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MetBoy

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About MetBoy

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  • Birthday 03/13/1973

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    Melbourne, Australia
  1. Not until after this at least: http://www.kyosho.com/eng/products/rc/detail.html?product_id=111610 C..
  2. I nabbed a few bits from Banzai, but a couple of things I was after were already out of stock with them and their supplier so they would not backorder. So maybe get in there quick. One of the things I could not get from them is wheels, did get some arms and a body though. JR-RC did have some bits, but he has dicked me around of late and I would not trust him as far as I could throw him. If he gets your order right you are safe, if he ***** it up or it gets lost in the mail you may as well write it off. He never responds to emails, from you or Paypal in my experience. I am waiting for A-Main to get things in. No joy so far. Will probably grab quite a bit when they do. C..
  3. Thommo, I am hanging my head in shame. Too. Many. Projects!!! I forget the last time I posted anything to my showroom. I keep a list of NIB kits and projects on my phone that I still have to upload to my showroom and I just checked it then, it is up to 40!! And that does not include the re-re Optima that is in the mail. Holy crap! Hoping to have my Astute on the road for at least one round of the Castle Hill Vintage meet this year. We are planning a road trip up from Melbourne. Very excited. Still have a little to do though. Found a clever bloke with a CNC mill so one step closer to getting the hub out of my head. I still have your broken ones right here on my desk at work, and I pull them out all the time to consider how I might go about it. I love threads like this one, always put a fire back under me. C..
  4. Ooh, I do love a good Astute thread!! Will be watching with baited breath. The reinforced arms were news to me, I had no idea the Mk1 arms had been a weak point and that the Mk2 even existed. I cannot imagine mine will ever get abused sufficiently for this to be an issue. Mine are all Mk1. Thanks for the outer link bushes/bearing situation, it had never occurred to me that the bushes would deal with it better, I guess I am always thinking about the friction and not the likely abuse they would be subjected to under use. Once again the light use mine will get will probably make it less essential, something for my next rebuild. I have been trying to get some modified rear hubs out of my head for years now as mine are both cracked as yours are. I have a carbon fiber aluminium arrangement in mind. Have tried 3D modeling it a few times now, sadly a bit too complicated for my CAD skills. I need to find someone with the skills who also an RC junkie who will work on it for the love of it, or for food or something. I look forward to seeing where you take this. C..
  5. In the immortal words of Jeremy Clarkson, "I think I might be having a little crisis".
  6. Welcome! It is a noble thing you do. Putting any old RC car back is service is a beautiful thing!! Great fun too. I do not know of any guide to the process, every project is different, and yours looks like a dream project! If tyres are history, then you should still be able to get them new, as this car was re-released in 2012. If they are just a little stiff from age, then they can be rejuvenated, I rub mine in peanut oil and seal them up in a zip lock bag for a few weeks. Shock oil, as you say will need replacing, hopefully enough of the old stuff will still be in there to keep o-rings and things supple, if not, they too can be pretty easily replaced. If you do not have the original manual you can find a digital version on Tamiyaclub.com, cause if it were me I would probably strip it back to the last screw, clean it up as I put it back together. Not entirely necessary, especially as you know the history of the car, but still good fun. Minimum you should do after being in the closet for so long would be to pull out the drive train and clean/re-oil bearings, clean/re-grease gear train. Assuming it had the manual speed controller in it, it will definitely benefit from a good clean and re-lubricating, if you are planning on running it, you could even update to the electronic speed controller as per the 2012 re-release, much smoother, more economical and reliable. If you would prefer to stick with the period setup, the speed controller will definitely benefit from regular cleaning and lubricating. The batteries will probably be history, or at least pretty poor, so here you need to make a decision, you can still get a nicad similar to what you had, assuming your charger still works you are good to go. However.... Your charger is a good old fashion timed version, it will just keep pushing current into the battery until the timer stops it. It will let you over charge a battery without even blinking. So, you could get a new charger, a modern 4 button charger will be cheap and simple, but you then have the capacity to charge Lipo or nimh batteries, both of which will give you better runtimes. Nicads will work, nimh will give you higher capacity therefore longer runtimes, both of these are simple to own and maintain. You run them til the car starts to go slow then you rest/recharge them and do it all again. Lipo will have a higher voltage giving slightly higher speed, and higher capacity again, meaning longer runtimes, but you need to take a bit more care with them. The cells do not have a metal case like nicad and nimh, so they do not like been chucked around. They will also die if you over discharge them, in this situation the standard tamiya electronic speed controller will not help, its low voltage cutoff is for LiFe batteries and is too low for lipo. (LiFe is another option, but at 3v per cell they are either too high a voltage or to low a voltage for mot applications). If you look after them lipo batteries are great, just ditch them if they puff up. Assuming your radio still works, and KO were pretty reliable, my EXii from back in the day still works faultlessly, you should be good to go with just some fresh AA's. I envy you, a Supershot has yet to cross my project desk. Good luck!! Cristian..
  7. Your story sounds strangely similar to mine, only mine re-started 15 years ago, and has stretched to quite a few models since then. (Don't tell my wife!) I would be in the same position as you only an original Bruiser came along and is stealing my attention away from my re-re. You have an excellent setup, I approve of it all! Great radio, servos cannot be too big in my opinion. ESC should give you scope to move to brushless (not sure you would want too), and can easily drive some high wind crawler motors should you want some more torque. If you want runtime then you have to go with Lipo, and given you are sticking with 540, 2S will be fine, not sure the 540 would take a 3S, I guess it would. (2s = 7.4v, 3s = 11.1v) The re-re Bruiser has a tray for a standard NiMh/Nicad stick pack, like you would have used back in the day, if you want to leave that unmolested, just measure it and head to HobbyKing and get the highest capacity Lipo you can that will fit in the space, stickpack shaped lipos are harder to find and not always exactly the same size. To be honest, I am planning on using a soft pack lipo in mine, it will only be getting some gentle running, and I am not worried about it, 5000-6000mah or more should fit. Should give you plenty more than 10-15mins. I have heard of people opening one side of the tray to allow larger packs in. The more mah's the more runtime. High C rating packs will not hurt, but probably not strictly necessary. It represents the packs ability to deliver current, small would be 20C (20 x packs mah rating, so for a 5000mah, that is 100A constant current) and big would be 90C, that is a lot of current!! Chargers are breeze these days, a reasonably priced 6A four button Lipo charger should keep you out of trouble, might take a while to charge larger packs. Sky is pretty much the limit from there, there is always a bigger and better charger. Really cheap are worth avoiding, but really expensive is not necessary either. My opinion anyway. You will need to make sure the ESC is set to the correct low voltage cut off for whatever battery voltage you choose as over discharging is one of the guaranteed ways of killing a Lipo. I run my 2s lipo's to 6.6 volts, a good rule of thumb is never to discharge below 20% capacity, so only use 4000mah of a 5000mah pack. Takes a few charge cycles to work this out, the chargers tell you how many mah it puts back in. Of course you can always go back to NiMh batteries if you wish, as infrequent as lipo fires are, they do happen, looking after your batteries does reduce the risk. A 3000mah 7.2v NiMh batteries are still easy to get, runtime will not be as good obviously. Back in the original Bruiser days, many would piggy back two 7.2v packs to achieve similar. You could easily get 6000mah of NiMh joy, assuming two stick packs would fit on top of each other on the re-re, though not sure this would work. This reply is getting wordy, most important thing, have fun building it and have fun driving it! Look forward to hearing how you go. Cristian..
  8. Sorry, I do not have one for sale, but just wanted to say; Excellent choice!! Best of luck finding one, I have picked up a few good runners off eBay over the years to keep mine in tip top shape. I don't think they have been discontinued though, I would be surprised if you cannot track one down somewhere, most of the new bits I have bought have come from the UK. Just running a silver can in mine, and it is as tough as nails, only consumable so far, the body. Literally, I have not broken anything else on it. The current runner body is more glue than ABS, I do have a new one just in case, or for when I retire her too the shelf. My girls will shortly upgrade to Blitzer Beetles, with polycarb New Beetle bodies, so maybe the shelf maybe not be too far away, except I just love taking it to the beach!! http://tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=92287&id=8150 C..
  9. I remember this post on Tamiyablog from a few years back: http://tamiyablog.com/2010/01/tamiya-philippines-factory/ C..
  10. I found this blog pretty useful: http://www.thercracer.com/2014/08/tamiya-tt02-guide-mods-tuning-and-tips.html Only running 21.5 in mine, but still went with alloy prop shaft, yeah racing adjustable motor mount (The Tamiya alloy mount is a bit pointless), universals all round, adjustable upper arms, and high speed gear set. The suspension setup off the TT02S is an awesome upgrade. Bearings and shock upgrades are also a given.
  11. Have to admit to only ever running a transponder pack down beyond its limits. Left it plugged in after a race meeting and did not notice until the next week. Oops. Lipo was completely flat, had collapsed and was impossible to charge again, but thankfully the pack was only cents from hobby king, and I bought quite a few when I started moving my transponder around to run multiple classes. The $100 price tag for the transponders made less than a buck for the lipo pack a very attractive option! On any car I run lipo with Tamiya ESC, I use one of these: http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__22749__On_Board_Lipoly_Low_Voltage_Alarm_2s_3s.html Very small, cheap as old chips, easy to zap strap or tape somewhere under the body, but very very loud when it hits the cutoff voltage (3.3v)! C..
  12. Late nights and tired mornings for me until my youngest was about 4. Now, the older one (8) helps with the wrenching, and the youngest (5) likes nothing more than sorting all the screws and things into my build boxes. I have had to resort to cracking open a few extra screw bags from other kits I know I will build, so she can sort those for me too. Anything to get a few extra minutes of building! Thankfully, they both love taking the cars for fang down the beach! I agree, time spent doing anything with them is priceless, but building and driving with them is just the cream on top as far as I am concerned. Keep trying, they will be ready to help out before you know it. I swear by the sorting though! C..
  13. For me, CA is the only way to go. I use 4 - 6 drops of thin CA on each side of rim, capillary action draws enough in to stick nicely for on and off road. I do not run anything hotter that 17.5T so maybe more would be needed in the faster classes. I do confess to being a bit of a tight botty though, so I do reuse all my rims. I have a hideous jar full of acetone that I use to remove the old tyres. I cut the centre band of the tyre off, leaving just the two beads that are glued, makes it easier for the acetone to get to where it needs to be, then into the jar they go, 24 - 48 hours later the rubber bands just fall off. Rinse the rims in soap and water and they are ready to use again. I have reused rims at least 6 - 8 times this way, probably more. The same jar of acetone just keeps getting reused, I just top it up as it needs it. The big tin of acetone I use to fill the jar has lasted for ages, it has easily paid for itself in reused rims. I have mates who use much more CA than I and it usually takes a bit longer in the acetone. C..
  14. Anybody have a bumper for the Mugen Bulldog II they would be willing to part with? Last bit I need for my resto. I am starting to think these might be a bit rarer than hens teeth. Might need to fabricate from Kydex. Cheers, Cristian..
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