DarkSonic

Right before Christmas and after 6 months without any RC work, I did myself a present. Normaly I'm a LRP guy, but couldn't resist... Castle creations brushless combo Build quality is absolutely top. Now with the parts from Christmas, I can complete my DF01/DB02 Frankenstein

Excuse the delay. I have to work harder than normal in my second occupation. Life is getting more expensive, so there is not so much money left for the Tamiyas (second cheaper hobby). @BuggyGuy @kontemaxunfortunately not. I still have to order the tires and paint the body. Also the RC components are missing. I will switch over to 2.4 GHz, so I search for a used Sanwa M12 or MT

Perfect hop uped TA02. Especially with these rare parts like the bumper and the stabilizer

Manta Ray should be gray.

Took some pictures of my 90% ready DF01/DB01 Hybrid long time project.

Since the last update I've done severall tiny steps. Everytime I found some minutes I worked on the car, so there were no step by step updates. But here we are. The DF01 now is 90% complete. Yesterday I had some time to take some better pictures. So I let the pictures talk. I really love the look of the chassis. It's so much work and it would look nice on the shelf, but I have to run it. The next steps will be to address some small refinements on the chassis (e.g. change Diff outdrives and glue them in etc.), order and install the electronic components, order some tires (think I go oldschool with TF Tires) and one big point: Paint the TF Body. Currently I don't know which colors I will choose. The rims are fluorescent yellow.

It's a normal progress in all vintage scenes. The people began to collect pieces of their youth. But they getting older and ,at the end, die. The next generation didn't have interest in these pieces, because they are not of their youth. A good example is the real car market. Cars from the 80s and 90s are on a high they never seen. Cars before WW2 or short after are getting cheaper, because the potential buyers are dieing out. Only a small amount of "younger" people like the cars. So it is with the vintage RC Scene. I'm 37 and startet with the agebof 12 with RC Cars. My first car was a Super Hornet. So I have to admit a Frog, Boomerang or something older isn't that desireable for me as a Top Force Evolution or a Dyna Storm. Just because these cars were old when I was young. So think the scene will life again, but the cars will change.

9415283 is a spare part from a kit. Seems it's not offered in the USA. If you only need the thrust washers and balls 9804400 and 53379 are you parts. 53379 is a upgrade over the steel ones.

9415283 is the part Number for the balls and plates in the diff. If you alredy have a EVO, you have the best diff in the line. The aluminium parts are more precise regards tolerances etc. You can use harder balls 53379 if you want to upgrade.

@SuperluminalRelly nice job. Motivates me to build my TA02RS replica. I have investigated the mystery with the collars on the hard drives. Here are the original instructions for 53219. As the instructions say, you have to glue in the hard drives into the corresponding diff parts before you assemble the differential. Now here's the point. If you put in the hard drives in the diff parts, you can insert them to far. So during assembly you will have a problem. Here the collars provide a fixed distance and no problems with assembly. With the normal balldiff you never use these because Tamiya never suggested to glue in the hard drives. Another benefit with these collars, you put the axial load from the hard drives on the inner ring of the bearing. Without them the load goes on the plates of the ball diff. I think because of this the collars are included in the package with the universal shafts. As for the instructions for 54219 I have to revise my post. You don't need the collars on the TF Evo but on any other DF01, TA01 and TA02. On the Evo you alredy have the collars on the 9805419 hard drives. I hope this helped a bit. But feel free to criticize.

You all texting so fast 😂 Tomorrow I will check the parts and hopefully can clarify the misterious collar question with pictures. I think i know why Tamiya used this is the 53219 option.

I have to step in in this discussion. 9805419 is the correct one for the light diff option and are originaly used in the TF Evolution 58107 But, if you buy these option as a hop up 53219, the instruction says to use the collars on the Touring cars, but not on the off road cars. So for the Ta02RS the 53217 is the correct part, as these didn't have the additional build in collar So with the 9805419 you didn't need the brass collars as they already have these build in.

Took my old BoLink Super Sport out of storage. The car saw not much driving time, but a lot of dust from a 3 year long renovation of our house. So now after 18 years out of service the car gets a cleanup and a small restoration. With no suitable racetrack nearby, the chassis will become a shelf queen.

Over a half year later, here's the next update Had a lot to do the last months, so there wasn't that much time for such projects. If I had some spare minutes I've done some small steps, but didn't always take pictures or had time to document it. So here now, a big step forward. Last week I found some time to mill out the chassis plates and damper stays on the CNC. This is the Version 2 of the lower deck. As you can see, the extension at the rear differential, is now closed. I had to change my rear gearbox cover to a new version. On the old one it was nearly impossible to reach the lower screws. So the new one is much taller, the screws are easy accessible and it looks more factory. I also installed the aluminium parts to stiffen up the weak points of the Top Force construction. I hope to find some time to assemble the parts at the front. I'm also not sure about the motor i will use. Think i will stay with a brushed tamiya or LRP motor.

Eventually I can help. I think I can produce the sheet metal and the heat sink on a CNC. You can send me a message with the files, if this will be an option for you.