nowinaminute

The worst part is I'm not even sure if that's a massive exaggeration any more lol Either way, it will be jumping the queue quite a bit. I'm determined to at least ballrace it and get it running before the summer is out.

I have one Striker I got at the end of last year, it's in pretty good original condition but luckily not so pristine that I would be scared to run it lol. It just needs the electrics swapping out for something more modern, maybe a Fighter shock tower so I can fit CVAs all round or FX10 suspension conversion. Oh, and sort the weak spot on the chassis! It's about number 76 on the to do list lol

Does anyone know how tricky/easy it is to make anti roll/sway bars? I stupidly sold the set I had (and a gear set, doh!) last year in a bout of not thinking forward. I wonder if I could use something like the DT03 set as a starting point and maybe just get some piano wire to make the wire parts?

On hold for a while. Despite having millions of bearings, I was missing the 4x 8x14x4mm ones. Ordered a set, they arrived today but I could instantly see they were the wrong size. They sent me 8x16x5mm instead! I'm going away next week so unlikely to be able to make a start till a week Saturday now.

And then here https://mciracing.ca/products/blank-15-3dac70b4-5b51-41a8-a02a-e3cc3944062f

They are great, I only have a cheap one from Lidl but it is has been excellent. I find adding Flash/Mr clean works very well.

Impressive! Got to be one of the toughest boxes out there, especially one with all nylon gears. I think making sure dirt cant get in plays an important role too.

And they do say when advertising the Oral B that you can't possibly brush as well using an old fashioned tooth brush as you can with their electric one so it makes sense to try it that too. Time to break out a spare tip.

The gears were mostly in reasonable shape but there was some dirt ingress because the previous owner hadn't fitted the dust cover to the motor. This has resulted in some of the gears being a little chewed but not too catastrophic. I de-greased them and got all the dirt off that I could. Some of them still have some black discoloration, I could sit there with wet and dry paper and try and gently get it off but I really haven't got the patience or will power. So I got thinking about a way to try and at least get some of it off without losing the will to live in the process and then it hit me, what's the best thing for cleaning teeth? It worked quite well! I might give it another go with my electric toothbrush too!

Had a pretty bent suspension arm, heated it up with a lighter and got it back into a reasonably close approximation of what it should look like. I've used this technique quite a few times before and it seems to work like a charm, you just need to keep moving to avoid melting the plastic. The rear shock tower is bent too, I will try a wind proof lighter with that one, hopefully it will minimise any soot getting into the plastic. I'm surprised the plastic managed to bend so much without snapping, the shock tower in particular is very distorted. It must have had some pretty dramatic impacts in it's time!

I've seen this stuff before, someone used it to shorten a TL-01 maybe it was you? Looks really good. I will keep it in mind.

All cleaned and stripped!

It has some rough parts but I think I can fix them. I can try and plastic weld the wheel with a soldering iron, even if that doesn't work I can just borrow the wheels from my Boomerang. The upside of it being so well used is that I won't be afraid to drive it, I can always wait for another one to come along eventually for looking pretty. This one will be used!

I couldn't resist cleaning and rebuilding one shock first, just so I had something as inspiration for the rest. The original o rings looked identical to the red/orange Tamiya ones so I used some of those along with some yellow Tamiya oil. The result was a silky smooth shock that looked and worked great! I re-used the bladder and it seemed to be fine. The o rings might have been ok too but I decided to change them anyway because I had plenty on hand.

First order of business was to return the buggy to it's kit form and clean everything. My beaten up Lidl ultrasonic cleaner proving invaluable once again! It had definitely picked up some dirt over the years!

I think that would be a better choice. I have no racing experience so can only speak from my bashing experience but I have a full size 3900KV in my Hunqai Slash 4x4 clone and feels like a good match, it can get fairly warm when I used it on 2s off road for extended periods. On road it's much cooler and I can run 3s. I believe the genuine slash 4x4 brushless has a 3500KV 3650 motor and is rated 2-3s. I've run those finned motors in fairly big vehicles such as a TL-01B monster truck at 3300KV and it was honestly fine but the higher in KV you go, the hotter they get just like any motor and they run comparatively hotter than a full 540 all else being equal. I found 3000-3300 to be about the limit for a 4x4 1/10 truck. I've actually even run one in an 8th scale truck and it did ok but I wouldn't use that setup every day! The highest KV finned motor I'm currently running in a truck is a 3900KV in my heavy dump truck but despite the name, that's actually quite a small truck so it works ok. The price difference between a finned 380 and a full 540 or 550 is so small these days there's really no point getting the finned one looking forwards unless you have a application where it's more suitable. For me this usually involves older vehicles with dubious gear strength and/or handling qualities. The finned motor gives me some of the brushless benefits such as good performance, usually cooler running vs a brushed motor even though they have a 380 core, low maintenance and better run times but at the same time, the slightly lower power vs a full size 540 brushless can make things easier on the drive train and be less likely to overwhelm a primitive chassis. It might be worth getting a temp gun too, opinions vary but around 160-180f seems to be considered the very highest temp that's still safe. Most people are unable to keep their finger on a motor that is even 120f/50c

A full 540 would probably be better. The finned ones are good but have their limits and 4370KV is pretty high, I tend to stay closer to 3300 when I use them in bigger stuff. You could try the gearing, I know people have run the SCT on lower KV versions of those motors and had good results. A brushed of equivalent RPM would probably run as hot if not hotter than the even the finned 390. Best choice if you need to maintain your current speed and run cooler would be a full size 540 or 550. If you could lose a little top end then playing with the gearing could be the easiest way to cool it down.

Very thin on the ground! I brought a job lot of Nikko parts last year but desperate to make some of my money back, I sold a gear bag and anti roll bar set. I regret that now! I still have: 3x drive belts 2x sets of shock absorbers About 7x nut bags 2x screw bags 4x MSC parts bags 4x 11t and 12t pinion bags 2x ceramic resistors. Guess how many of those I actually need for this car? You guessed it, none! Typical!

The quality really is very good, probably how it managed to survive what must have been a massive collision and still be in one piece (mostly) it really is very similar to Tamiya in terms of material quality and engineering, I'd say probably on par with a Hotshot or maybe a teeny bit higher still considering some of the design elements. Considering the guys attitude and responses, I'm pretty sure it was relisted because the previous buyer returned it! The thing is though, they are so hard to get these days that I just decided it was better to keep it. I saw a damaged one sell for £60 last year and it had no body, no wheels, suspension arms, shocks etc. It was basically just the central chassis and it still fetched 60 so although I feel angry that the guy mislead me, I have to look at the bigger picture.

I've been trying to get a hold of one of these for years but there just never seems to be one in the right condition at the right price. My attempts to get a mint Super Sprint (same thing but with some hopups) last year was thwarted by the sellers complete refusal to post the item. It ended up selling for £25 along with a mint Falcon and another Nikko! I still have a sick feeling after all this time! So anyway, I saw this Dandy Dash a about a month ago and although rough, it seemed to be pretty much complete "no major damage" it said in the listing "Just needs a rebuild and repaint". I nearly bid on it but coudlnt justify the price really so I let it go. Then a few weeks later it popped up on ebay again, apparently the high bidder last time was foreign and the guy wasn't willing to ship internationally. So I took that as a sign of fate and bid on it. I ended up winning it for just shy of £100. More than I wanted to spend really although by no means more than it's necessarily worth, they have gone up in value an awful lot on the past decade or so. Long gone are the days when shops were clearing old kits for £50! So anyways, it turns up and I excitedly open the box and at first it seems to be as described, rough around the edges but mostly intact: But within mere minutes it's clear all is not quite what it seems. The seller took the bumper off to fit it in the box which meant I immediately saw some extensive damage to the front gearbox housing and also two the the attachment points between the gearbox and chassis: Then to add salt to the wound, I find one of the front wheels is shatters too: No major damage? Is he having a laugh? So I immediately message the seller to express my concerns, I wouldn't have bid that much if the damage had been disclosed. After several days I get this message: "Sorry only just seen your messages. I did not know about damage on the car.. As I didn't take the car apart to check before advertising it for sale... It was working fine when last used without issues. It's not been used for many until I had a clearout recently." This guy should be in politics, what a complete and utter cop out and non-answer! Who said it needed to be taken apart to see the damage? Who's responsibility would it be even if that were true? Who described it as "no major damage?" When it worked fine the last time you drove it, did you happen to drive it off the cargo ramp of an airborne c130 Hercules??? I asked all these questions and more but the seller simply ceased responding. This left me with a bit of a dilemma. The car has some serious damage but on the other hand it's rare and I think I can make it usable again even if it will never be a shelf queen. I only really had two options now that it was clear any kind of partial refun was out of the question: keep it or return it for a refund. I decided to keep it, after waiting so long and finally getting my hands on one im reluctant to let go of it again so i left him a darn good negging on ebay and got to work!

You can indeed sort of drift it on dirt. Not quite fast and furious style but if you let off the power so the back steps out then quickly hit the throttle again you can get some nice power drifts out of it!

They are indeed!

12mm hex, 130x70mm. Not Clod big but significantly bigger than Monster Beetle/Wild Dagger pin spike tyres.

You could just get a couple more from hobbyking for about £3.50 each IF they fail or another cheap option is the HSP 20t 540 for about £5, that might be fast enough on 2s too. If you want something a little better quality, I have been blown away by these for the price. Exactly the same as the RC4WD rebuildable motors but a fraction of the cost. They have adjustable timing but are neutral as stock. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100-Original-Hot-GoolRC-540-27T-Sensored-Brushed-Motor-for-1-10-RC-Car-UK-C5J4/223220477725?epid=27020025768&hash=item33f8fa2f1d:g:YvsAAOSwIDBb31F4:rk:6:pf:0 You can get those under various names but they are all the same thing. You can get various different winds too.

Some of those chunky chevron tyres from China. Picked the cheapest seller I could find on Aliexpress and they turned up fine. Result!