rookierabbit

Ooooh this is tempting. My first brand new RC car was a Rookie Rabbit in 1991 (really wanted a King Cab but was too $$$). Is it on TradeMe? I feel like $250NZD is kinda up there though unless it is actually new or very light use. Everything on it was friction interface and EVERYTHING wore out rapidly, all bushes and friction shocks, not a bearing in the thing 😬

It is, and I think it's the best you can hope for as far as an all Tamiya transmission. And there's a source of major spares now with the Super Astute re re coming with all the old gears as well as the newer spur and slipper assembly. I've loaded up on spares and have at minimum a complete set of spare gears and diff parts if the worst happens. The Option 18t/19t pinion set was a good find too as I'm pretty sure the 23t in it was the wrong pitch.

Can't fault the Xtraspeed stuff and I'm glad resurgent Super Astute production means there are more and more critical bits out there. I got the idler brace (fitted, obscured), gearbox cover, and shiny silver antenna holder. I just wish they made their CV shaft set for the Monster Racers (with their stupid wide bearing spacing), CV and pin driven hex would be brilliant to bulletproof the rear end. Gearbox cover vs the roached original one

In here we have screws, clips, nuts, springs, CVA components, link pins, axle shafts, drive shafts*, bearings, ball nuts and sockets, bushes...Not quite a full car worth but enough to make it look a lot fresher *Was intending to just put new gearbox joints and axles in with Super Astute re re dogbones, have bought the hen's teeth 53069 Universal set instead

....A bunch of spotty bananas unfortunately! Both rears and one front bent. For a chassis that isn't overly thrashed looking, the poor old CVAs have had an extremely hard time. I have everything to build brand new ones, though, plus new mount bushes, and some little TRF tweaks internally to make them as smooth as they can reasonably be.

Tear down begins! Severely yellowed wheels, overall pretty good tub and front end, no cracks or severe impact damage aside from a gouge under the bumper. Found some fruit...

Since about 1991 I've wanted a King Cab. I got a Rookie Rabbit instead that Christmas, but I've finally got myself a good, solid King Cab. Well, solid except the worn out, banana'ed CVAs, scraped up wheels, sloppy suspension components, loose steering, grungy transmission, stripped spur gear, tired looking fasteners, linkpins etc, worn-out dogbones and cups, cracked transmission cover, cracked TBG shell c/o crappy garage shelves...To be fair the seller was up front and all is good. So here we go! The aim here is to throw a bunch of replacement and updated parts at it while keeping it pretty stock looking. So far the updates are looking like: Xtraspeed idler brace and transmission cover, antenna holder New build CVAs with TRF pistons and X-rings. Ball socket and turnbuckle upper links A&L steering Original Super Astute TTC transmission Delrin CNC C-hubs and uprights 53069 Monster Racer universal shafts Fresh TBG/MCI shell to box art, with smoked windows Team Associated RC10T Classic tyres (TBC) Black can Sport Tuned. Restoration side of things is a thorough tidy up of the (pretty tidy) chassis, lots of fresh fasteners, link pins, clips etc to tidy it up, disassemble and clean everything. Ultimately, it should be a reliable occasional runner with great presence.

But why?

I'm mid refresh on my King Cab and a bit of an issue is that the dogbone pins and drive cups are worn out. I can get Super Astute diff joints and I have some NOS axles on the way but I'm starting to wonder if there is any way to get CVDs into it? The rear uprights seem to be a bit of a hassle with a really wide bearing spacing. I was wondering if maybe I could swap to some other rear uprights and run some Xtra Speed CVDs? I'm just trying to improve it marginally while refreshing it, it doesn't have to be bulletproof, no stronger than the TTC transmission is.

I had a very minor collision with mine and it smashed off one side of the light 'bar' and a big chunk of where the shock tower mounted also came off when I pulled it down. Touch wood the new chassis will be ok, totally anecdotally I'd say it feels more flexible and less brittle than the old one, in hand, but it might be purely psychological. Of course, now I have no tub side decals If I may make a couple of suggestions... Run the small pinion, it's much livelier. I swapped the front tyres for 53094/19805552 triple ribs as seen on DT01 cars, cheap improvement if you ask me. Wide Stud Spike rears. I only use the car on unmade surfaces. Stock steering is woeful. I've centered the servo as far as possible, fitted a hi torque servo saver and made up some turnbuckle tierods using F103 ball studs and adjusters with aftermarket M3 turnbuckles. Not perfect, still hits the springs at full lock and needs spacing the servo off the tub a bit but helps; it is nice to have some toe adjustment and some toe-in does a world of wonders for it. I'd like to try the Pine Beach servo centering kit soon. I also shimmed the front control arms and the stub axles to reduce the slop, the front end is altogether tighter now. All up I think it is now much more focused to drive, far less savage with the lift-off oversteer, very predictable to powerslide; you can really drive it on the throttle. I'm about to try and add a front antiroll bar also. I'm still thinking on what to do with the front dampers, needs softer springs and less damping I feel. I might try drilling another hole in each piston for starters. I think the rear end is if anything too softly sprung but maybe over damped. I think a Sport Tuned would wake it up but you will need to lengthen the motor wires and/or ESC wires most likely.

Swapped from JC wild One 2.2s with Option No.1 rubber back to fresh original rims, triple ribs and Wide Stud Spikes, my favourite combo. I love those triple rib fronts on everything, underrated tyre. Frog gets the same combo on NovaFox rims next!

Converted my Blockhead Wild One to M3 turnbuckle/5mm ball steering setup, much more precise and uses the original uprights. Combo of aftermarket turnbuckles and the 5mm ball connector set for F103, also meant I could slam the servo mounts and get the lengths a bit closer by playing with turnbuckle O/A length. Next I would like to shim the front trailing arms and the stub axles, which should get pretty much all remaining 'slop' out of the front end...until the kingpins wear their pivot holes out anyway.

Ah, so 53572, 53573 TRF pistons then for these dampers?

I'll see if I can measure a bore when I get home. Hopefully they are one of the common sizes.

Are the TRF pistons (53572, 53573) compatible with CVA Long dampers? I'm assembling a fresh set for my King Cab and I'm scheming about updating them internally with those pistons and TRF X-rings if it's workable.