Chilihook

Here's a Kangaroo ad from 1987!

Big Bear with box and accessories. Very psyched for this! Aside from a Monogram Lightning and a Super Champ I have all the cars I had (and then some) as a kid. :-)

They have decals here: http://mciracing.ca/products

New battery and charger.

Yes, the first year was quarterly. Interestingly, the first issue has almost no ads. I think there's one full, two-page spread for the Associated RC10, but other than that, only an ad on the inside front cover and on the back. The next magazine was close to half full of advertisers. Mostly hobby shops that are long gone. Gotta say though, the Nichimo models always kind of compelled me as did the Hirobos. Never saw one in person or knew of someone who had built one. Guess my Marui Big Bear was about as far from the mainstream as I got. I'll try to post some pics of some of the ads tonight. Many looked like they were done on a typewriter!

While hunting for a book for my daughter in the basement tonight I found my old collection of magazines in one of the boxes. A little musty smelling and sort of yellowed, but man! What a flashback! So many manufacturers of cars that we never think of today - Nichimo, Pacesetter, BoLink, MRP, Circus Hobbies, Parma, and a lot of others. did anyone have any of these more obscure manufacturer's cars in addition to their Tamiyas?

@MacinnisThanks for the link to MCI Racing, decals are so hard to come by and are usually wicked expensive too. I will definitely be using them in the future!

Good to know Champ, thanks.

The motor is a 13T brushless: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Racing-60A-ESC-Brushless-Speed-Controller-13T-3100KV-Motor-for-1-10-1-12-RC-Car-/282116668270?hash=item41af76bb6e:g:BkAAAOSwRLZUH76u Champ85, how much power loss are we talking about here? Would it noticeably cut into running time? Thanks guys.

So I went for these as a motor/ESC combo as recommended by mad racer: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Racing-60A-ESC-Brushless-Speed-Controller-13T-3100KV-Motor-for-1-10-1-12-RC-Car-/282116668270?hash=item41af76bb6e:g:BkAAAOSwRLZUH76u Should see them in the next couple of weeks sometime from Hong Kong. Then got these from Tower Hobby. Seems like a decent set up?

You're right, it is old, but so am I. :-) My old charger has an amp gauge on it, but I'm, guessing it's primarily timer based otherwise. That looks to be a good deal AND can do a whole lot more than what my current charger will do. I was figuring that I'd need a charger up of $75+. NiMH batteries, here I come! In terms of a motor, I would like to do better than a silver can, but not crazy either. MadRacer mentioned one up above that I'm going to look into. Have you got any recomendations Gooney? Thanks for the help, btw!

Hi GooneyBird - I have only ever had experience with NiCad batteries and the charger I have was built in 1985 or so. This is it here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/PRO-TECH-SUPER-CHARGER-702-AC-DC-MODEL-CRAFT-NI-CAD-BATTERIES-6-7-CELL-/152178806649 Yes, the the equipment is outdated, but it works very well and is in excellent shape. If this charges NiMH batteries I would certainly switch over to them, but will probably affect the budget. So for now, NiCad will have to do. Thanks for the input everyone I'll check out your recommendations!

Wasn't sure where to put this, if I'm in the wrong place, mods please move. Thanks! So I want to start building the Optima I bought last spring but still need to get a motor/esc/battery combo for it. I am really out of the loop when it comes to what's necessary for all three to work properly together, so I thought I'd throw it out here as a "what would you get if you were me" kind of thing. A couple of stipulations though: • Cost - all three components need to be less than $100. • Battery - must be a NiCad. I have a charger for those, not dropping extra $$$ on another charger. • Motor - brushed. Boring, i know but fits the other requirements. I figure a motor with decent acceleration, but a good top end, say a 15t? • ESC - needs to have reverse, not break the bank, and be capable of handling this set up plus possibly a little more down the road. Hopefully this is all reasonable and doable. Looking forward to your ideas and thanks!

No signal from the receiver was the key. I went through each connection to the rx, made sure they were clean, put in snugly, and that they were where they needed to be. They were all good. Took the crystal out of the tx and put into another tx I had and it controlled the car fine. i went through the tx battery compartment to see if everything was making good contact and there was a little bit of crud in there. Didn't look like the usual gray of corrosion, not sure what it was. Anyway, I got an old toothbrush and put some dielectric grease on it - tiny amount - and scrubbed all the springs and contact points really well. Put in brand new batteries for a little extra oomph and voila, works perfectly! Thanks for all the help everyone!

Thanks for the responses! It is a steady beep beep beep beep with corresponding light. Can't imagine what would cause corrosion but who knows? The transmitter is a kyosho perfex kt-3hs, 27 MHz. Not sure about crystals... I think this radio uses them?

Hi everyone - I went to bring a car off the shelf after it had sat for several years. It has been stored well, no battery in the car or in the transmitter. When the car was put away, the car operated fine. The motor is a standard silver can, the radio set up is a kyosho Perfex. So, when it was first built and run, everything worked fine, has since sat for several years in good storage. Today, connected a charged six cell nicad battery and the TEU beeps and flashes. Transmitter has fresh batteries. Motor twitches a little, no response from the steering. Nothing changed from when it was last run to today when I tried to get the car going. What could have caused this, if all things are equal? Is there anyway to factory reset the TEU? Any and all help is appreciated!

A friend of mine found out I like to rebuild old rc cars so he gave me his wrx he had when he was a kid. Never dealt with a Kyosho up til now. Very nice quality plastic and good design, I thought fwiw. He said if I could get it running I could have it. I did and all I needed was a set screw and a new servo (along with a thorough "servicing") and it was good to go! This is going to be my 10 year old's car to learn on - not too fast, but fun. Here are some pics of it disassembled, finished and it's first official run in the snow. Sticker placement was all from my friend's teenage years. Only the second significant snow fall here in New England. These pictures were taken about 2 hours ago and theres now too much snow on the ground to run the car. Supposed to get between 8"-12".

Post pics when you get the chance!

This is a vision of rusty gorgeousness!

This is beyond cool. Can't wait to see the next installment! I live I die I live again!

This was so much fun to read through! seeing your progress and experiments with the color combos was almost like see your process from the inside. While I really like the Gulf livery that had the stripes paint scheme, I think your right - the Sand Scorcher paint job fits it to a tee.

I think I have read all the posts and watched all the videos regarding this little wonder and I am very excited to add these pieces onto my vintage Blackfoot. I already have CRP's chassis stiffener on it, it has CVAs all around, has a stock tranny, but new gears, converted it to dog bones, and it runs with just a black can for a motor. Now, I would think that a more rigid BF is a better BF, but was curious about what you thought in terms of how it would react to the A-arm conversion. Thank you for all your hard work on these parts! Here's my ancient tear-down thread to have a look see at my BF.

Very, very cool!

Ordered mine yesterday! Can'twaitcan'twaitcan'twait!

Well, I still have everything. Recently a friend's interest has got me back into things a little. Just got some shocks for my Blackfoot. I am glad that I hung onto everything, it just seems that every now and then it seems time to "make more room" or "try something new". I always find myself looking at these models, despite their varying conditions, and am reminded of those couple of magical Christmas mornings or a birthday I had when I received one of these cars. The smell of the plastic, sorting all the parts, etc -- puts me right back to being a kid again. I think there's a Wild One in my basement that needs attention... we'll see how it goes.