Mark_C

I didn't think it was that high given the brushless setup on it, there was a bare chassis (admittedly with a few shiny bits) that went for a a fair bit more than I paid. Yeah I have have to go with a non deans plug and run a converter, seems everything is going over to the yellow plugs now.

The white/purple/silver is all under the shell. The black flake paint is on top and the silver stickers on top of that so hopefully I can strip it easily.

Erm, a bit of everything, the chassis list goes something like: DF01 (Manta Ray) DF02 (Plasma Edge) Falcon (Blitzer Beetle) M06 (Lowride Pumpkin) ORV (Monster Beetle) CW01 (Lunch Box & Pumpkin) TA03F (Subaru Impreza) TA05IFS (Willcon Advan Vemac) TL01 (Alfa Romeo 155 Bosch) TT01E (Nissan GTR, but getting a Subaru NBR shell) WR-01 (Double Blaze) All bar the Manta Ray (had it as a kid) and the Lowride Pumpkin (bought recently) have been ebay fodder. Especially with the older cars I've enjoyed fixing them up. I think I'm done now.. well.. maybe. I'd lke an original Blackfoot. I have a few shells I'd like to do for the on road cars (almost all need one..). I guess I don't have a high end buggy, but Egress/Avante are silly money, I'd probably go buy a Schumacher cat or similar instead.

TA05IFS today! 4370 brushless setup and an absima rx which binds to my flysky tx. Going to buy my first lipo for it - just need to find a 3S that fits with a deans connector. The body is a Willcom Advan Vemac 480R that someone painted with flake... slightly weird is that this is on the outside of the body. Removing the back part reveals that there is probably a neat race livery painted on the inside. So I think I might find some lexan safe paint stripper (any suggestions??) and try and restore the race livery. Oh, and I pulled some the slightly chintzy LEDs that were glued inside.

thanks chris, thats interesting, I'll see if I can find the part number for the monte carlo shell. I was considering a escort cosworth shell too. Yeah, seems ot be very ittle out there on the hop ups front, guess its just too old now.

Mine as of a few hours ago.. Needs rear uprights as the upper mounting points are cracked, one of the fronts doesn't look good either. The P.O. also decided to paint the outside of the tub blue and silver at some point too.. ick!

A couple of them along with a hilux just appeared on uk ebay, prices going daft already. Tamiya could release and earn a packet on these two I reckon.

TA03F: I notice the top mount on the rear uprights are both split, best place for aluminium upgrades ? Stock parts not available until next monrh according to various retailers. The original impreza shell is mashed, don't think they (or in fact any TA03F shells) are in production currently. P.O has fitted new wheels and tyres which is a bonus.

Sounds wrong to me, is the battery warm at all ? does it actually say its charging at 3 amps ? does it show what mah the battery has currently ? on my charger this slowly counts up as the battery becomes charged. Note that chargers will step down, so it might only be charging at 2 amps even though its set to 3 max. My suspicion would be it isn't outputting 3amps. put an ammeter in series and measure the current draw of the battery. To do this you need to have one lead (say the black) of the charger connected to the battery, then the other terminal on the battery (e.g. the red) going to the meter and the other lead of the meter going to the charger.

Depends what you set the charge rate to if it was set to 3 amps it'd take just over an hour, I think I have mine set to 5 amps so it'd take about 40 minutes or so ? less if the battery has some charge in it.

I've got an Overlander RC6-VSR, very similar to the Sky one, I think it was about £40 from modelsport

I've got an Overlander RC6-VSR charger, does most things. Still made in CHina but Overlander is a UK company, my hope was that the QC would be a little higher, also as a UK company any device sold would need to be CE approved, unlike something sold in China and shipped in (banggood/aliexpress etc). Not saying stuff from there is going to be bad, but given how dangerous charging can be I thought it was worth the reassurance.

You could look at the Flysky GT3C as well. I buy the FS-GR3E receivers for about £4-5 a time usually. I assume they will work with the GT5. If you want sticks you can get the flysky i6, just make sure you get the throttle self return spring as well. I swapped some plugs over inside to get channels 1 and 2 on the sticks.

Oh dear, poor little ESC. I've used hobbywing 1060s with brushed motors and have the dual motor output model too, never had an issue but obviously brushed is a lot simpler. Is there any chance of fitting a battery 25mm deep ? I can't find a 3S that is less than that at the moment.Maybe I'll have to go with a 2S. I would buy the battery you use, but need a deans connector.

Top force re-release manual says 24mm rear and 17mm front (note: distance between the ends, not eye to eye) https://www.tamiya.com/english/rc/rcmanual/47350.pdf Manta Ray doesn't have turnbuckles as stock, they are a plastic bar.

I've got a TA05IFS on the way, what lipo packs fit best ? some cars have a little more space in and you can get a hard case pack thats a tiny ibt bigger than the traditional nimh stick, so just wondering what I can squeeze in. Also I want to find another shell for it, thinking to maybe go touring or rally car, not sure what else to look at...

Edit: ignore, wrong thread!

Yeah thats pretty much what I was thinking, he did a better job on the panhard bar than my suggestion. I wonder how cheap it could be done now with 3d printing the brackets.

Yes the black charger is a clone. Real B6 looks like: although be aware there are clones that look just like this too!

Its a clone of a charger called the imax B6. Sounds like its a cut down version as its a bit limited if it doesn't have discharge. For nmih its probably okay, just don't go leaving it unattended when in use... The genuine imax has those features I believe and certainly there are similar chargers that do have discharge and cycling.

I have seen another brace alternative on thingiverse, which is just a solid block that would fit in the slot at the front, stopping the front of the gearbox moving up and down completely. this would mean that it turns the front in to a pivot point. The bad bit about this is that it stops any suspension movement, so if the left wheel went over a rock it will probably just tip the car over. With the ampro style brace it still has the ability to move up on one side, thus could absorb the bump. Ultimately until you can fashion some sort of independent suspension (think typical buggy or even monster beetle) its never going to be great. The next best thing I can think of is if you cut off the original front mounting and then from that mounting point on the chassis run bars backward and have them attach to the axles that protrude from the gearbox you'd have a 4bar suspe nsion, this would let the axle tip to some extent (so that left wheel could go over that rock), the whole assembly couldn't "wind up" as the bars would hold it steady. you'd likely need a transverse brace though, because the whole gearbox could move left to right under the chassis. So imagine yet another bar connected where the shock mounts and then going from left to right and connecting to a bracket on the chassis. This is often called a panhard bar and stops that left to right movement. I stole someones pic and made a quick sketch. All five bars would be the usual threaded rod with balljoint at attachment points. You'd need some brackets designed and 3d printed, something similar to the shock mounts I guess. Haven't put the panhard bar on the pic What you'd end up with is a geabox that cannot move up and down at the front, but can still articulate and has suspension offered by the shocks. Hereis a 1:1 version of what I mean, no shocks on this yet, but they can just go straight up off the axle. The bars need to be equal length and parallel. they should be in a straight line back to front to avoid binding. The alternative is to use triangulated arms - this prevents the ened for the panhard bar but you'd have to think about how to mount them. Thin of how RC crawler stuff works:

TBLE02S instructions say: red LED flashes - low voltage protection mode, recharge battery. red LED flashes quickly - overload protection activated. turn ESC off and check for damage. so either the battery is flat or that motor is too hot for the ESC or maybe it has a fault. What battery are you using? is it charged ? Did you put the ESC in brushless mode ?

nice work, they've come up well! Surprised that they look that good, I thought they were quite badly pitted from the original photos.

As Chris says, look at sold prices, if I read this right they are kits and not built cars ? they will be worth more in that case. I do see some kits for sale at £250 and up - fine for rare stuff but I think there are some people chancing it! Decide what you want out of them in total and break that down for each kit and go with that.

if you suspend the car off the ground does it do it ? How far away is the car when the problem happens, will it happen if you run at high speed close to you ? Either is mechanical or electrical interference of some sort. The interference could be external or onboard. If you can see the steering flick when the car is off the ground I'd suggest its internal, if it only happens whe the car is some distance from you or in specific places its probably external. If its mechanical the car probably needs to be on the ground to make it happen - as suggested maybe a diff or traction that needs some load to become apparent.