Percymon

Yesterday my Clod E parts arrived from Italy - next day mail delivery ! This morning my parcel from Modelsport - Acoms Technisport 2 2.4 radio set, 2 13T 32dp steel pinions and 2 traxxas to tamiya battery connectors (i know i should really do away with the tamiya plugs, but the battery packs will be used in other cars) Hopefully thats the last of my deliveries for some time (although some clod axle wideners might be called for )

Just remeber the tubing will increase the diameter of the spring coil marginally so there will be less travel to full compression (ok marginal for short few wind springs), and there may be rubbing issues on any close components. Go for the thinest walled tubing you can get.

I'd sell the kit with the bearing set, you should be able to get £10 less than you paid for it via ebay, but then you have the dreaded charges. Factor these in and post the for sale n the clssifieds here at a suitable point. The fact that Tamiya prices and VAT have risen recently migth actually put you less out of pocket then you think. Ditto the dirt tuned motor and shocks - always plenty of discussion about uprated motors and shocks, so should be easy sales. As they are new just pitch the prices slightly below what you can get them delivered off the net . Selling as a job lot doesn't work - people don't necessarily want the whole lot, and won't pay the value for it all as a result. If you wanted to realise maximumvalue from the kit, you might want to think about selling off the individual parts, although you may have to wait soem time to get all the sales. Good luck

This morning a jiffy bag full of bolts, nuts n washers from Westfield Fasteners (can't recommend them enough, great price, service and quality). Bit boring , so here's some pics of the Spider chassis that arrived yesterday - every stage of the build comes in a separate labelled bag, hence all the plastic packaging.

I'll go for a model I don't even own and say the lunch box. Easy build, pretty tough and never fail to make people smile. Still under £90 in the uk. Sure it has it's limitations but the fact it's still going and has same appeal after all these years says a lot. Competitor companies are all buggies n truggies; they'd do well to look at the van market.

I got my sona DF02 Rising Storm for Xmas. Positives Its a nice easy build It has oil filled shocks. Looks good for the money I paid £130 for min with charger, battery and radio gear - now nearer £160 for that lot thanks to VAT and Tamiya rises You'll never be short of spare parts - immense Tamiya support network Negatives Yes its a bit low to the ground The propshaft is plastic - ok for general bashing but it won't take too much abuse It needs ball bearings throughout to get reasonable speed from the silvercan (cheap enough on ebay) If you want to bash on grass and mud then the chassis gets very dirty inside (bottom of chassis has lots of slots to let the muck in) Decals aren't the easiest to apply Can't comment on the Ansmann, but every modelshop/person I asked advice from for a car for my son came back with Tamiya as the prefered option, and Ansmann as being inferior build quality, with poorer parts supply. Given the new prices of the DF02 cars you might want to think about paying another £30-40 for the next performance level up.

And 40-50mph is only a dream

Today is a great day, postie brought two parcels... A nice box from Canada with the gmade spider inside - no import or handling charges!! Traxxas evx2 esc and twin Titan motors, my eBay win from Sunday night!

Did some more prep work on the old clod body. Made up a roll cage in styrene, which promptly broke when I was trial fitting! That's what you get fir not letting the styrene cement fully harden overnight. Might resort to Al tubing now !!

Modelsport, listed under ansmann racing. £3 each

I felt guilty that having been here 4 months,and with 3 buggies and a broken Clod to my name, that i wasn't a paid up member. Sorted that last week. The showroom function and ease of uploading pictures is worth £15 of anyone's money.

Well i've no chassis yet, and no e parts so i can't complete the axles either. I can pretty much only work on the body at present so that might be tonights hobby half hour (HHH) with a few styrene repairs and some measurements for a customer roll cage.

Me too but i thought it was just the fact i tend to browse a lot on my iphone, and sometimes i'm using the wireless server at home, and other times 3G network. Today i logged in three times on my laptop, without logging in remotely in between.

Well i've made some progress.. Wheels n tyres.. Westfield fasteners gave excellent service with next day delivery, despite only ordering at 4pm the previous day. All 4 beadlock wheels are now fitted with hex bolt head type screws and look much better for it ('ive retained the cap head screws on the inside for now). My improvised tyre levers have been a great help fitting the tyres. I found a slight cut across the tread on one, repaired inside with some hemming web tape and general purpose flexible adhesive. I may be living on borrowed time with the tyres, but they'll do to get me up n running and break the truck in. In the meantime they'll get a few coatings of rubber dressing/preservative to improve their chances. Gearboxes, One set of newly purchased cases and another new set that came with the truck - these have progressed as far as i can take them at present as there are no axle E parts in the UK. I have back order with time tunnel, and now i have an order with the crawler store based in Italy. Hopefully Italy will deliver within a week, so i'll be back on track. Suspension, Four Traxxas shocks are ready n waiting, should be man enough for the job (the wheels are a bit weighty at ca 400g each!) Chassis - despatched last Monday by air mail so hopefully either in the country or awaiting next flight from Canada - can't wait to feast my eyes on it Powertrain One near new EVX2 ESC and twin Titan 550 motors (can handle up to 16.8V) won on eBay tonight, so they'll be my start point and hopefully enough to not bother with twin brushless Body.. I used milliput epoxy putty to plug the holes in the body, but after 2 days it wasn't fully cured, so i've taken it back out and i'll styrene them instead (Milliput was possibly oldish stock at my LHS ?). I have a 3Racing 5 spot light bar on the way from RCMart, which i hope to combine with my own crafted aluminium tube roll over bar. Have some Tamiya Yellow for the upper body and Tamiya mica blue for the lower half (hopefully to match the wheel beadlock colour). Yellow will be overlacquered with clear pearl for a bit of added sparkle. Other messings... Been trying to assess whether i need axle wideners or just simple 14mm hex convertors. I've gained approx 32mm in track moving to the beadlock wheels (different offset), but not sure whether this is enough to avoid body contact with wheel articulation. Really need to get the chassis built up to see it for real to be honest but i'm impatient

Done some axle and wheel offset measurements on my Clod project, trying to decide whether i need axle wideners or just 14mm splined hex nuts. Looks like the beadlock rims on i have approx 16mm extra track width each side over the standard clod hub carriers and wheels. May just be enough, although at 175mm between the inner faces of the tyres with the axle level i might be looking for a narrow body to top the chassis lol ! Made for a nice bit of relaxation in between prepping for an interview tomorrow And early eveing i managed to snap up a near new Traxxas EVx-@ esc and twin Titan 550 motors for 61 delivered SWHYDT ?

Brushless isn't necessarily faster, but it is more economical so you get much longer run times and motors need no maintenance unlike brushed. Like brushed motors , measured in motor turns, brushless comes in many guises, generally rated by kV. Multiply kV number by voltage to be used to get max motor rpm. I've got an ezrun 4300kv in my hotshot, it's noticeably quicker than stock brushed version even on 7.2v stick packs. Ezrun Market it as a brushed 9T equivalent, maybe a bit optimistic but I've no real benchmark in brushed. Got mine complete with 35A ESC and programming card for £41 delivered from hk with no import charges. EBay seller was demonerr, sells loads but seems to struggle with delivery times to Germany judging by some of the feedback. Mine arrived within 6 working days so I have no complaints. Don't forget to upgrade your pinion to a steel one.

dF03 wheels really suit it - nice work!

Yesterday... 370 bolts,screws, washers, nuts etc from westfield fasteners large jiffy bag of Clod parts from TimeTunnel, E parts out of stock though small jiffy bag containing Traxxas aluminium heavy duty dampers

No problem, ordered mine late Thursday afternoon and I had them yesterday. My beadlock rims look much better for the hex caps compared to the posidrive cap screws.

Looks like no-one has any, too many clod projects on the go ! Apologies if I came over awkward, I wanted the axles built this weekend and was a bit disappointed to find only a part delivery when I collected the package. Seems it's just bad timing on my part; hope tamiya and hobbyco sort some stock soon.

Anyone got them - must be new unused and i need 2 packs ! Ordered from the supposedly 'live stock' website at TimeTunel, only to find out today on receipt of the rest of the order they are 2-3 week delivery ! Fusion not got any, nor Modelsport, nor Apex - HobbyCompany have none either ! Nothing on ebay, vintage-tamiyaparts Any other suggestions ??

The last original Holiday buggy for ssale int he classifieds here was a year ago... http://www.tamiyaclub.com/trades_model.asp?cid=88519 whether it sold at its listed price of 365 euros, or is any indicator now that the re-re is widely available, is debatable. Check completed ebay auctions for another indication. with new ones available at under £100 plus radio gear i persoanlly wouldn't pay more than £200 for an original, but i'm not a collector or fussed about originality. Even paying twice new price for a used built original may be too much ??

I bought mine from ebay - item number 290487264128 which should still be visible given its fairly recent buy. 13T steel ansmann racing pinion from modelsport ca £3 http://www.modelsport.co.uk/index.php?product_id=37042

I've ordered a load of screws/bolts and nuts from here... www.westfieldfasteners.co.uk I went with the M3 hex cap bolts .. - shorter length ones are threaded right up to the head. ..in various lengths - my order for around 370 items came to under £17 delivered, far better than B&Q prices. They operate a sliding scale for the pricing here too, so the more you buy the cheap the unit cost. Did you end up buying new tyres ?

Another install from this evening..bringing the thread bang up to date... Little progress tonight, not through lack of effort though ! Spent an hour wrestling just one tire onto the alloy beadlock rims - i eventually resorted to some improvised tire levers and it made my life 10 times easier ! One wheel for a taster of what's to come - looking at this one wheel is motivation for the project alone Epoxy on the body has set but will give it a bit more time before sanding - it looks a lot better just for getting the stickers off and giving it a wash ! I've left some mounting holes for now, may use these for some form of custom roll cage and if not then i'll fill with styrene or epoxy at a later date.