Mark_C

lunch box body is miles off fitting, even at 210mm (shortest wheelbase for the chassis) the wheelbase is too long and tbe entire thing is too wide, quick snap, sorry for the bad photo

You're right about the ball joint ends, what a bizarre thing to do instead of using shorter pieces. I guess they just decided to use whatever they had. Really surprised the suspension is this bad though, if driven stock the back end must get scraped up really badly, its so soft, I'd say its pretty much unusable as it is. To have to pay £75 for shocks and springs that will actually work is a joke, its over 50% of the cost of the kit. I did think of c-clips but don't have any. Thanks for the part number for the springs, I'll look at some 3rd party shocks too.

I grabbed a Lowride Pumpkin kit and frankly I'm pretty unimprssed with the chassis. If you set the front upper arm length as per spec you end up with massive positive camber: I resolved this by shortening the top arms. The biggest problem I have is the way the car sits. Although the front springs (silver) are softer the geometry of the shock mounts mean that the front arms sit up in the air and the suspension is noticealy stiffer than the back. On the back, the springs aren't even long enough to fit, let alone be under slight compression if you lift up the back of the car. This means the back sags terribly and to make it worse the rear is very soft and easily grounds out. You can see the ride height difference here, the back has barely 10mm to chassis I've checked and re-checked and all the parts and its constructed correctly, its just poor design. Whats the fix ? is there a better spring I can use ? do I just go for oil shocks ? do these have a better spring fitment ?

Agreed, my charger gives an indication of how well the battery got charged, discharge and re-charge cycles has improved batteries before.

Ran the TL-01, which ended prematurely when it shed a wheel lost the drive pin but found the wheelnut. Discovered that the original tyres are split too. Still can't decide what bodyshell I want ot put on it, seeing as the Alfa one is damaged and you can't get the sticker set any more. It also now needs new wheels as the old tyres are glued on... Tided up the CW-01 tyres

For UK shops I'd add JK-RC on ebay and his own site (https://www.jk-rc.co.uk/) have bought quite a few spares recently from there, he's very good on prices and doesn't charge for shipping. Also time tunnel models (https://www.timetunnelmodels.com) are good for parts prices.

Hmm, my overlander isn't dual voltage (I don't have any need for it) but the rest looks just the same as that skyrc one. maybe they all just use the same menu structure. Thanks for the lipo link

Stripped the CW-01s and found more broken stuff to spend on see here :

Update time! I did some shopping.. the lunch box needs a front shock bottom mount and a motor mount, the pumpkin needs a rear shock mount and both need a wheelie bar wheel. So I bought a D parts sprue. whilst doing so I noticed chassis are really cheap from JK-RC, so grabbed one in case the repair to the lunch box doesn't hold. D parts only has half the motor mount and not wanting to buy the entire B sprue just for that part, I put a wanted ad out on TC, within a few minutes @Grumpy pants responded and very kindly offered the end cap of the mount from his spares pile - thanks Simon! D parts, tub and motor mount screws. Motor mount end cap from @Grumpy pants Both cars need receiver, ESC and the lunch box needs a motor. I would use a Hobbywing 1060 or similar, but have previously found the motor wries a little short for the CW-01. I procastinated a bit, but ended up with TBLE02s and a torque tuned motor, again from JK-RC. I've recent seen people paying £5 more for these on ebay than JK sells them for.. Receivers and bearings for the pumpkin (lunch box already has them). Also on order are E and F parts for the Pumpkin which are the glass (original is cracked) and the chrome parts (bumpers are painted) Let the stripdown commence! Generally the pumpkin is in pretty good nick, the paint job isn't bad, but has some heavy areas and a few runs. The roll bar is brush painted. This is an original version, so has FORD script on the tailgate. However, this has seen better days - its missing a tail light and on the inside one of the mounting points is missing. In both cases, the paint covers where the items should be, so must have been lost before the blue paintjob. Painted parts When the cars arrived the wheels had been removed to fit them in the box, this is probably the worst one in terms of damage:. And a prettier one. One apir of rears had the tyres glued on. They were removed with a little help from very hot water and the rest of the tyres were also removed. First job was to pull the shocks off, I had bought some new shock oil to rebuild these, but found the oil is actually very clean, but the shocks do have some air in them: Pair of washers for a wheelie wheel don't really cut the mustard.. A slightly grubby gearbox out! note: no metal shaft in the front mount. Just wasn't there.. at the top you can see the damaged shock mount that has a pulled thread. Inside the gearbox was very clean. this is how the guts came out, not cleaned at all - no real presence of grease. The gear wheel looks suspicously new.. And errm, seems i've lost some pictures. Basically its all quite tidy, nothing else broken and the plastics still have a little bit of shine to them. However, what does need to change is the body colour. I had a can of De solvit graffiti remover (or "clean-up" and had done some reading that suggested it'd be ok on the body... nevertheless the front panel was used as a tester, the theory being it could be replaced easily if it all went bad. It got a good dousing After 10 minutes (as suggested on the can) a quick prod showed that something was going on (the scratches are in the goo of the clear/paint softening). The good news is there was no hint of the plastic going soft. I scrubbed with a toosthbrush and left it for a bit more and with still no evidence of damage to the plastic but the paint starting to be removed, I got stuck in to the body. Sprayed on and then brushed around with an old toothbrush. Left for a good half hour and a scrub from a toothbrush given us this: Okay, so it will shift the paint! re-application of de solv-it, more scrubbing and a wash off in soapy water leaves us with this Not bad ! I ned to get some more de solv-it, I'd prefer to buy in a bottle so I can apply via brush - I've seen it on here in a 1 litre bottle. Anyone know where to get it ? B&Q do the aerosol The paint came off the roll bar easily, but moving the legs caused the plastic to break up and snap off: So ith the body sat out to dry and all the plastic parts having been washed in soapy water, the screws and fittings stored in a margarine tub attention switched to the lunch box. As I mentioned, the lunch box has metal bearings and someone tried to make it handle a bit better by shortening the front shocks: An interesting one, two of the body mounts are made from brass. I think these are homemade and are well done, however they will not be staying! When someone added the 5th shock, they removed the axle spring. Note the muckiness "Well used" I think covers the chassis. Someone made a bigger hole for the motor wires, it also has a mystery hole at the front.. Gearbox is.. messy. The small 850 bush is present, rather than a bearing, all the 1150 sized ones are bearings though Again, all plastics were cleaned in soapy water, inspection found a big cracked in the screw thread in one casing: Shock bodies aren't too pretty So thats about as far as it goes for strip down. I've ordered a B parts sprue to get gearbox casings, this also has the motor mount end cap on it I needed, which means the one @Grumpy pants sent me isn't needed. All I can do is offer it to TC members in the hope it helps someone else out - if you need it PM me. I've also ordered a new roll bar and an 850 bearing to complete the lunch box. I'll need to strip the body some more and think about what I should do with the tailgate. I could buy a re-release sprue and cut the missing bits off that and glue them to the original tailgate. Maybe I should just leave it as a "war wound" ? As the chrome parts for the pumpkin are already on order and will have new shock bodies on I'll use those on the lunch box. Still waiting for the 3D printing to come in which will provide wheelie bar wheels, body mounts for both and rear axle braces.

I have an order with time tunnel models, some of the items are on backorder but they did send what they had in stock with a note saying that the other bits would follow, there is a shipment from Japan due next week and they hoped to be sending stuff would the week after. I would guess Modelsport and Wonderland have stuff on that order too. For Tamico maybe there is a shipment from Japan that is Germany bound or maybe its going to a central distribution point for Europe ? Tonys Tamiya parts told me that Tamiya have halted all air freight due to cost, so everything has to come by ship.

Agreed, some ebay prices are crazy at the moment, rarer stuff I can understand, but some stuff is just way out there. I can't believe people are paying some of the asking prices,

@Green Tokyo just spotted this on ebay, I wonder if its cheap enough to convert over to B spec ? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-TAMIYA-TT01E-CHASSIS-KIT-4WD-R-C-TOURING-SPORTS-CAR-TT01E-On-Road/383556966112?hash=item594dc6d6e0:g:LcMAAOSwxABex4sg

yeah I thnik thats why I messed around with the plugs to get it to use ch1 & 2

Stuff! Still have some finish line grease, 3D printed parts and a backorder from Time Tunnel Models to come. Still need to order paints.

Not an option on mine. It was a couple of years ago I dsorted it out, but there was no option in the menus that helped. I kind of want to say that one of the sticks had to be moved in the wrong direction, but I don't remember fully. Either way the "push throttle up" command on turn on requires me to push the right stick forwards.

I've got an i6 and as above it is a little quriky. You need the self return spring - if I recall mine came with it, but they are cheap - https://www.banggood.com/Flysky-i6S-FS-i6S-Self-Centering-Throttle-Mode-Change-Part-p-1078595.html?rmmds=search&cur_warehouse=CN You do need to swap the sticks left to right otherwise the right stick will do throttle and left steering. Pretty sure I just opened it up and swapped the plugs from one side to the other, but you could switch the entire stick unit from left to right. Both sticks will still move in all directions, but its easy ot get used to. I did see a video where the guy stuck a load of glue in the back of the stick assembly to stop them from moving, looked a bit messy and unecessary to me. Not used the Etronix but the spec sheet suggests that you won't n eed to engage in all this tomfoolery, but it is nearly double the cost of the flysky.

Courtesy of @Grumpy pants the end of a lunchbox motor mount, thanks very much ! Still waiting on 7 other parcels from various sources, hopefully they will appear tomorrow or I'll be waiting until tuesday to do anything.

Any non EU Country. VAT is on anything over £15 (inc. price of shipping) Import Duty on anything over £135 (inc. price of shipping) https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad So lets say you buy a kit that is £150 inc. shipping. Add duty - not sure what the rate would be, but lets say 5% + Duty £7.50 + VAT @ 20% = £31.50 + Courier/RM here will charge you a fee for clearing customers, lets say £10. Total £199.

I've been thinking about a Mk2 escort shell, there is a guy selling TT-02 chassis with a escort shell on and BBS style wheels. Looks good and people are bidding like crazy - its up to £230 currently. ANyway, L& L models don't have any stock and Kamtec are closed until a week on Monday, can't even browse their website. I also don't know if the escort shell will fit my TL-01. I would like to replace the original shell, but they appear to be unobtainable, ditto for the sticker set, the body is ahred with other 155 models but the sticker set is the biggest problem Tell me about it ! they've sort of mounted up under the banner of "I'll do that later..."

Far too much.. Finish & paint lowride pumpkin Tear down lunch box & midnight pumpkin, rebuild & paint both Paint Blitzer Beetle body & re-sticker Paint Monster Beetle body & re-sticker Paint "shelfer" lunch box body Finish stickering Subaru WRX STI NBR shell Find a touring car shell for the TL-01 & paint

The overlander doesn't have an external power supply if that helps. Fake B6 vs real : Real vs fake teardown I think a B6 would be fine if its a real one. Here's the RC6 that I have

Yesterday: owride & pumpkin bearings, x3 flysky receivers Today:

Got the lowride in to 1 piece. Experimenting with where to put the electrics so they don't interfere with the body too much.

I have a flysky stick controller, they are really meant for aircraft so you need a self return spring (usually sold seperately) and lock the sticks so they only move in one direction next problem is you need to switch the channel for the steering as by default the planes use channel 3 for this. I managed it by switching plugs around in the controller itself. You do get 2 channel stick controllers, Futaba for example still do them, but they are expensive, IIRC my flysky was £28-30 for the transmitter, receivers are about £5. I think a set from Futaba is mroe like £80+. Not sure if you are buying rc cars for kids too, but the wheel one is easier for my niece & nephew because they can hold it with the throttle hand and then twiddle the steering. If they had to use sticks I think they'd struggle to hold it.

There may not be import duty under £135 but you will have to pay VAT and likely a fee to whoever receives the parcel here.