jonboy1

Tony's Tamiya Parts?

Absolutely no worries at all. In my very, very humble opinion, there are 3D printed parts and 3D printed parts. There are also Designers and there are Designers. I'll give you a moment to take all of that in How one part behaves will be dramatically influenced by not only the material, but the orientation of the part while printing, the method of printing and the quality of the printer. That's all before you even look at whether the design is any good or not in the first place. I'm the last person to blow my own trumpet I can assure you, but I have been a Mechanical Designer my entire working life (over 25 years) in highly specialised industries and have designed thousands and thousands of parts, most of which have worked first time and I'm reasonably confident my designs will stand up to most abuse. I can't guarantee it, but pretty sure If you fancy giving them a go, send me a PM and I'll sort something out for you

Thank you - I really appreciate the kind comments Those are my own design arms, which are 3D printed: I made them with the Wild One lower damper mount dimensions so they work with 75mm dampers. I've just painted them with gun metal paint. As I said to @ChrisRx718, if you're interested I can get some printed for you?

I spent an undisclosed amount at AsiaTees on generic bits and bobs, a further larger yet still undisclosed amount at PJ on more generic bits and a smaller amount on printed parts - all of which I figured should or might work, but with no promises. I'm still waiting on the PJ delivery, some of the AsiaTees stuff has already gone into the generic spares box for use at a later date on another yet-to-be-defined project and the printed parts have mostly worked out ok, so I reckon this is good value so far! Thank you - yes, all the 3D printed stuff is of my own design. Are you in the UK? If so, I was going to make a tweak to the exhaust to make it sit slightly more centrally, so if you'd like one I can add one to the order. Or I can design something completely different for you. As I mentioned in a different topic, I've given up on Shapeways because the shipping to the UK is just nuts. Lancashire3d.uk is where I got these bits printed and they have no minimum order and affordable shipping.

Some time ago I built a mildly modified FAV from a box of bits I got reasonably cheap off the bay. I think I customised the side pods, made some new front suspension mounts, new lower front arms, different wheels and tyres and that was about it. It looked like this: I got a bit bored with it, sold it on to a chap on the forum and that was that. Fast forward a few years and I got an itch. It turned out to be fungal and easily treated, but something was still bugging me. The boredom I felt with the FAV was more seeming to be a feeling of frustration - a project not fully realised - so I started looking around for a replacement. Completely by chance, the guy I sold it to contacted me out of the blue, asking where I got the front suspension mounts from as one had broken and he was planning to sell it, so needed a replacement. I immediately struck a deal to buy it back, and before I knew it I had the ol' FAV back in the garage. So - how was I going to get rid of that itch..... Topical fungicide. The issues with the FAV were a completely different ballgame though. Starting at the front, I was never completely happy with how the front mounts I had designed attached to the chassis. It had one self tapper that went up through the chassis into the mount, where it had a very short hole to tap into. At the front there was a metric screw which went up through the chassis, through the mount and into the headlight, which again, was sub-optimal. I also had some new dampers I wanted to use, which were a bit more chunky, so I wanted to make the whole mount a bit more chunky too. The new design hopefully addresses all these issues, as it is longer (as in the rear upright has been pushed back behind the rear screw,) has 2 metric screws that go all the way through the chassis and fix into nuts underneath and have more material overall to prevent flexing. Moving further back I always felt the rear "engine bay" area looked a bit bare. So to remedy this, I could either fit an engine or fit something else. Knight Customs does a great VW style engine on Shapeways, and I very nearly went with this, but I just fancied something other than a VW motor. Looking around there are some V8 motors that were tempting, but a V8 in a sand buggy didn't seem right either (to me.) What is a boy to do?! So I decided to take some inspiration from the BBX and stick a spare tyre in there instead. I found a generic spare wheel holder and designed a mount to connect it to the chassis and also printed a spare wheel rim as I didn't have one in my spares box. I didn't ignore the motor idea completely as I designed an exhaust that kinda fills the back and makes it look (hopefully) a little less RC and more scale. This is where I'm at with the dry build - there are a few more things to add and work out, but the overall idea is there: I've got a few ideas about lights, and I want to add a proper roof rather than the FAV frame and the stance needs fixing to lower the front a bit (probably just the springs need swapping) but the bones are there. Or rather they were, as 20 minutes later: Next up will be paint stripping, sanding and smoothing, tweaking and trying to come up with a new colour scheme.

I've stopped using Shapeways for exactly this reason - the postage is absolutely nuts!! Up until recently I've used 3DPrintUK but they have now become part of another company and have a minimum order of £40 or something. The quality has always been excellent, but this is no good if you are just printing little bits of trim or test prints. The past couple of jobs I've sent to Lancashire3d.uk which have been fantastic. No minimum order, big choice of materials and technologies, good postage (£7 tracked 48) and parts within the week.

sloppy? If you think I'd would make such a mistake your very much wrong my freind

Will be following this purely to prove you wrong. And I will be checking for speling and grammatical errors,

your skill with masking tape never ceases to amaze me. You are a gifted fellow! Hope your head is better - migraines are horrible things

I thought I'd added my to-do-list to this but I must have imagined it. I've got 2 bodies on the work bench that I'm doing for a fellow TC member, so they are first priority. I've then got a Rough Rider body to repair and paint for a mate. After those are done I have, in no particular order: Revive-RC body needs trimming, painting and stickers adding for my AstuDF Midnight Pumpkin needs some mods doing and painting for a (hopefully) cool little project Lunchbox body needs painting for my fully independent suspension CW-01 chassis project Ford Ranger body needs paint finishing and stickers fitting for another cool little project Vintage Ford Ranger body needs repainting for SRB chassis Celica Rally body needs stickers finishing, interior painting and body fitting to TA-02 chassis Body needs painting and stickers applied, interior painting and body fitted to TB-Evoiii chassis. Also have new rear diff to fit. Body to paint for TGM-02 chassis (might send this one out to AttackRC) Wild Willy needs a couple of light repairs and want to repaint in original box art instead of current alt box art camo Sand Scorcher body needs restoring and painting (yay - I love doing those) Recently bought back my custom FAV, already bought a bunch of upgrades for that, so plenty of work there, including a repaint D12 - loads of ideas - so little time..... Century Hawk Bell222 needs full restoration I probably need to get on ebay and starting looking for another project.....

have you considered trying the Carisma slipper mod: I fitted one to my Astudf:

just after I posted my last update the doorbell rang and it was the postman with my servo! So my lovely Egress is now finished (bar the still undecided window tint and the tyre lettering) Oh, I forgot - there is one more upgrade I made which was alloy servo posts. While I was out in the garage I was looking for my turnbuckle wrench (if anyone has seen it, could they please let me know because I can't find it anywhere) and rummaging through my kit boxes I unearthed this beauty: I'd forgotten just what a gorgeous chassis this is. I really need to get the body finished for this!!

Thank you my friend! Yeah, I'm kinda leaning toward your thinking. If I could get it to be a very light tint so you could still see inside clearly but look darker when viewed from a distance (does that make sense?) then that would be ideal. I definitely won't be fitting the window stickers though.

almost finished my restoration of my original 58079 Egress. After a lot of second guessing and nerves I cut out the original body and decals. I also decided to switch out the Futuba radio set for a P-160F CPR and servo. The final decider being that I refitted the Futuba set and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the wiring to look nice. Obviously if it were a new kit I would've trimmed the wires and braided them, but I wasn't going to do that with vintage stuff. Plus, I decided if it was going to be MY Egress, I'd build it how I would have if I'd been able to when it came out. The only other modification I have made are the titanium turnbuckles. I could never understand why Tamiya would fit titanium screws to this - their flagship buggy - and then fit crappy steel threaded rod that scratches as soon as you adjust them. I am officially tickled several shades over cerise about how this has turned out I might still smoke the windows, haven't decided yet, and paint in the tyre lettering, but otherwise it's done!

Hey, I could do with some opinions/advice on this please, because I keep going round and round in circles. Subject: Original Egress - restoration project. It came with a Futuba radio set: MC112B esc, FP-R102JE receiver and FP-s148 servo - all of which is nice quality kit, age and spec appropriate and works with the Dynatech 02H fitted. I don't have a matching transmitter - if someone could tell me what would be right, I'd very much appreciate that. Now, as with most of my restorations/builds, I like to build to the "hop-up" spec available at the time, so if I was to go by the "hop up" page in the manual I should have a Dynatech 01R and a CPR-P100F. I have a spare Dynatech 01R I could fit, but as it has an 02H already, it would seem a bit silly to "downgrade" it, but that is an option. If I went for the 01R I could then fit a CPR-P100F, but if I kept the 02H I'd need to get a P160F. The other option would be to keep the Futuba radio set which would work with either. To further muddy the waters, I already have a CPR-P160F and Adspec transmitter in my Avante, so in theory I could just get the CPR P160 unit itself (fun fact, the TP-S148 servo that came with the CPR set is actually the Futuba FP-S148 servo with a Tamiya sticker on it, so I wouldn't need to replace it - I think that's right, happy to be corrected though) and use the same Adspec transmitter. So basically the options are: Get a Futuba transmitter for the existing radio set and keep the Dynatech 02H Get a CPR-P100F complete set and retrofit a Dynatech 01R Get a CPR-P160F receiver, use the Adspec transmitter and Futuba servo I have and keep the 02H If anyone has continued to read this far - thank you! If anyone has any thoughts (regarding these options, not my mental state please) I'd love to hear them Thank you!!

Oooooft - that's been sat in a sea water bath for several years and had strategically placed cups of sand emptied over it at regular intervals!!!! My advice would be to wrap it up in a blanket with a brick, put it in a plastic bag, drive to the nearest river and lob it over the edge as you drive over without slowing down. Alternatively...... Get your Dremel (other rotary tools are available) with a wire brush attachment and clean off as much of the rust and sand from the heads as possible. I reckon you will be surprised by how much of it sand grains rather than rust in there. Hopefully this will remove enough debris to get a screw driver in the heads. If you are strategic with which heads to attack, you might be able to just break down the chassis into smaller parts so you can get subassemblies in your sonic cleaner.

After finishing off the Salzburg Beetle my to-do list clicked on another tooth of the cog. So I got a pair of bodies I'm doing for a TC member in primer and looked around my garage for something else to do. The Celica needs me to get a couple of parts printed, but I've got another project that will need a few bits printing too, and I've not quite finished modelling them, so that can't progress. The body for the TB-Evoiii needs painting, but I've already got the other bodies in process so that pauses them. Nothing for it but to start on something new! I picked this up last week and immediately stripped it and put everything in various tubs of cleaning solutions, and followed it this last week with some light polishing of a few bits. With everything ready to go back together it seemed a perfect opportunity to get the screw drivers out. As far as I can tell it's all original - not 100% sure about the hi-caps as the kit came with the Avante front damper mount, which only came with the hop-up set, but that's neither here nor there really. It's all in lovely condition with only the front bumper having any significant marks, so I've got a replacement coming for that. Apart from seals and e-clips everything was put back as it was. My only concession to this are the hop-up damper springs, as they were a proper hop up and I had them in my spares already (as you do...) Few more bits to go and then it's time for the body!

It's like you're my doppelganger! Tell me, does the amount of tax they take out of your pay each month annoy you as much as it does me?

try Shapeways - I think Knight Customs does some great items for these.

Hi Simon, A bit of a long shot, but is the body still for sale? Cheers, Jon

I would highly recommend AttackRC - he did my TRF201 and Durga (check my showroom) in TRF livery and the quality is exceptional. https://www.facebook.com/AttackRC

I think if Tamiya had styled it like this they would have sold 10x as many. This is actually making me want one now, awesome work Chris!!!!

do they need to be original parts? would 3D printed copies be ok?

I came a step closer to finishing up my TB EVOiii - i think..... I wasn't too keen on how I had mounted the top of the dampers, with a bolt through from the back of the plate, through an alloy spacer and into a ball nut. Functionally it was fine, but aesthetically I didn't like it. So I ordered some longer titanium countersunk bolts, thinking I could replicate how the 6mm ball nuts are fitted on the camber arms: Which would be fine, if the mounting caps on the dampers were plastic, or at least had an internal shoulder like the hi-caps do. But they don't - they are alloy and have a straight through bore, so there is nothing holding them central on the ball of the nut, if that makes sense? After several attempts I ended up with this configuration: screwhead, o-ring, damper, ballnut, spacer, mount, nut. It works, and I think it looks better, but I'm not convinced by it. Has anyone had a similar issue and resolved it any better than this? Oh, and because I'm extremely pedantic, I couldn't cope with having non-titanium and non-button head bolts for the lower stabiliser mount, so I got some! Don't they just make a huge difference!! edit: I've just noticed there are some plier marks on the outer ball end. I know what I'll be doing this evening....... edit again - and there are some on the one on the other side!!! What have I been playing at???!!!!