TAZ-NZ

Very cool Thomas, Makes me wish I hadn't sold my lunchbox. I'm no expert on the lunchbox but I suggest you fit a shock tower brace like the in the image below: I'd also suggest using a set of Frog Aluminum Hex adaptors, instead of the stock wheel hubs plus HPI adaptors setup you currently have. Not sure if it will be relevant to you but on my Grasshopper II (same transmission as Lunchbox), I placed a shim on the left rear axel between the bevel gear & the axel bearing, this remove the excess play from the diff gears and prevent the side to side movement on the rear axels. Can't wait to see the final result.

Billg4 love the franken-brat, there'd got to be parts from a half dozen different kits in there. TLT Wheels Stampede uprights, brat swing arms and front body post. mudblaster rear body posts & rear shocks King blackfoot chassis unless it's just painted black blackfoot battery door/ holders. Glad I'm not the only one that uses parts from any compatible kit.

Seems to be an issue for the re-release Frog/Brat items. http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29761

The Oldfrogshot mod only requires you to tap one of the drive cups, the other drive cup you need to drill out so that it spins freely on the screw, it's also a good idea to countersink the untapped drive cup to accept the head of the screw. When assembling the diff, apply diff grease to countsink hole in the drive cup and the head of the screw, this allows it to spin more freely and prevents it binding. I've applied this mod to three sets of re-release Frog axles, two sets for the dog bone axles and one set of the universal axles, I've also got a custom set of axles with this mod, made by Oldfrogshot himself using TA04 drive cups. It's a great mod, but it takes a little tweaking to the screw just right, too loose and it doesn't do anything, too tight and you end up locking the diff. Get it right and you can abuse the diff no end and it will just take it. Make sure you give the locktight on the screw thread a full 24 hours to set hard, otherwise the screw tends to break loose.

The wheel finally got here today, They're Imex 2" vintage items design for an RC-10, 1" wide on the front, 1.5" on the rear. They're wrapped in vintage 2" Pro-Line Striker tires. So once again I have a rolling chassis, I need to make adaptors for the rear wheels, as currently there is no way to transfer power to them from the rear axels. I've also fitted a vintage Parma front bumper design for a Grasshopper or Frog, needed a little modding to fit, but I think it looks alot better that the ugly stock item. Anyway here are some more pictures (sorry about my bad photography) Starting to look like something, I'll probably pick up some paint over the long weekend. I still need to tweak the steering servo high and clearance to give me travel. I've go a couple of ideas for some extra detailing to the body, but only one I sure about so far. (edit) Since posting this I've insert some black speaker mesh (like the image below) behind the air ducts holes in the body, to give the feeling they are covered with grills. I'm thinking I'll use a modified Brat driver torso & arms with the stock grasshopper head/helmit mounted on it, and mounting it the chassis. This will hide the third shock mod and the radio gear better, and should look a lot better the having a head and shoulder screwed to the top of the body. It also means I can fillin the screw hole in the roof before I paint the body.

Yeah I think 17t will be enough for me two, and it's a vintage 17t so it's problably a little less insane than the modern ones. If you have any question about the third shock mod, hit me with the them. From looking at images of the GH 1 chassis, it look like there is plenty of room to fit the mod.

thanks In my mind it's more fun and more of a challange, to take a "low end" kit and make it run well, than it is to take a highend kit and replace everything with bolt on aftermarket parts. Don't think for a minute the idea of running brushless didn't cross my mind, but by the time I had that Idea I had already purchased the ESC.

Thanks for the comments, I'll be posting more updates even if this isn't the post popular thread on the site, I think it should look good when it's done, I figure the blue shocks will go well with the blue in the decals.

I'm slowly making progress on Grasshopper 2, I had to go and take one of Tamiya's simpliest chassis and make things complex. Since I last posted pictures of my third shock mod here, I've upgrade the shocks to Yeah Racing Aluminum Items, 70mm on the front 90mm on rear, and an 80mm internally, I still need to fill them all with oil. I've rebuild and ball raced the transmission and replaced a bent rear axel, I still need to shim the diff, there is more play in it that I would like currently. I've fitted a Dynatech 01R motor just yesterday, I figured a black can motor would look better, and it's nice to have a little bit of vintage tamiya in the mix, I've got new 17 turn rotor assembly and 5 spare sets of brushes on there way, I'll probably try and pick up another 17 turn rotor, and replace the bearings in the future. I've centered the steering servo, mod the chassis to suit, I also upside the steering ball end, rod ends and steering rod to stronger items, I still need to mod the servo mounts to lower the servo more inside the chassis, to give me a little more clearance on the steering arms. I've made a aluminum shelf for the ESC to mount to, it's made out of an old blackfoot under tray. Still on my to do list are: Paint the body and the chaissis, the body will be dark metalic silver and the chassis I'll just paint black to hide where I modded it to center the steering. (I need to pop out to my LHS and get some paint first). Fit the wheels and tires once the new wheels get here, the front should go straight on, the rears may need some mods to work. (I'll probably paint them to match the body. Fit the raidio reciever and hook up every thing to it, I also need to get a standard size battery pack all mine are hump packs currently for my blackfoot and mudblaster. Fit the new bumper and apply orginal decals. I'm currently waiting on the wheels and new front bumper to arrive.

I'd rate the screw mod a must for any runner, even with the stock motor you get a curtain level of slip going from forward to reverse. Anything other than a stock motor will have issue with diff slip. High torque motors are worse than high rpm motors at distroying diffs.

Mad Bull Wheels work too, same as the Wild Willy 2 wheels just in yellow not chrome. While the lunchbox/Wild Willy 2/Mad Bull front wheels will fit on the king Blackfoot front axles, you need to watch out for clearance issue with the front uprights, I think you will find the come in contact with the back of the wheels. Lunchbox uprights will bolt straight onto the king blackfoot but may limit the steering angle a little more than the stock items.

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone. I'm a little worried about the ball joints myself, they're from a Blackfoot heavy duty steering kit, it's very much a case of I used what I had laying around. My saving grace will probably that the two rod ends that make up the push-rod are alway in compression, so little force will be acting on the thin loop part.

I picked up a Grasshopper II the other week on Ebay, that I Restore/Mod. The picture below is as it appeared on ebay, I've since dissambled it and strip the plan evil paint job. And now it looks like this, it's got a ways to go before it will be back under it's own power, I'm still waiting on a number of parts to come. It's going to be a runner/basher so I'm upgrading what I can. One thing I really wanted to get rid of was the back axel clack, that you get with the lunchbox transmission/live axel setup. But there's no room of the Grasshopper II chassis to fit the thrid shock in front of the transmission like on the Lunchbox, so I had to think outside the box, and this is what I came up with. (made for a couple of servo horns, some TLT axel mounts and few rod ends.) Still need to mod the Transmission housing to allow for the push rod, but it's basically done. I'm going to be running a Hitec ESC, so there is no need for the MSC and Throttle Servo mount, so there plenty of room to mount the thrid shock. The Reciver will be tucked down the side of the battery compartment where the throttle servo would normally be, the ESC will be mounted on a small aluminum shelf where the resister pack would normall go, just above the Cam.

Looks like your missing the C14 part, but otherwise it's looks good nick,I'm presuming the wheels & tires are just out of shot. I've got to say though, I'm not a fan of the CRP chassis brace, they do a great job but they aren't pretty. I prefer to buy a Super Blackfoot B-Parts tree and replace the aluminum speed controller stay with the SBF B1 part, and the servo cover with the SBF B10 part, the extra two mount points for the SBF servo cover make it act as a brace for the shock tower, and looks almost stock, once the body is on only the keenest eyes will ever pickup the difference. I look forward to watching your progress, I'm in the process of dissembling and rebuilding with a few mods a Super-G Grasshopper II, not as complex as Blackfoot but still going to be fun.

I'm with Backlash on this one, get a good charger it's worth it in the long run. My cars are for bashing not racing and I've got the DuraTrax IntelliPeak ICE it's a great charger, loads of great features & easy to use. (get the optional heat sensor) Save you self a lot of money and don't get a 12v AC adapter, just pick up a cheap (free) generic 350watt ATX power supply with a manual on/off swith & a 16amp 12volt rail, open it up (make sure it's unplugged and isn't holding a charge first) and soldier the green wire (pin 14) to the ground rail (black), de-soldier and remove all other wires that aren't yellow or black, then get all the thicker yellow cables and bundle them together (normal about a half dozen cables) and soldier them into a RED banana socket, then take an equal number of thick black cable and soldier them in a Black banana socket, remove any remaining Yellow and Black cable that are not in use, mount the banana socket in the power supply housing and close it up, test output. You now have a cheap, ugly, but very effective high current 12volt power adapter to run your battery charger off. (The air flow from PSU fan can also be used to cool battery while charging.)

Thanks for that, that's what I thought but just want to check to be sure. Yeah I planned on using a servo extension or something similar like you suggested, it seamed the most pratical way to do it without a extra work. Thanks again.

I picked up the Super G - Grasshopper II pictured below of ebay, I haven't received it yet but I though I start planning out what I want to do with it. My current list of to do's is: Strip and restore body, and apply new decals (orginal set of decal on there way) Replace front uprights with Lunchbox items, to allow for wider front wheels to be fitted. Upgrade front steering links to blackfoot items with 5mm rod adjusters and ball connecters. Rebuild transmission with new gear and fit ball bearings all round. Check oil filled shocks new refresh if needed. Finish sourcing wider Tires and wheels, driver and a few spares. I plan to run a Hitec DCX reciver, Hitec HS-325HB servo, and EXZ-R Pro ESC, now the ESC is good for a 17 turn motor and 8.4volt battery. Now this is where I start to need advice, I was thinking of running a Venom Fireball 17T double wound Motor with a Trintry 7-Cell 8.4V 5000mAh Hump Battery, I'll probably also replace the motor leads with Low Resistance items. Now it's probably over-kill, but do you think the chassis/transmission handle the power ? Also does anyone have any ideas on a rear sway bar or other mod to help with transmisson clack you get with these cars, I know about the Lunchbox third shock mod but i'm not sure there is enough room to do it on this chassis. I'm interested in any other mods hop-ups extras that will help handling or reliablity that I can do to this car. It will be a runner, but other than changing the wheels I want to keep it looking as stock as possible. Any tips or tricks that help me, well be gratefully received.

I run a Hitec DCX reciever and Hitec EZX-R Pro ESC with BEC, can I safely place a on/switch switch in the cable bewteen the ESC & the receiver to cut power from the bec to the receiver. (Please note there is no seperate bec cable with this setup). I want to run a remote power switch that is in a more accessible spot on, so I don't have to remove the car body to disconnect the battery or switch off the ESC.

I've thought about doing something like this myself, to build something that look like my cousins truck. I've seen a couple of these done I'd be interested to see how you get on.

I found myself with a bit of time on my hands, so i whipped up a CAD drawing of all the parts in a trinty Rear Anti-Sway bar. The images are rendered in Rhino CAD which I used to draw the parts, you'll find in the attach .Zip file a copy of the CAD drawing in .3dm .dxf .dwg formats. The drawings are not 0.01mm purfect, but they are close enough that they should be useful to anyone who might wish to make there own sway bar.

The 19turns are probably ok, the 10 turn will probably be lacking torgue and will probably make the car un-controllable once at top speed. With my 22turn at full throttle I can hear the front tires skidding sideways as I corner on Asphalt, on grass it turns a lot better but borders on rolling over some times. I like the punch of the higher torgue motor gives. Once you choose the motor your going to use, have a play with different combos of spur and pinon gears, this is where the adjustable motor mount is great because you can try no standard combos of gears to find the best option for your setup. ESC wise, as I've said I run a Hitec EZR-R Pro which is good down to 17turns and up to 7 cells, so it would work with the 19turn motors, the 10turn motor again is a problem as most reversible ESCs max out a 12turn motors, and there is no point having a back yard basher that can't go in reverse. A lot of people run Novak ESCs but most of them are limited to 6cell operation and again I like the punch of 8.4v 7 cell battery to that of a standard 6 cell, but in the end you need something that matches your motor and battery setup and fits your budget. By the way I like your yellow Mudblaster, I normally prefer them in blue but the bright yellow with the matching wheels works.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking they might be, but having never seen the orginal Strikers or road hawgs I wasn't sure. I did a little more research and looks like its got, 1.9-2.0" diameter 1.5" wide rear wheels and 1.9-2.0" diameter 1.33" wide front wheels. It give the car a balanced look that I like, I sure it will cost me a small fortune get the right tires but I want the that look.

I guess your right then , hope you don't mind me using it, it's just it took me 30+ hours to put the guide together as it was without taking photos of everything. Looks like a good idea and I agree with you that it's easy to break the H1 (blackfoot) or E3 (super blackfoot) part, so it's a good idea to reinforce it, only problem is on the blackfoot unlike the super blackfoot the front shock tower (part J11) mounts flush to the top of the H1 part so there is no room for a metal plate on top like your picture shows. It's could be done but not without modifying the J11 part, and then there still the problem of the H1 part breaking off level with the front of the frame, which I can't see this fixing. Lucky for everyone, thanks to the re-release Frog & Brat the H parts tree is now easy and cheap to get(no more $100 USD ebay auctions for them), so we have a ready supply of H1 parts as replacements. I not sure how easy it is to get the E parts tree for the super blackfoot, so it's probably wise to reinforce the E3 part incase they become hard to source. (I may have to widen the scope of the guide to include chassis other version of the blackfoot chassis before I add your idea, but thanks for the tip.) My H1 is protected and reinforced by a big ugly JG front bumper, most people don't like their looks, but they do a great job of taking impacts when you crash head long into something. There are a whole host of hop-ups I can add, but I'm trying to keep it to the purely practical stuff at the moment. As for performance mods thats easy, do everything on the list so the chassis can take it the extra power and handles well enough that you can drive it at speed. Then get yourself a 7 Cell 8.4volt hump pack like mine, a good ESC that can run 8.4v I run a Hitec EZR-R Pro, a good high performance motor with a bit of torque, the blackfoot isn't a light truck so while a 17 turn motor may give you a lot of top end speed it will take longer to get up and going, better to choice something with good torque and speed, I run a Kyosho Magnetic Mayhem 550can 22turn motor (loads of torque and plenty of top end speed), remember torque is not your enemy once you do the oldfrogshot screw mod, also make sure you use good motor lead the Trinity Golden No Solder Leads are the easy option, a good high torque servo and your set. Once you do the tranny mods you'll be amazed how much power you can put down to the ground, I had to change the throttle profile in my controller to keep the front wheels on the ground. The wheels and tires in the last image are Pro-Line Striker II tires on HPI 5 Star wheels, the tires are available everywhere, but I'm not sure if you can still get the wheels they were very common at one point.

I came a cross this grasshopper 2 in a complete ebay auction. I love to build one with similar wheels but I can't work out what size they are or where they're from. The front tires appear to be Pro-line Striker II's, but they are aren't the 2.2 version because they only have 3 zip-zag thread which makes them to narrow as the 2.2 version have 5 zipzags. The rear tires apper to be Pro-line Road Hawg II's, but again they seam to small in the image to be 2.2 version. anyone have any ideas about these tires and wheels ?

Ironically many of the mods I came up with to save money on replacement parts. I've got a showroom it's just embarrassing. It's way out of date with images of my old orange blackfoot but none of my new purple blackfoot, there are still details of my abandoned 4 wheel drive lunchbox crawler project in there, but nothing about my current 4x4 blackfoot project , It shows mudblaster that's never going to be painted at this rate because my painting skills suck that bad. It needs a update bad, I probably will in the near future and post the guide in with my current blackfoot. Not sure it was that website that I got it from, but yeah it's borrowed (it's funny how some images have a life of their own on web). Many of the images are just something I had laying around on my HDD, If I get time I'll probably update it with all original images, but I just didn't have the time to take apart my blackfoot to photo everything.