mk4savage

Superb thread! Love the pictures. You've done a superb job of restoring your monster beetle and I love the herbie shell. I'm shortly going to be re building one of my beetles and I bought that as herbie, he's a bit rough at the moment though (and in a million bits!). I must say yours looks superb. I like the king blackfoot servo cover idea too, Looks like spending some more money

Oh mate, that is bad news, I'm gutted for you Good luck with the rebuild though, I'm sure you will do a cracking job of it Matt.

I Managed to get some photo's at the weekend of my other models, This Lunchbox I got back in 1997. I bought this from a model shop in Weston Super Mare while on holiday down there. The guy who owned the shop used to sell used RC cars and I remember seeing this in the Window of his shop and I just remember thinking... I've got to have it! It cost me £80 and is fitted with period Acoms radio gear and came with a charger and battery. It has seen some use by the previous owner and a bit by me but it was looked after and I think it had been stored away for a while somewhere as the tyres were perished. The wheels and tyres seen here are new but the rest is original from the 80's It came fitted with the yellow CVA's and has some sort of uprated motor (I think) which is not much better than standard, its ball raced too. Someone spent a bit of money on this back in the day! These next three, you can see it's suffered a bit of gravel rash and the windscreen is cracked. The shocks are a bit stiff now and could do with stripping and cleaning and the shell could do with a repaint and new decals. I might get round to it one day but I sort of like the way it looks I've got some more of my others to post up but I've run out of time for now!

Many Thanks SteelRat, This is a great forum.

I think I've just sorted it... I changed the handset and tried using a different band and it seemed to sort it, forward and reverse is now where it should be and the steering servo is now working. Panic Over !

Hi Guys, Just trying to set up an Mtronics eco 20 Esc in one of my cars and I am having a few problems. It seems that when I connected it up and turned the handset on the steering "fine tune" adjuster was a little over to the left, only slightly but it seems the Esc has remembered this and now my steering is the throttle if you get what I mean. Also the other channel doesn't do anything at all. What I need to know is, can it be reset or is that it ? The instructions don't say whether you can or not. Any help much appreciated, Many thanks, Matt.

Cheers guys for the kind words and thanks for the welcomes. Matt.

That's a superb Monster beetle you've got there mate, I love it, I would be afraid to run it if it was mine , Nice work! I think that front bumper looks the business, far better than the standard plastic one. I'm about to start rebuilding one of my beetles, I just hope it looks as good as yours when I finish it.

Herbie is a bit rough really, it needs a repaint and new decals. I am keeping it as Herbie and I will do a rebuild thread on it when I finally start!

Thanks mate, I'm just waiting for a bit of dry weather to get the cars out again, that is of course if we ever get some good weather!

Here is the first one of my beetles, I won this off ebay last January and it is now stripped and cleaned waiting for me to rebuild it. And then shortly after getting this herbie one I went mad again on ebay and bought this one, I couldn't help it ! I haven't got any decent photos of my other cars yet but hopefully I should get some sorted this weekend.

Hi Guys, I’ve been hanging around the forum for quite a while now and what a marvellous forum it is! Checking out the superb examples of your Tamiya models and gathering information and tips, I thought it was about time I joined up and shared my small obsession with Tamiya RC’s with you all. My first memory of a tamiya car was, I’m guessing around the early 80’s, I was probably about 8 or 9 when my friends brother had a Subaru Brat for Christmas, Probably when the Brat was first released, I just remember seeing it tearing up the lawn and was amazed at how fast it was, That was it I wanted one but guess what, I couldn’t have one because they were too expensive and I would probably break it! So that was the end of that. Another chap I used to hang about with at school, He had a small collection of Tamiya RC’s, I think he had a Grasshopper and a Frog and he did have a couple of others (one being a pickup truck of some sort) but I can’t remember which ones now but we used to play about with his cars in his garden, This was around 86 or 87 and the first time I had ever used an R/C and I loved it but I seem to remember that they weren’t as quick as that Subaru that I had first seen. I didn’t get my first Tamiya R/C until 1991; I suppose wanting one was just forgotten about because I was still at school and couldn’t afford one, anyway my old school friend again mentioned that he knew of a brand new Madcap that his dads friend had just built and was for sale, By this time I had left school and had my first job, I had my own cash so I had to have it. It had been built but never run, Just needed radio gear, It was ball raced and had alloy wheels fitted to it and I remember it had what appeared to be road tyres on it with a proper tread pattern not the spiked ones, I kept this car for a few years and I remember buying a new chassis for it amongst other parts but eventually sold it to another friend but looking back I wish I had kept it now, there doesn’t seem to be many about now. In 1993 I bought a Midnight pumpkin that needed re assembling and I still own this today, although it does need a complete new chassis and suspension, which I have been gathering parts for and will be building shortly, The body shell is still in good condition for it’s age. (It has seen a lot of action over the years!) I have owned a 4WD opel calibra, I kept this for 11 years but I sold it in 2008, I enjoy the off road Stuff more and I don’t think I would ever have used the opel again although It was well used when I sold it. Currently the cars I have got are my original pumpkin, A re release pumpkin which I bought in 2005, I run this one on grass and a little bit of gravel but mainly grass, another pumpkin which I got from ebay and came from Hong Kong which is still in kit form (not sure if I will build this yet), an original Lunchbox which I am very fond of (more details on this shortly), A rebuilt Lunchbox which I class as a shelf queen but probably nowhere near as good as some I have seen on here, (you could say I have a soft spot for Pumpkins and Lunchboxes!) Everything is new on it and it has never been run. Then last year I acquired two monster beetles, The one needs a rebuild and the other one has been rebuilt at some point in it’s life by a previous owner to a high standard, although I found out after running it that the gearbox requires attention and there are other things on it I’m not 100% happy with but I will get to that shortly. So that’s my Tamiya story so far, Sorry to go on for so long, I just got carried away I suppose reminiscing about the past, I will post up more details of my cars and pictures of course for those who are interested. Regards, Matt.