Antmax

I don't regret buying it since I got it for a good price. I'm sure with a better threadlock or some kind of glue you could get the tightening bolt to bind permanently. The ball diff has a habit of going out of circulation and then the prices rocket up to $100+ just like almost the whole of last year. I have one if I want one

I tried the Tamiya threadlock gel that came with the kit but it only stopped it from coming loose for a short time. In the end I decided to go back to the stock gearbox which turns poorly but climbs a lot better and makes for a better trail runner which is what I mostly use it for. If I want a sharp turn I'll just have to stab the throttle and put it into a spin and hope I can catch it hehe.

I have been looking but all that turns up are vintage ones at inflated prices. I wouldn't mind some myself at a reasonable price.

I haven't taken it apart again to threadlock the adjustment screw but have been driving it some more. The turn radius with my more direct steering mod is noticeably tighter. Between 2 and 3 feet in the forwards direction and it's generally much more composed and predictable. But I'm not sure it's really more fun. It's WAY better on the street, off road in the rough it gets stuck a lot easier when climbing over tree roots etc. There just isn't enough torque in one wheel to get it over obstacles so it gets caught up easier and you loose the spirited pug like unpredictability of the original setup. I can see myself reverting back to the stock gearbox later since I already have an axial exo for speed and sharp handling and the Scorcher has lost some of it's nostalgic vintage character with the ball diff.

Ah, ok! so it isn't just me. It's true that it's pretty quick and easy to adjust. Just need it to stay tight long enough to enjoy running it. I'll give it another shot tomorrow. I don't suppose thread lock on the adjustment bolt would help? Might try that if all else fails. The tamiya threadlock Gel that comes with the kit isn't that tough to overcome. Thanks for sharing your experiences Grastens. Glad I got it fairly cheap, They recently released a new batch so I snapped one up for $32. 4 months ago they were selling on ebay for $100+ would have been sorely disappointed at that price.

As the title says, I just got a new ball diff and installed it this afternoon. the problem is that it keeps coming loose. I've worn it in gently and just ran it around the house but it slowly loosens till the spur starts slipping on it's own. Only thing that isn't normal is the 5000mah lipo battery which does give it quite a bit of punch. Having said that, there isn't enough room indoors to use it so I'm surprised it's coming loose so easily. Do you think I built it wrong? Anyone else have this problem. I've tightened it up several times, even right up to the point where the diff is almost locked and it still happens. It does turn much better, it's actually quite fun indoors but doesn't grip as well off road. I like to use it as a trail car at slow speeds around the garden and it's not as good at climbing the obstacles as it used to be. So I may end up switching back again eventually. Would be nice to play with it for more than 5 minutes without it coming loose and the spur spinning though. Thanks...

That's cool, I just assumed that they were only sprung and would in effect be like taking the original oil dampers off and running with torsion springs alone.

Here's what the tamiya tamtechs look like. 3 Racing do cheaper ones. And with a body on. (Thats my lexan basher body)

I thought I would get the RC4WD shocks a while back but noticed that they are not proper oil dampers. If you look at the specs. Near the end it says So you basically have a nice scale look but no damping whatsoever. I went with the 1/16 scale tamtech shocks on mine. They work well but being 1/16 scale the shafts are very thin and you need to find hard enough springs or keep the stock torsion bars on to bolster the springs on the shocks.

I have no problem with it and am grateful that they released a a better more sturdy sand scorcher that remains almost identical to the original. It was an absolute blast to get the box and see it all laid out with the same colored blister packaging and build it from scratch. Was the reason I got back into RC after hot having one since about 1986. I missed the boomerang ReRe which I probably would have gotten new too. @Thiebault. I too am hoping the Fox will be re released. That was the kit I first fell in love with as a kid. I'd see it in a shop window all the time and thought it was awesome. Coveted it for months. Back then there was no internet and you just got what was available. My best friend bought the fox and I got the boomerang months later when a RC car store opened up in town. Always had a soft spot for the scorcher. One of my best friends had a couple, a porsche 959 and bruiser. And on a racing pack the scorcher ran and ran and ran forever and tended to do better off road as a trail buggy than most of our more modern tamiya buggies. I always loved the more scale looks of the older cars compared to today. In the end I didn't want to splash out on a ready built Boomerang and got an Axial Exo as my fast modern scale RC. I expect I'll get a couple more re re's over the next year or so. Have to keep the wife happy and stick with the two t I have for now

If you look at my top down pic with the battery, you can see that my servo is centered on the chassis. To do this I had to change the shape of my aluminium chassis plate. Instead of tapering from one end to the other, it tapers suddenly at the front making it wider where the servo mounts. The stock scorcher deck is about 5mm too thin to mount a servo with the spine centered on the chassis. It doesn't take a lot of skill to fabricate a chassis plate that will fit. hack saw, drilll and some sand paper is what I used. Difficult bit was finding thick enough aluminium, I ended up sandwiching the new and original together to get it done. I also sealed the radio box at the front with some scrap lexan glued in place with clear silicon sealer.Also seals the old steering rod hole where I have my servo wire and antenna exiting the radio box whilst holding the antenna tube in place so it doesn't get in the way.

I forgot, another bonus to this mod is wIth the repositioned servo you can fit a 5000mah 2s lipo length ways down the middle of the radio box which is another plus. My scorcher pulls wheelies without too much effort using the stock Johnson 540. Much more punch and of course longer run times.

I got some Tamiya GB-01 aeration shocks for mine. I don't have the correct springs and still use the torsion bars for primary springs but the dampers are WAY better and don't leak just sitting there overnight. I do worry about the spindly shock shafts since these shocks were originally for the tamtec 1/16 scale buggies and are about half as thick.

I did something kind of similar. First thing I did to improve steering was to reinforce the existing chassis with an extra aluminium layer on top. This is to get rid of the super springly flex of the original chassis plate, the wheels also splay less when you push the suspension down. So the front is more planted and the suspension does most of the work. Then like percymon I removed the front of the radio box and mounted my servo to the chassis plate. Team Associated do servo mount kits that come in pairs for $3 at the local LHS. I bit the bullet when my flimsy stock servo saver fell apart and I saw how expensive they were to replace. So I decided to do this mod. I bought a heavy duty kimborough servo saver along with some 3M mounting tape underneath to cushion the servo somewhat and raise it for clearance. I also found some extra tie rods from a Jammin SCRT 10 that I had lying around after putting a sway bar kit from ebay on my Axial Exo. this makes the arms more beefy. Combined it makes quite a difference. One of the biggest pluses is that you have a lot less restriction on the steering angle. I set my endpoints to 60 on my radio and the Scorcher turns in a far tighter circle than it used to. You have to be careful setting this because it can go much tighter but then you have to watch for the steering sort of jack knifing and also putting too much stress on the steering knuckles. With my setup 60% gives you a steering circle between 30 and 50% tighter which makes it much more fun for maneuvering though you really notice the limitation no differential at the back. It hops a lot more in high traction and tight turn scenarios. The servo mod makes a huge difference followed by the stiffer chassis that stops the front springing up so much makes the scorcher less likely to lose steering when it takes off from small bumps and then shoot off at an unexpected angle once the front gets traction again.

@Grastens. Funny those pics are so similar. Good to know yours haven't come off since you glued them @OldSchoolRunner. I found some old pics from around the time I installed the shocks. All 4 shocks are actually identical with their lengths adjusted by spacers inside the shocks to limit travel. I removed all the spacers to make them longer and decided to mount the rear shocks a little higher, aprox 1cm higher than the original mounting point. So I drilled holes and used a longer screw and spacers to mount. The spacers on my build are basically shock bump stops from my original Axial Exo shocks that have since been upgraded. The O-Rings are basically spare SRB damper rings I had bought when trying to stop the originals leaking even when standing overnight. You can see a better pic of how I mounted the rears below: Seems to have worked well. My scorcher is a lot more predictable across rough terrain and keeps a pretty steady height compared to the original setup. One of the biggest problems with the stock setup is the flexible chassis which adds a lot more bounce and doesn't let the shocks work efficiently. I think it might have been Grastens that pointed this out a few months ago. Just this week I bought some thing aluminium sheet and doubled up the chassis plate to stiffen it up and it seems better. Have only driven it indoors because of the rain so haven't gotten to try it properly outdoors.

Nic mod bugjammer, If I can't get it to stick permanently enough with the loctite I might have to try that. OldSchoolRunner: Those shocks are Tamtec GB01 aeration shocks. They cost a fortune most places. $80 - $150 a set of 4. I was fortunate enough to find a set at RC Mushroom for $40. So if anyone wants some for that price. Grab them whilst you can. http://www.rc-mushroom.com/advanced_search_result.php?manufacturers_id=&keywords=40513&x=51&y=15 3racing do a cheap alternative shock that aren't as nice. You can buy them from integy, Here they are: http://www.integy.com/st_prod.html?p_prodid=11671&p_catid=344#.UKGBd4J-XQM These shocks are pretty popular with people that want to run the scorcher. Getting the right springs is quite tricky. I'm still using the stock springs with torsion bars till I can upgrade to something stiffer. There are compatible springs from Tamiya and I believe Team CRP.

Thanks guys. I'll be grabbing some of the loctite 638 this weekend

Something I have never seen before happened today. The front right wheel on my ReRe Sand scorcher came off. The wheel nut was still on so I was thinking, ****, I'm going to have to buy a probably hard to find part. When I picked up the wheel with both bearings and wheel nut attached it looked too cleanly sheared off so I looked closer and the outside edge of the stump was milled and slides into the hub. Inside the bottom of the hub was what looks like red loctite. I had just been bashing around the street with one of my 2s lipos having just bought a programmable battery cutoff. Was pulling wheelies and doing all kinds of fun stuff, at one point I hit a bad edge and took a nasty tumble and the direct servo that was taped down came loose. Shoved it back down and few minutes later the wheel span off and was rolling across the lawn. Nice that Tamiya thought to make the steering knucke in more than one part. Now I have to hope I can get it to stay stuck in place again, maybe with some more red loctite? Here's a quick pic:

I just installed the GB01 aeration shocks. You can still get them for $40 if you look around. I just got mine on Saturday, the springs are too soft so I still have the tension bars on. I tried the 40wt oil in my axial exo but there isn't much damping there so will need to try something thicker. It's still bouncy so I will have to find something thicker to try.

Looks like Tamiya must have released a new batch. You can order them direct from tamiya america now. I'll have to get one next month. My Scorcher doesn't really run all that great in deep loose sand but is a blast in wet sand

I just bought a RE RE Sand Scorcher after my neighbor bought a Traxxas Slash 2WD. Wasn't keen on the modern vehicles I saw. I was a kid in the late 70's and one of my earliest memories was of a sandscorcher. Some kid got one for christmas and was driving it around the garages near where we lived. In the mid 80's I got a boomerang and started a small club with friends who had various models. My luckiest had a Bruiser, 2 scorchers and a 959. Another had a Fox and hotshot. Those were good days but for some reason the Sand Scorcher always seemed the best, with the 7.2 it ran forever and handled a lot of terrain better than lighhter plastic cars. When you are a kid with no money you can't really afford the hobby so although fun the whole thing was a disappointment. Anyway, imagine my surprise after nosing around, I found the RERE SansScorcher. I just had to have one. Sure I could have gotten a original but I wasn't really that bothered. I wanted to build my own so I got one. It was great to have the box in the classic style with blisters. I was a giddy kid age 39 lol and spent a week just smiling at the open box across the study at home before I broke those blisters and stared building it. I noticed a few subtle differences, wasn't sure they were real or imagined till I researched more. Turned out the RE RE has a bunch of subtle improvements. You can fit a modern motor in if you look carefully and various parts have been beefed up or improved slightly. If like me you had just started up again, the modern ESC was a huge plus and an easy introduction to how much things had changed. Now I have a blast with the scorcher and bought another modern car to take on the neighbors Slash. The Scorcher brings a smile to my face every time I see it. Have a parma shell for bashing and the ABS one for when it's in the garage on display . Here's my two vehicles. Just finished the modern equivalent to a scale RC like the Scorcher. Here's a pic couldn't be happier. Though I do feel sorry for anyone who kept their old vintage vehicles as an investment. I'm glad Tamiya rereleased. Especially now that I can afford to enjoy the hobby and keep the vehicles maintained when they go wrong.