c64orinoco

I've got a lovely little Mito body for my M07 chassis. It matches my real car too - also a Mito (LOVE IT) I would prefer to paint some of the details rather than stickers, but the masking for a lot of it would be a bit of a nightmare. I'm reasonably good at painting those details by hand (in the picture the black and silver trims) but I'm at a loss as to what paint to use. Tamiya used to have a range of brush-on polycarbonate paints, but these days everything is spray or airbrush. Can airbrush paints be used brush-on? Do they crack if the body flexes? My LHS has the Tamiya PS range, which I'm going to use for the overall red (come on, it's an Alfa) and their airbrush range is something called 'Spazstix' (classy). Does anyone have any advice about what paints to use for this?

The question now is how much to clean it? The body is an easy decision - I've given it a dust and removed dead bugs, but that's as far as I'll go. I'll add new headlights and repair the driver's arm, but that's all the work I'll do. The chassis is a tougher question. It absolutely needs some modification to rebuild the broken stays - I think a piece of aluminium, folded at the top to take the suspension rod, and bolted to the side of the tub. The gearbox also needs a serious clean out, it really would damage it further to run it the way it is now. My thought was to dump all the parts in a bucket with some mild detergent and scrub them all clean; but this will certainly remove the grime muck dirt patina. All the bearings need replacing with at least solid metal, if not ballraces, the plastic ones are so worn the rear axles can articulate about 10 degrees independent of the wishbone. The universals are wobbly as a wobbly thing, but they'll just have to live like that I think. The dirt certainly adds character (one could even say class? er, maybe not) to the chassis as a whole, but some parts must be cleaned if I'm going to run it.

I didn't see your post and got one from somewhere more expensive. *sigh* Oh well at least I've got one on the way.

NSFW: PHWOOOOAR! Get a load of that suspension! Also the Speed Controller in excellent condition! And what about the organic produce farm .. in the gearbox? More details at: Sand Rover Restoration Part 1 Sand Rover Restoration Part 2

That's how a lot of the purchases of the past week have happened. Plus I got attracted to the blue shiny aluminium bits for the TT02B. Shiny! Oooh! (clicks BUY button)

I suspect only when room for more cars runs low.

My darling wife bought me a Neo Scorcher for Xmas. Then as a complete surprise I got a bonus from work. So now I have TWO cars - an M07C with an Alfa Mito body, and assorted bits for the TT02B. Of there's also the vintage Sand Rover that a mate found in his garage, that is now sitting in my garage awaiting cleaning / photoshoot on the weekend. Three weeks ago I had zero Tamiya cars. Now I have three. Is this the normal rate of acquisition?

I'll just have to find one locally, the postage from Germany is really just too much.

Ouch! The postage is a bit high from Germany to Australia...

It's a pretty unique design. Would you happen to know if the 7.2V hump packs fit under the body? I only ever recall running this with a 6V pack.

I'm going to at least tidy the driver up; he looks a bit too worn. I might make him replaceable as I'm planning for the wheels - keep the original but have a newer version too. One of the things I like about the old body is that the licence plate decal reads STOLEN rather than the more sedate modern BCHBUM.

It's seen a lot of running on asphalt hence the worn tyres. I was going to give it a good scrub, but if the patina look is cool then I'll leave it as-is. It certainly has patina all over it! I have ordered some new lights though, and you can't see it in the photo but the driver is missing half his left arm. The gearbox (which is open) does need a good clean-out, you could grow plants in it at the moment. It looks like there are dead creatures in it too, which is more patina than I would like. I'm in Australia, so most of our crawly things in garages are lethal; such as Funnel-web and Redback spiders. At the very least I'll clean the dust and dead crawlies out of it. The gears look to be in reasonable condition despite the open-air gearbox and dead crawlies. One of the trickier things is going to be the battery - this chassis was intended for 5-cell 6V batteries, or the weird 7.2V hump-pack Tamiya used to make; does anyone still make 7.2V hump-packs? For memory this car was actually pretty quick (with the 540 at least) and stable - the fiberglass torsion plate rear suspension worked surprisingly well. You can see from the bent front bumper it's had some hard hits. I think this car did get raced a bit, and held it's own compared to contemporary designs; probably due to the very low center of gravity (for that era at least). I had a Super Champ that was very prone to rolling due to the very high (and heavy) CoG and the lack of roll stabilization in the rear suspension. The tyres are super-glued to the rims, so I'm not sure they can be removed easily. They might withstand a few runs in their current condition. I think the modern version wheel might fit on it, certainly Frog or Buggy Champ wheels would, I might keep the originals for display and new wheels and rims for running it. Yes, the bearings are pretty worn, and the rear universals are pretty sloppy too. No diff to worry about, solid rear axle! The intention is this will mostly be a shelf queen; it's certainly not going to withstand serious bashing as the plastic chassis is fairly brittle by now. Sedate driving on mild surfaces only for this old thing. I'd love to use an original speed controller but I guess those things are rare as hen's teeth now. I think it was the coil / sliding arm type, not the Hornet-type as currently fitted.

EDIT: Follow my restoration here: Sand Rover Restoration Part 1 Sand Rover Restoration Part 2 This used to belong to my younger brother, and a mate found it in his garage. It's a 1981 Sand Rover, built around 1982, and has been lost in the garage for about 31 years. It needs new tires, and the left suspension mount needs repair; but otherwise it's fairly intact. It currently has what appears to be a Hornet speed controller fitted; I think I'll replace this with something modern for convenience. The motor is a 540, for memory the original had a 380. It's missing the headlights, but they seem easy to source. Hopefully I can source a new windscreen, as the old one is quite scratched and the screws are rusted in place. One of the body mounts is broken off - I think I might have to resort to some 3D printing to replace that. It should be a fun restoration project.

HAppy New Year! To celebrate I finished off the first Tamiya RC car I've built in about 35 years. It was a Christmas present from my wife. I'm rather happy with how it turned out.

Having just repaired our coffee machine my thoughts immediately turned to which m-chassis I am going to get. I've just got back into the hobby after 35 years or so, and my darling wife got the hint to get me a tt02b for Xmas. I haven’t even got it yet, but already I’m remembering I only ever had buggies, I never had a Tamiya road car (not counting the Kyosho mini-Z). I’ve got a real Mito so of course I want the Tamiya one; but I can’t decide between the M05 kit or the M07 concept with a Mito body, but that means sourcing the wheels and tyres not to mention motor and ESC. But with the M05 I’d want CVA shocks and bearings at least. My gut says M07 but bits can be a little hard to source in Australia. The M05 seems to be a bit difficult to source parts for as it’s a bit older - is this the case? Can any Australians recommend any of the overseas stores? There are plenty of retailers with the Mito body - maybe it’s not popular? I love mine; it was affordable, is turbocharged, it’s an Alfa so it looks gorgeous and it makes that lovely snarly Alfa sound, and all Mito owners wave to each other when passing. Also Mito owners walk away from their cars backwards because they are admiring how gorgeous they look. Ok I would still do the same if it was a 4C. Christmas Eve - there’s something I probably should be doing but I’m reading RC car forums in between tidying my workbench and finding my old tools. 2020 is going to be a fun year

I think there’s a 2mm difference in the wheelbase between the m07 and Mito bodies. That seems close enough to me.

I love the Mito. I've got a real one, so of course I want a mini-Mito to keep it company. I know I can get the full kit with an M05 chassis, if a bit limited, but the M07 chassis looks a lot nicer. Will the Mito body fit on the M07 chassis? It looks like it might, but has anyone dones it?

Probably an error converting metric to imperial.

Which is why my real car is an Alfa!

I've just got back into the hobby after 30-something years. Way back in the 80's I had Tamiya cars - Super Champ & Hornet. I can remember when the Frog came out and they really whipped my aluminium ingot Super Champ. I bought the Hornet to try to compete, becasue I couldn't afford a Frog. Even then, the $1,000 racing buggies whipped Tamiya cars unless you poured money in. I had to scrimp and save, so I was happy just to have what I could afford. One thing I remember about the competitive buggies was that they looked crap. Sure they were fast and agile, but they looked rubbish - looks weren't important. For me, Tamiya cars have an elegance to their design that none of the other manufacturers have. Kyosho gets close - I have a Mini Z (early 00's MR1) that is quite elegant. Now I'm back into it, I've bought myself a Neo Scorcher for Xmas. Yep, I know it's not competitive. Yep, competitive buggies with full kit can be $3,000 (AU pesos dollars by the way) but they still look like a whole bunch of bits were put in a box and shaken. The TT02 chassis to me is a work of art; it looks far better than any comparable chassis. To my eye at least. I used to sail small dinghies - a Mirror. If you know them; they're small, two-person dinghies with a tiny spinnaker, a blunt prow and pretty low performance. You didn't have to be a super-fit Olympic athlete to be good at sailing them, and you didn't have to be rich, either. Not many other sailboats could claim that. Single-class racing with them was a total hoot - really close racing, safe from a collision point of view becasue you would rarely go quick enough to injure or damage anyone or anything (unlike, say 18' skiffs). Just good plain fun - but in terms of a sailing club very much the 'underdogs'. They're pretty little timber boats too. Back to cars, and ok, yes, I'm a Tamiya fan-boy, so I've got myself a Tamiya car. I can see myself getting a Frog (I always wanted one!) and probably a Hornet, too. Hopefully nearby clubs have a vintage class to race in, and really I'm just there for fun, not glory and riches. If that makes me an underdog, then I'm perfectly OK with that. It makes doing well a bit sweeter when you can get a placing without having spent a fortune to do it.

I just got bitten by the buggy bug, after 30-something years of dark ages. My wife and I also just cleared away some significant debts, and we've finally got some cash to spend; so.... I strongly recommended to my wife that a Neo Scorcher would be an excellent Xmas present. Luckily she agreed! She doesn't yet realise what the future holds, as I have also persuaded (it wasn't hard) two old school friends to make the same purchases. Of course after seeing some of the awesome builds here, I've gone and purchased some parts; not totally overboard, yet; alloy transmission shaft and steel outdrives, bearings of course. A decent 3ch radio, because the build list also contains a Tamiya 1/72 Vosper patrol boat that is going to get converted to RC. We've been careful - nothing on credit!