Flat_Out
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Posts posted by Flat_Out
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On 9/14/2016 at 3:33 AM, Hibernaculum said:
Similar to the Matsushiro Land Rover being based on a real rally vehicle, does anyone know if the Imai Volkswagen 1303S Racing Beetle (which similarly contains an event name, map and list of locations on its decals) was based on a real life vehicle? I bet it was, but I have not been able to locate an image over the years. This gorgeous kit was released circa 1980.
I've always wanted one of these, but they don't come up for sale often, and are expensive to have shipped to the US. It's one of the few VW R/C cars I don't have in my collection.
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Ah but there's something cool about running 5 you-g's. Haha
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Chassis is about done. Dying parts now, and waiting on the new servos. Base colors of the body are sprayed. Next the graphics will go in the silver insert areas, then clear coat, then wet sand and polish. I'll be glad to get all that done and put all the trim on the body, and add the interior!
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CRP's ghopper replacement shock tower kit came with shocks. Early kit had aluminum retainers and seats. Later kit had red plastic. The same shocks were offered with many other makes/models. They are fairly easy to find.
I've got an extra bare re-re chassis with that tower if you're looking for one.
early--
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It's just a Testors rattle can lacquer paint for model cars. I'll be using that on the body since it's not lexan.
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Interior trim pieces and radio housing painted. I wish I could remember where I got that interior kit. It's made for a Sand Scorcher. I would love to have another one!
Radio assembled. I'm still waiting on a couple small electrical parts, and a 3d printed adapter to correctly mount the wheel, but it's almost done! I think I've got more hours in this radio than most people do their whole car...
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Chassis plate started. Center punch, drill, counter sink.
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It's worth the wait, looking forward to seeing it dance Are you planning on that insane level of articulation with moving foot pedals, gear levers and steering wheel?
Only if 2nd gear turns the head and tail lights on
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Long time no update! It's moving pretty slow as predicted, but is gradually coming together.
The car will have head and tail lights, so I'm using the shifter as the switch to turn them on and off. I just need to give it a shift knob now.
I got the wheels done finally! I did a few sets before I got to a point where I was happy with them. What a pain...
painted lip chrome spoke RC lowrider 13s. Finally some proper lowrider wheels that aren't 2.2" Car's look like donks with those 2.2 spoke wheels....
The green on the wheel lip is what I have decided to go with for the body color.
And for reference- a comparison with the standard 2.2 spoke wheel (before painted lip).
I changed the gearbox and rear arms a little. reprinted them. The pieces on the left hold pots and route wiring in the switch box.
got the rear cage designed and printed. This holds the battery and electronics, acts as the rear servo mounts, creates a body mounting point, and in general add structure to the back of the car.
a pic with the battery in place. This is all designed to nest together as tightly as possible and tuck up against the back of the body in order to put all the weight at the back and leave me space for an interior (since the ragtop will be open and so much of the inside will be visible). The top side brackets give me a place to run a velcro strap through to hold the battery in place. The other side brackets are to zip-tie electronics to.
A bent wire push rod in place here for mock up and testing. I can get the real push rods made now. The rear of the car will be rigid and the front sprung. Hopefully this will let me do a pretty good 3 while keeping the front bouncy. I'm still a ways off from testing this though. I'll spend the $ on better servos once I know this all works like I want it to.
And the front view of the rear assembly. The servo mounts also clamp the motor (small 380 to keep it slow), helping to keep everything tight. There's a little wiggle room for gear mesh I'll have to take up with shims of some sort. Still working that out. Maybe something as simple as a set screw through each side would be good enough?
Printed brackets screw through into the bumper and act as the body mounts. These line up with holes in the rear battery cage and screw through the bottom. So there will be 4 or 6 screws through the bottom of the chassis that will hold the body on. Not a quick release by far, but well hidden, very sturdy, and easy to get to. This is what it looks like without the chassis plate. I have a template of it printed now and can cut it out of aluminum soon.
Rear assembly mounted to the body, this is about where it will sit when laid out.
With the front done it would do a pretty high 3 wheel. Right rear push rod is down in the pic, and left front is a pretty close guess. I might dial it back a little bit. If you've seen other people build lowrider r/c cars with independent suspension all the way around, you know they don't 3 wheel very high and don't get that body lean that looks real. It's a lot easier to do with a solid axle in the rear, but I wanted to keep it all independent like 1:1 VWs. So far it seems like I'm going to get the look I'm shooting for.
We'll see how it goes when the front end parts are printed and mocked up.
That's about it for now! Thanks for looking.
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I know! I was shocked too when I realized there was more than one set of those ugly things. Haha
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Are those re-re ball studs? I think the re-re are larger and won't fit in the thorp cups. I would double check, but out of town right now.
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Whatever they are, they were mass produced. I've got a couple sets and Have seen plenty of others. Not pretty, but they worked well! I have no idea who made them though. I've never seen a set in retail packaging. Maybe just a short run produced in the 80s by some smaller company or individual. There's enough of them out there to pop up randomly on different cars around the world.
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When I'm not obsessing over vintage SRB stuff, I like to do some scratch building. I've been planning this lowrider bug for a while and I'm finally getting the build underway. You'll have to bare with me, as it will probably take a while to complete. It will take some time between work, other projects, family, waiting on 3d printed parts, etc...
The concept is pretty straight forward- 70's style lowrider Bug with servo's acting as the "hydraulics". It will be built from a combination of stuff I have laying around the garage and 3d printed parts.
Reference images:
The body I'm using. It's a Kamtec split Beetle. You can see where I started scoring a line for a ragtop
Ragtop cut in, recessed area for the roof rails added, and a header bow fabbed
Dark grey material for the sunroof. I'll use this material a little in the interior too when I get around to it.
Ragtop done
I wanted to run wire wheel of course, but the standard Pegasus wheels are far to large for this body. Top row is the standard wheel, and the bottom row is the final size I was shooting for. Tires are just cut down airplane tires with a white wall drawn on them.
Then I modeled a support ring/template and had them 3d printed
glued the ring to the back of the wheel and started cutting away
cut the centers of the wheels out
here are all the pieces.
left side- stock wheel, center rough cut out, machined smooth and sanded for primer/paint
middle- original wheel, center cut out, ring added and spokes cut down
right side- printed rings, ring glued to back of wheel
new center ready to be glued into place. I'll paint the lips before these are permanently glued into place. I'm actually working on a 2nd version of this that screws together from the back. Might be handy in the future.
and a pic of how it sits now. wheel size is MUCH better.
3d modeling everything to test how it all fits together and functions. The battery is as far back as it will go. The servos sit on top of a little 3d printed gearbox powered by a 380 motor. No need for a 540, it will be slow and easy going. Maybe with all the weight at the back I can get it to hop. It will still be fairly heavy at the front though with a hardbody, full interior, etc. I'm not far enough along with the chassis yet to test it out and make adjustments.
Gearbox is very compact. It just uses a crown gear and pinion. The outputs are from a traxxas 1/16. They were machined down and ride inside flanged bearings with a large ID. This lets the gearbox be as narrow as possible so the links and shafts can be as long as possible and the suspension can have a lot of travel without binding. I wanted to keep the suspension independent instead of going with a solid axle. Solid would have been much easier, but it's not what I wanted.
And part of the interior from an old Cox VW tether car. I'll use the seat and part of the floor. The floor is raised so it will let me run push-rods to the front for steering and the front suspension.
And that's about it for now! I'll update more as I slowly make progress.
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Does anyone have information on the length on the Wheel Base of the VW Bus body??? Thanks! Kevin
if you mean the actual wheelbase of the body itself (like a street version) it's only about 175mm-ish. pretty short!
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If you restore a vintage use grasshopper, you will probably end up replacing a good portion of it with re-re parts. In the end it's probably best to just buy a re-re.
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Mad
I wonder if you can get them to hop just with servos?
I'm shooting for hop, but not getting my hopes up. With a 2:1 rocker multiplying a fast servo speed, a strong BEC, and a spring with no dampening it might... but I'm not far enough with the build to test it out yet. Plus I've got the battery hanging way out back. That should help.
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That's my plan, but with a 6 channel radio.
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I'll join. I'm building a lowrider right now, and have parts for a 2nd based on the old Pegasus Hobbies chassis.
Edit- just saw how old the original post was. Did the sig ever get created?
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I've got this full set up on a re-re. I hate how much slop is in the upper arm with the rubber bushing. I really want to take it out and replace it with an aluminum sleeve or something. Drives me nuts how much play is in the rear suspension. Not that I ever run it....
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This is freaking awesome!
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Hmm, I didn't realize the Carisma chassis would work. Soon after they came out, I just fab'd up my own pan car style chassis specifically to fit the body. I only made one though....
I ended up changing the top plate after this pic, and cut my own motor/axle plates out of aluminum too.
The front had to be really narrow to get those tires/wheels under the body and able to turn lock to lock with no scrub and the stance I wanted.
I'll have to take some current pics one of these days....
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The auction that mysteriously ended! Haha
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very nice! Can't wait to see progress on this. I've been looking for a 4x400 kit to go on one of my SRBs forever
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Maybe you can find a chrome body parts tree from a Kyosho Street Beetle with the T bars.
I've got an extra one or two for just such occasion!
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Anyone know who made these Blackfoot/Beetle parts?
in Vintage Tamiya Discussion
Posted
Well, there you go. Mystery solved.