ZenMoto

Yep, according to the manual on my Mercedees (kit # 58317) they are supposed to go on in the order they are numbered on the sheet. But they have the order wrong on a couple because, as I said, that had me put "door handle" stickers on beneath the silver strip graphics which looks really, really bad! lol Ah well, live and learn. I'm scared to death to even touch my Lancia 037 when it arrives!

I like Renco's idea, and I'd love to do that ...sadly I had excellent taste when I was a kid! lol The top of my list was 1. Bruiser 2. Porsche 959 3. Hotshot (I actually bought and raced that) 4. Toyota Toms (I love LeMans cars) and 5. Monster Beetle. ...I'm just glad I was *just* past the era of the Sand Scorcher. lol I see a NIB Bruiser on ebay at a shade of $2000 ...reserve NOT MET!!! ...I'm calling my parents to yell at them for not letting me get one! []

I did go back to the office. I discharged the pack, then charged it back at 4amps. Then I let it cool, and peak charged at again with a fan on it. In total this took less than 2 hours (enough time for me to get some drawings done for actual work). ...I took the car out, fired it up and it went like a "raped-ape" as my Dad likes to say ...too bad it only did it for about a minute before the throttle froze again sending the car into a concrete step at full tilt (that did some damage to the nice Alteeza body). I don't know what to do. I'm tempted to ditch this whole car and wait for my new ESC and other running gear for the TB02 ...I think this car is cursed. 1 minute run times are just plain rediculous! I got better than that running my old Blackfoot with a Diamond #2 motor at full tilt, and that was in 1987 with a stock Tamiya battery pack! [] ...OTOH, ...that car is really fast, and handles like a dream!!! []

Yeah, I don't know that I'll be bashing that one around a lot, but I think I will build it. I'm not really into the collecting for the sake of having them thing. I'm going to wait until I have a few more bodies with decals under my belt before I try that one though, I thouroughly butchered my Mercedees! lol Tamiya put the stickers on the sheet in the wrong order so that you put the door handles on beneath the door graphics. Ah well, I screwed up the holes on it already, it will be a beater body ...too bad though, I really like that shell. I may have to get another one to put on the TA04. []

Thanks a ton Jozza. I have been turning it up to 3.0 amps for fast charging, but i will try discharging, then recharging them at 4.0. Looks like I'll have to run into the office today (Sat) as I have nothing else to do ...and it's beautiful out. ...I might even ride my cruiser instead of the sportbike! []

Oh man, that's exactly what we need. ...as long as it's free! ...I need all my money for more kits! []

From the looks of it the driver is the standard ABS plastic fare and the tub is a vacuum formed white polystyrene. Most any paint will do for ABS, but some paints can damage polystyrene. Acrylic is always a safe bet for poly, but check the labels of whatever paint you are thinking of using, it should say if is unsuitable for poly. Also, since the piece is vacuum formed, there is a lot of flash that will be cut off, you can always test out paint on some of that flashing. My guess (I don't know for sure) is that being a synthetic laquer, and being from Tamiya, it would be safe for polystyrene. Good luck.

I just ordered a Lancia 037. [] ...I must stop now! With my Monster Beetle, TA04 (now officially named "The *******"), the TB-02 rally project and this ...I simply have to stop! lol ...unless I find a great deal on a Juggernaut 2! [] So any big tips on the 037? Behind the Stratos, it is my next favorite rally car of all time.

Ah, thanks! I'll be keeping an eye out for it then. []

Thanks guys. I looked at the body on Walawala, but it is for the short wheelbase M chassis. I need one to fit my TB-02. ...too bad, it's a decent looking body. The one by Carson looks like the winner, but I haven't found any in the US yet. ..still looking. []

No I don't have another charger ...and I'm kinda stuck for the weekend. All my kit is at the office and I'm not. lol The charger & battery are both brand new. This was the first time I tried running the battery and I have to say I'm more than a little disappointed. I already have to send the second battery back as the charger didn't see it was there at all. I'm beginning to think they sent me a **** charger!!! With all the money I've spent in the last couple weeks getting back into RC, I'm very bummed to say the least that I have had awhopping 1 minute of "play" time for all the hundreds of dollars and time spent. *sigh* Monday I'll probably have to pack the charger up and return it to Tower hobbies. I'll go buy a replacement locally and wait for Tower to reimburse me. Thanks again for all the help.

Thanks guys. Today I read somewhere that said "Never deep-cycle your Ni-MH battery!" ...oops! It didn't say anything like that with the battery or the charger so I didn't know. I sure hope I didn't screw the pack ($65 battery) but I only got about a minute run time (read my other post) before the power dropped to where my car freaked out (throttle locked, but steering still worked???) I suspect there is something seriously wrong with my setup. [] The charger I have is the Duratrax Intellipeak Pulse It claims you should never to charge at over 3 Amps, but if Trinity say it's ok, I may try it. What I really need is for my new ESC and servo to show up for my TB-02 so I have known *new* system to try out. I am thoroughly frustrated with my TA04!

Ok, ...replying to my own post, but now I am confused. ...the car runs fine on the fully charged pack ...for about 2 minutes, then the pack suddenly feels dead and the car freaks out (throttle locks up). It's been awhile, and I had never used Ni-MH batteries before, but should't a fully charged 3600mah battery give me more than a minute of run time? My old Hotshot used to go nearly as fast for a LOT longer on a much smaller NiCd battery. What's really weird, if I put the pack on the Intellipeak charger, it indicates that the battery is still close to peak charge and will switch to tricle charge after only a few minutes. I can't do this again today as the battery needs to cool, but it strikes me as odd that it is dead so soon.

Yeah, the Tx batteries are fully charged. I actually (finally) got it to work ...kind of. It seems my freshly charged 3600mah Ni-MH battery was dead. Weird! Brand new battery, doesn't work at all. As soon as there was a load on the wheels (on the ground instead of suspended in the air) the receiver didn't get enough power and would lock up and run straight into a wall. ...very dissapointing. [] I've got the battery pack back on the charger ...we'll see.

The car I bought has a Futaba MC330CR ESC in it. I have the 3PK radio and a freshly charged battery but I can't program the ESC. The directions are pretty clear on how to do it, except the ESC isn't following the rules. Step 1 is to switch on the transmitter, which I do. Step 2 is to switch on the receiver, when I do that the EXC just beeps continuously and the LED flashes. This isn't supposed to happen. It's supposed to beep either once to indicate "Reverse mode" or twice for "braking only" mode. After that I should be able to program it. I'm at a loss here. If anyone has any advice I'd appreciate it. I've been waiting for a week to finally run this car, and now I'll have to wait until next week due to this. The car is stranded here in my office and it's pouiring rain out ..I was hoping to run it around on the carpet! [] But no way to get it home for the weekend so it'll be Monday before I can even try again. [] Thanks guys.

Yes yes, I'm a noob (again). Having just got back into the hobby I am dying to get my new (used) TA04R out and running. However, I bought two 3600mah NiMH batteries and promtly put one on my trickle charger (Intellipeak Pulse Charger). ...this was Wednesday afternoon around 3-4pm. It's now Friday noon and it is still charging. I was expecting, at most, 35 hours to initially charge, but at 42 hours of charging, this is rediculous! [V] Any thoughts?

Speaking of "Rally Worthy" I read today, on some random site, that if buying the TB-02 chassis with thoughts of rallying, to get one of the rally TB-02 kits (WRX, EVO) as it has more clearance and metal differntial gears. Can anyone comfirm this? It doesn't seem like Tamiya's style to have different parts in chassis with identical designations. ...but if it's true, there might be some heavier-duty differntial parts around for my TB-02. [] Great info and pics on your car BTW Super. ...nice job.

I just mentioned this in another this on another thread, but any anodizing shop can strip off the color by butting it in with a batch that is being chemically prepped for anodizing. You may even be able to get them to do it free if they have a batch going in. You should try calling around before going through all the hassle of oven-cleaner, sanding and polishing. Good luck.

Any idea where he got the shell? I found one company that sells the entire Carson Kit for 220 pounds (I don't have that funky "pounds" symbol on my keyboard and I'm way to lazy to hunt for it on the character map) [] I also dropped a note to Kamtek in case they ever plan to do a Stratos body, but I doubt it. Thanks Biggus

Does anyone know if there is a 1/10 scale Lancia Stratos body made ...by anyone? It is my all time favorite rally car and I would love to build my TB-02 into one. The closest I've found is this kit by Carson (never heard of them before) and it says it's a 180mm which wouldn't work anyway. [] Anyone?

quote:Originally posted by ZenMotoSuper, Check your local yellow pages for an anodizing shop. If they drop those arms in a batch of "prep" it will strip the anodizing right off and leave them shiny silver ...they may even do it for free when they have a small batch going in. We do a lot of anodizing here and that's just one of those little things you pick up. BTW, Anodizing is done by the batch, and though the cost is spendy at first ($100), however, if you were to get all your aluminum parts together and have them all anodized the same color the cost wouldn't change. ...you could get all your aluminum parts anodized black, red, purple, etc for about $100 ...if you cared! [] I checked out Asitees but they didn't really have anything for either my ta04 or my tb-02 right now. [] I may end up getting the aluminum hub carriers (front and rear) eventually, but they are out of stock right now anyway. ...I'm wondering if the ta04 set will fit the tb-02. I know a lot of the parts are interchangeable. id="quote">id="quote">

This is just the first Google hit I tried. http://www.displaycasej.bigstep.com/generic28.html You may be able to find pre-fabricated stuff elsewhere cheaper.

Super, Check your local yellow pages for an anodizing shop. If they drop those arms in a batch of "prep" it will strip the anodizing right off and leave them shiny silver ...they may do it for free when they have a small batch going in. We do a lot of anodizing here and that's just one of those little things you pick up. BTW, Anodizing is done by the batch and though the cost is spendy at first $100, if you were to get all your aluminum parts together and have them all anodized the same color the cost wouldn't change. ...you could get all your aluminum parts anodized black, red, purplee, etc for about $100 ...if you cared! [] I checked out Asitees but they didn't really have anything for either my ta04 or my tb-02 right now. [] I may end up getting the aluminum hub carriers (front and rear) eventually, but they are out of stock right now anyway. ...I'm swondering if the ta04 set will fit the tb-02. I know a lot of the parts are interchangeable.

lol I know, that's where I drilled, and I was very precise to center exactly on those dots ...and they were an eighth inch too far towards the rear. [] Ah well, not a huge deal, it will still look pretty good, but the holes will be a little on the oblong side. hehe

Well, I am depressed! I just got done cutting out the body, and sanding the wheel arches perfectly smooth on my new Mercedees CLK (TB-02) only to drill the body post holes and find they were marked a full 1/8" off. [V] So now the body sits too far forward on the car and the tires rub the back of the wheel wells. I'm bummed, it is the first car I've built in 13 years and I took great care to make sure everything was right, then screwed the pooch on the body! ...looks like I'll have a good runner shell at least. So what's the trick to getting the holes in the right place? It's not like you can set the body all the way down on the chassis to line everything up. Tips?