late eighties of the last millennium, winding a Kyosho LeMans with six turns of thick copper wire by hand. Never saw an electric motor turning that fast those days ... until the copper wire came loose from the commutator.