Honza

So, can we expect a TB01 next time? 😁 Very nice piece of chassis TB02 was quite popular for rally racing around here. After bombproof tank the TB01 was, people probably though that TB02 will be as good. Hovewer, it's weaknesses shown up. Stock ball diffs were very poorly designed and unreliable, while one piece shaft didn't cope well with the flexible plastic chassis. I've even seen DIY 3-piece driveshaft conversion to improve reliability of the drivetrain. It's quite unfortunate, that TB03, which fixed TB02's issues, never got as popular (obviously, I'm fan of TB03/TB-Evo5 generation 😁but generations before had its charm, too) It was also used on TA05IFS, later variants of TRF415 and TB-Evo 4/5. They switched to Short reversible suspension with 10mm OD bearings after quite short time - probably because those little bearings were quite delicate.

Yep, Tamiya did great job on this generation of chassis (including TA05 and TB03), with different mixtures of plastic depending on the application.

Is it really carbon reinforced? It looks like a GF reinforced part from this picture (the arrow is not pointed to the "CF" symbol) Anyway, it's going to be interesting build I miss days when Tamiya sold low cost variants of their TRF chassis

@wtcc5 It's part of K-parts tree (51550), it's just a little part that covers the holes - it still looks better than unused holes It'd be just little detail, like cherry on the top of your beautiful build

Tamiya distribution model. Here in Czech republic, their exclusive distributor doesn't care about R/C part of their products. Other retailers cannot import Tamiya kits or parts. As a result, there is nearly zero availability of TRF and mid-range Tamiya kits and parts. Most recent example is zero availability of XV02 kits - in a country with probably largest RC rally community!

Not yet, the chassis donated some parts to other project.. and now I'm out of country, so I cannot do any progress. I just found the photos in my phone and decided to upload them here.

I forgot to upload this here Test fit on my Frankenstein chassis

@SimTechRC thank you Yes, MF-01 would be quite capable, if Tamiya did a mid motor variant. I made a variant with motor in the extension section and it worked quite well, but maintenance and cooling was an issue, as well as lining up the driveshaft correctly. Also, it only worked with standard 257mm wheelbase. I think that print quality looks much better on the photo It's printed on Ender 3 with 5010 cooling fan and Capricorn tube (reduced retractions to 3mm). It's Creality's variant of PLA+, printed at 195C, otherwise mostly stock settings in PrusaSlicer, 0.2mm layer height and low speeds

Simply beautiful. Tamiya should do newer versions of TB03 and TA05, they were just no-nosemse budget variants of their racing kits. Btw, have you considered to put in some parts from the newer kits? For example, the TB04 front gearbox cover would hide unused holes for the front damper stay, making IFS more part of the design

This looks really nice! But I noticed the shape of gears - Blender doesn't have any plugin to generate them?

Torquensteer is mostly solved with light BL rotors and floating drivetrain - unfortunately they didn't incorporate the floating drivetrain in the Evo8 design, so I doubt it'll be any more successful than its predecessor

Over the weekend, I finally printed the left half. There were some problems, but in the end, everything fit together and gears run fine Unfortunately this is the last progress for next few weeks, because I go to vacation with no 3D printer around There are still some issues that need to be changed, but overall, the design should work. Here I just wanted to see how it looks with a motor. It seems that even BL motors will fit, even though it wasn't priority during design. Now there's a question - If I, amateur with a year experience in F360 could design this, why Tamiya couldn't? 😀

Finally, I've been able ti start printing. From a quick test, everything seems to fit. The driveshaft length is only about 2mm shorter, so I made a hole in the bevel housing, so original driveshaft can be reused after drilling a hole for the cross pin. In theory, there should be enough space that'd allow one driveshaft for multiple wheelbases (and maybe 6x6 extension 😁)

...it didn't go well. The part that should've been easiest, adding rear damper stay and top link mount, was actually quite hard to figure out - I didn't realize that spur sits higher on MF01X, which also moves it backwards - leaving nearly no space for top link mount. So, after trying to replicate M05 geometry (including modification of right half of the gearbox to reduce size of the casing around the spur) I gave up and used the weird solution from MF01X. It'll look super weird on the mid motor, because damper stay have to be behind the dampers, but it will re-use more kit parts, which goes with the original plan.

DCJs would definitely help with chatter in turn, but the dogbone end could introduce some vibration at full droop - although minimal compared to universals. Also, now I remembered that M07 has a steel variant of the 33mm swing shaft (19803014) - I think that's a better solution for the M06, if you can find any available.

It is shorter on the shaft end - you won't fit the pin under the hex. Thinner bearing would help, but I didn't find any sealed 5x11x3 bearing when I tried to solve a similar problem. Maybe you could reuse the wheel axles that came with the 3racing universals?

I decided to add a little bumper, which will serve two purposes: to hold the diff case together and to serve as downstop for the 54606 M05 V2. arms. Now I need to figure out damper stays, I want to keep M05 geometry to utilise top links included in the kit. However I forgot to double check position of suspension mounts and found that M05 has shifted rear hubs compared to the TL01 suspension I am using - hopefully I won't need to do any major modifications because of that...

Sorry, wrong number got stuck in my clipboard, I meant 54623 - M-chassis wheel axle. The TRF417 wheel axle is too short.

TRF axles are about 1mm shorter then needed. You need 54969 or similar part for TRF414/TA04 suspension type.

thanks My first ever RC was a TL-01, (although a chinese copy), so I have soft spot for it, too.

Getting closer to completion 🙂 If everything's going well, I could start printing next week. I guess it's the right time to get the M-chassis gear set 😀

Finally had some time to work on the model. The left half now have atleast some internal structure and a motor mount. The motor mount will be 3D printed, but it's designed with an aluminium variant in mind. There should be enough room for pinion sizes from 14 to 24T, covering gear ratios of TL01 and M07.

That would require a complete redesign of the chassis - something I wanted to avoid (for now) in this project. You could lock the front and flip the car, but there's 1st issue: front axle has a kick-up angle, which wouldn't work well on the rear. And steering of the rear axle would be another issue due to MF01's geometry: dampers are in the way of the steering links. So they'd have to be moved away, but I'm not sure if there's be space behind the motor... Also, the motor would rotate in the opposite direction.

EDIT 12.Nov 2022 - files can be downloaded here https://www.printables.com/model/268346-mf-01x-mid-motor EDIT Jan 2024 V2 complete https://www.printables.com/model/712311-v2-mid-motor-conversion-for-tamiya-mf-01x I think that I got far enough that I can present my next project Since Tamiya released the MF01X, I was thinking that it wasted so much potential by making it rear motor with quite high CoG. I decided I'd make my own TL02 by converting it to mid motor. First idea was mounting motor in the center insert - 257mm wheelbase provided just enough space - but although this solution worked, it had poor maintability and motor cooling was suboptimal. Also, it worked only for standard size, taking away what makes MF-01 so insteresting. That was end of the project for some time.. But recently, I decided to revisit the project. Since I built gearboxes on my rally car around TL01 gears, I have some reference, which makes work a bit easier. To make things more interesting (ie:harder), I made decisions that would shape the design: - Cover all wheelbase options - from 210mm beyond, so it can function as M-chassis as well as full size "TL02" - make it look like a production part - That means that it should use as little extra material as possible and shape that could theoretically be made by an injection molding. Of course, design should complement the rest of the chassis - use as little extra parts as possible, no custom gears - originally, I wanted to use only stock gears, but it wasn't possible, the motor would stick to far out. But M0X gears are quite cheap and allow me to get proper M05 gear ratio. One disadvantage is, that it adds complexity to already complex gearing... Well, hopefully it won't be as bad. So this is basic layout of gears I'm building around. you can see that motor rotation is reversed due to an extra gear, similarly to M07. And early design of the gearbox - so far without internals: In the end, whole conversion should require just a few printed parts, M05 gear set and some 5mm shafts. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the design soon 🙂 Reason why I started this topic was to get some feedback earlier in development, so I can fix things I could've overlooked.

Thank you for help, @Vertigo35 your measurements helped me to put this together Let's see, if I'm able to design a box around these gears.