retroman

Hi Guy's, My wife has very kindly ordered my christmas present for me, a King Hauler kit, with the pole trailer kit to go with it Now here goes with the big question... what else do I need?? I have never had anything to do with these monsters, let alone built one, so any help or tips greatly received. Definately going to order the front animal guard though, I think they look well cool!! A few basic questions; Do they come ball raced? Do I need the buy a speed controller? Is there a motor in the kit, or would I be better off installing an uprated one? Thanks in advance, Rich :-)

Cheers Dude, I'll bring it along to the next Clumber Meet. I'm going to try improving a few things on it first, then I might give it a run while I'm there. :-)

Well I've finally done it, Got the Champ running! Built a battery pack this week, ESC came through the post today, robbed the receiever out my Hornet, and excitedly went out into my backyard for my first drive of a Super Champ............. What a horrible thing to drive! LOL, loads of understeer, the sheer weight of the thing makes it difficult to stop using braking.....Very quick in a straight line though. It's definately put a huge grin on my face, well apart from the time I accidently rolled it.....Whoops! Luckily no damage, and I was running the worst shell of the two I have. Will I run it again? Definately. but I think it will be a very wide open space. I think that a lot of the problem with the wild understeer is because there is no rear diff, and most of the weight is at the back. Might try running it on old rear tyres as well, as I did have a new pair on the rear, and I don't think they helped very much. Too much grip. I was impressed by how quietly it run, and the old Johnson silver can I fitted, with the white end bell, certainly gave it plenty of go. Not a bad first run, one drive shaft grub scew shook itself loose, and so did the steering servo saver. Must dig the thread lock out. All in all, great fun. I think I'll return it to the shelf now, until I can summons up the courage to try driving it again! Rich :-)

I know what you mean; A friend of mine has recently been watching me with my SRB projects, and asked if I would have a look at his original Grasshopper. He bought round an old toolbox full of bits, and we went through everything in the box, priced all the parts up, including the wheels and tyres, and it worked out far cheaper to buy a re-re. Then we hit on plan B. kept watching Hopper's and Hornet's on ebay, and spare parts lots, and in the end he has wound with a Grasshopper, and about three Hornet's!! I don't know why, but these two cars seem really cheap to me, when you compare them to the value of other vintage Tamiya stuff. I had the same dilema over a Frog. I couldn't make my mind up whether to buy an original for resto, or a re-re. Always wanted a Frog as a kid. In the end I bought a re-re, and I love it, and the benefit of knowing that it's not "an original" Frog is that I am not too scared to give it a thrashing. Mind you, they were all built for giving a thrashing, shame to leave them on a shelf to go dusty!! I think that the truth is that it is a "heart V's head" situation. Your heart say's restore the original one, but your head will tell you to buy a re-re. My suggestion would be buy the re-re, with the ESC included in the kit, give that a good thrashing and enjoy it, then keep an eye out for cheap parts lots on Ebay, and rebuild your original one for special occassions.

5th October works for me as well. If you could post up the adress and postcode of the venue it would be handy, so I can SatNav it. Cheers, Rich :-)

Marking out a basic track indoors might be a good idea, old fire hoses are pretty good for this. Might save a few head on collisions!! I've got on road, and off road stuff, so can go with the flow. Would be pretty cool to give my old Losi XXXS a run though. Have you got a date in mind yet??

I'm interested! I've got plenty of stuff to run at an indoor meet. keep me posted!

Holiday buggy for a quid? Well done, it just goes to show what can still turn up at a car boot. I've got a load of vintage Tamiya promo video's on DVD, and the HB promo is on there, with the blue one, and the green one. Wouldn't mind a HB one day, got enough projects on the go at the moment though!

Thanks mate, The link to the battery pack that has been taken apart is very helpfull. I'll have another read through it before I strip mine down. Rich :-)

Thanks Tom, I'll give it a try

Thanks martin, I did wonder if it was going to be a hacksaw job! I just wanted to try and stick to the original hump pack in the Super Champ, as it looks like it is the only way to have the battery fitting nicely in the chassis. Otherwise, I guess that I will have to build my own hump packs without the case, and then stick foam blocks to the chassis to help secure it. Rich :-)

Would this qualify as a Chopper? V8 powered chainsaw!!!!! There's some great footage of this beast in YouTube

Hi Everyone, I recently bought an old second hand Hump Pack. The casing is in nice condition, but after repeated trickle charging and cycling, it appears that two of the cells are dead, and the remaining four are only discharging about 500ma! Not a good recipe for sparkling performance..... Is there any way of getting the two halves of the casing seperated so I can fit new cells inside?? It would be handy if I could, because I need a decent hump pack for my Super Champ. Thanks in advance, Richard :-)

You can always pop round and sneak a look at mine now I have cleaned all the mud off it!!

I've still got my chopper.........Raleigh chopper that is!! Mine is the Mk1 model though, the one pictured above looks like a Mk2...........Oh dear, I'll go and get my anorak......(LOL!!!)

Cheers Kev, Project Scorcher is on a bit of a "for want of a nail" at the moment. I had most of the parts to rebuild the front end in my ebay watch list, but they went a bit too high for my liking. I would still have needed the ball races for the upper and lower arms as well....... Project Super Champ got a present through the post today, some nice new steering rod ball joints! Hooray, time to build some hump packs, get the radio gear in, and give it a thrash........In a respectful must not break it manner of course!!! I am on the look out for new wheels and tyres for both, I've just put them on a back burner for a while, until I've got all the other bits sorted. I'll probably just borrow the wheels off my Hornet or Frog for the time being.

Has anyone tried running them with 27 turn stock motors? just interested, as I have a few Trinity Monster's kicking about, and quite a few cars with this ESC.

Thanks for making me feel welcome chaps. Had a really good day, and oh boy, did my Frog look wonderful by the end of it!! "This Frog's been clumbered" on youtube made me chuckle. From shelf queen to filth monster in just a few hours. It's back to queen status, but needed every last nut and bolt stripping, and 2 new rear wheel bearings.......... Can't wait to do it all over again!! I'm on the look out for something to bash with, something vintage Tamiya perhaps??

Hi Lars, What an excellent thread. I've really enjoyed reading it. Good luck with the racing! :-)

Just thought I would post up some pics of my Super Champ, and Sand Scorcher projects. The Super Champ is very nearly ready to run now, just needs servo's fitting, and a body. Project Sand Scorcher was an accident!! I found a load of SRB bits on ebay, and I could see that there was a lot of stuff there, but the picture on the listing was quite poor. but I could see there would be plenty of spares for the Champ, and the rear wheel axles I wanted. Parts arrived through the post quite quickly, and it was a really surprising haul, radio boxes, gear and motor covers, etc. So I thought why not start screwing a few bits together, and see how far it goes!!

OK, here goes!! The first picture shows setting droop by measuring height, rather than using a droop guage. The green guage under the chassis is a ride height guage, although you could use a rule. The second picture with the rear wheels removed from the car show a droop guage. Start with the arms near horizontal for smooth surfaces, and dropping down slightly for bumpy surfaces

Pretty sure I've seen both of those on ebay in the last 2 days. Good luck dude, and happy bidding

Ok Spetz, I'm not familliar with either of those cars, my only Tamiya touring cars are TL01's, which I use for bashing. I'll do some homework, and post later. :-)

Hi Vert, There's loads of monster beetle stuff on Ebay UK at the moment. Try using a search "tamiya beetle". I've seen at least two nose cones on there this morning, searching for stuff for my scorcher project. Hope this helps Rich :-)

I agree with 94eg!, you don't really need guages unless you're going racing, but they do help you get it right. There are two ways you can measure droop. First, with the guage. The Guage has a flat part that sits under the chassis, then a rising scale that measures under the suspension arm, where the pin for the hub, or castor block goes in. The guage is simpy pushed in under the car until one of the steps on the guage just touches the arm. then read off the measurement The second way doesn't need a guage. with the car sat on a flat surface, at running weight with wheels and tyres on, measure the ride height. then find the centre of the chassis, front or rear, then with say, a long thin screw driver, slowly lift that end of the car until the tyres are just about to leave the floor. Make a note of the measurement, then subtract the ride height from it, and this will give you the total droop, which will also factor in the give in the tyres under load. All this only really applies if you're getting into racing. If you're just bashing, I would recommend that the arms are dropping the same amount side to side, and then experiment. It's all part of the fun. If I get a mo later, I'll put one of my cars on the set up board, and take some piccy's so you can see.