E28_M5

Flysky GT3C transmitter - took 6 weeks to arrive from China and the box has taken a bit of a battering as it was basically just wrapped in a thin plastic bag. Fortunately the contents was perfectly fine! The transmitter looks really good for the price - £40 delivered by slow boat..

As usual, bought for my kids (in particular my daughter this time, who loves pink) but I’m already feeling upset at the thought of them crashing it!

I’ve still got the spotlights to do. Haven’t decided on using the covers or not yet.

I’m waiting for a new Flysky GT3C transmitter and some receivers from China, so thought I would switch the build around of my new comical Frog to doing the shell first. Now that I’ve got to grips with the waterslide method of adding decals I’m pretty chuffed with the result. Basically box art, with the exception of some additional pink on the sides of the wing and choosing not to use the large red ‘Tamiya Racing’ decal on the front end. I think the font used fights with everything else and it’s a bit too large for the space. Went with the brilliant Frog decal instead and left the roof a bit cleaner.

It was an HPI Racing Plazma 3300 from Modelsport

Nice box from Modelsport: Comical Frog, which they currently have on for £109 along with Savox servo, bearings and paint for it. 8.4v battery, paint and steel 16t pinion for an upcoming Bigwig build.

Well that took me longer than anticipated to get it painted Finished the shell over the last couple of days - metallic blue backed with silver really pops in the sunshine.

After two years of literally sitting on it (stored in the kitchen bench seat!) I painted and stickered the Brat shell I bought as an alternative for my resto-mod Monster Beetle. First time I have tried the soapy water method of attaching the stickers, and also found that using a hair dryer was a revelation in getting them to soften and stick properly! So much s that I might have to redo my Hornet and Unimog CW01 at some point. On the whole I’m pretty happy with how it came out and the colour is incredible in the sun.

Thank you that’s really useful. I think I will go with the 8.4v battery. I’m likely to use a HW 1060 ESC I already have, but will check that is ok. I’ve checked out Robinson Racing pinions - I’m assuming the 15 tooth 0150 32P is the correct one to go for? I’ll look at the Super Hotshot propshaft and cups as well.

I’m finally getting around to building a Bigwig that’s been sitting quietly in my garage for a year. I’m sticking with the GT Tuned motor, and am wondering whether it’s worth getting an 8.4v battery pack. Almost seems a shame not to as there is the space originally designed for it. Would it gain noticeably in run time and/or speed? If so, I see that you can then choose 3300, 3800, 4400 or 5000 mAH... The alternative would be to stick with the 3300 7.2v batteries I already have. Tamiya now seem to recommend sticking with 7.2 for some reason. Two other questions: Is it worth upgrading to a harder steel 15 tooth pinion straight away, and if so where from? And finally I understand there is an upgraded aluminium propshaft from another model that it is a straight swap for what looks like coat hanger wire in the Bigwig kit?! Many thanks.

Two years ago I resurrected my vintage Monster Beetle with an ESC, MIP diff, sport tuned motor, new wheels and tyres, Ampro hubs and a Kamtec shell. All was well until last summer when my son drove into it into a tree and snapped the original chassis! Yesterday I finally got round to rebuilding it into a new chassis along with an Ampro central mount for the servo. I guess there’s probably less than 20% of the original kit left now. Shocks, some of the plastics, most of the screws and the servo and receiver being the main bits. Extending out the aerial still gives me a bit of the buzz of anticipation that I first felt in 1988!

3D printed Transmission brace from Shapeways/Ampro Engineering - simpler and as effective as the 5th shock mod, cheap and very easy to fit. They also make neat front chassis braces. Tyre foams before glueing the rims!

Thanks Juggular. We took it out for a shakedown run yesterday and it went well, definitely fast enough for the time being with perhaps a sport-tuned motor down the line. On cleaning up and checking it over afterwards I saw that the little ball joints had unwound and very nearly detached their nuts (and themselves) from the servo saver - I was probably a minute or two away from losing the steering completely! I’ve nipped them back up with threadlock on now, but will look out to see if it happens again. Good fun though; very different to my original/upgraded Monster Beetle and re-re Hornet. I am planning on putting some foam in the tyres and then glueing them and that should really show what the suspension is up to with the other upgrades.

I wouldn’t be so bold as to call this a ‘build’ as I’ve pretty much just screwed it together out of the box over the past few days, along with a few basic upgrades as I went along. But I think it looks nice just finished so thought I would bung a few pictures up before my 6 year old gets his hands on it! Like a lot of people ive always loved the original Unimog shape, and my wife’s Dad ran one on their farm years ago so there’s a tenuous link there too.. Choice seemed fairly limited when I bought the kit last year but I’m happy with the green that it came already painted in. It all went together without any issues. I added bearings throughout, the Ampro transmission brace in fetching orange, Absima oil shocks (heard mixed reports about these, but they seem fine at the moment - we’ll see) and made a front strut brace from 3mm rod and some of the left over rear suspension mounting points. The hardest part was probably the decals! They mostly went on ok; very fiddly of course - especially around the windows- and I wish I could have another go at the headlights which are quite wrinkled. I’m still running the silver can motor and 3300 Ni-mh batteries which is plenty for using it with my kids. Anyway:

I’ve just fitted one of these to my Hornet, and went for the version with the properly retained battery door. Very nicely made and easy to fit. Certainly stops the slap sound and I think improves the bouncing on uneven surfaces slightly. And of course the battery will never fall out again!

Yes to the 3.0 CSL ‘Batmobile’ above, and of course being biased, the E28 M5:

Added some more decals to my recently finished Kamtec basher shell, and also rebuilt my Hornet into a new chassis after my son snapped the chassis/suspension leg after 10 mins (from new)!

If you’re planning to upgrade the motor (even to just a Sport Tuned) you will need the MIP diff.

At the moment they’re superglued and then wrapped with some very strong black tape. I’m not anticipating any problems as it won’t be doing anything too harsh tbh.

Maybe just needs a race number on each door?

Ha ha yes! Popped a few decals on:

This afternoon I masked off and painted up a new basher shell for my recently resurrected and now slightly modified (ESC, sport-tuned motor, MIP ball diff etc.) vintage Monster Beetle. When it first arrived from Kamtec I was slightly disappointed at the lack of detail so decided to go for a simple but bright colour scheme to distract from it. It’s Tamiya Bright Red over gold and silver which gives a subtle metallic fleck, and I messed about with a bit of masking for the stripes and the bonnet detail. All said and done I’m quite pleased with the outcome. The inside is very bling! I’m going to add a few stickers shortly which will appeal to my 5 year old son, who was the reason for digging it out of the loft and fixing it up.

That is the problem identified with using the polycarbonate Brat body on the MB - due to the height of the front suspension mounts (and consequently the standard front body mount on the MB), the longer re-re Brat rear body mounts are still too short. However, this afternoon I solved it by chopping the top 20mm off the longer Brat polycarbonate F part mounts and bonding them to original Blackfoot rear body mounts (that are fortunately included with the MB kit!). The overall height is now correct to my eye: I’m looking forward to getting it painted - will update here when it’s done.