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Hi everyone! I just wanted to share a project I have been working on to update the ORV chassis for the Monster Beetle. I have been out of the hobby for a long time, but have always had this project in the back of my mind. The two main goals are to get the most out of the suspension travel and to handle the power of a brushless setup. Although the majority of the chassis parts are replaced, keeping the following recognizable features were a priority. Rear trailing arms and axle boots ORV gearbox Front swing arm brackets Front suspension trailing links Original wheelbase (almost, but not quite) Rear cantilever shocks (failed) Original track width Maintaining the original wheelbase was not possible because of the reoriented battery, resulting in a 6% (15mm) increase. Designing a robust rear cantilever shock setup has also been challenging as the additional links and pivot point introduce significant weight and potential points of failure. Unfortunately this is something I have had to compromise on for now, however the "we have BBX at home" rear suspension has been working reliably with upright shocks. Here are some photos from various early stages of development. Several parts are still in the mail, but I will continue to update as kinks are worked out!

I want to build a blackfoot on the hot tricks chassis. If anyone have one please let me know. Thanks

Originally I wanted a smaller 4wd buggy. As a fan of Tamiya part interchangeability and after reading through many threads about modifying a MF01-X chassis, I went for it. Parts used: MF-01X in 225mm wheelbase Carten Beetle body 210 WB (the Tamiya one could maybe work with 239 WB, but usually buggy bodies need to be somewhat smaller than the chassis) Schumacher SST minipin tires on touring car wheels (a tad small at 70mm, found some tires with 75mm for WLToys on ebay, should look a litle more scale once they arrive) Tamiya 54670 WR-02 aluminium dampers Tamiya 9803236 GF-01 dogbones front Tamiya 51216 TA-02 dogbones rear Tamiya 10115859 WR-02CB front and rear lower arms Yeah Racing 022BU rear upper arm mounts (this solved a lot of issues in that area) A diy damper stay mount (no aftermarket part for that afaik) A few rods and ballcups from the parts bin Turned out looking almost as I imagined, although I had hoped for less weight and more suspension travel - but that's Tamiya for you 😁. Will be more of a rallye car than a desert buggy then, still lots of fun on loose surfaces I bet. First run soon, hopefully. Let me know what you think.

I enjoy running my cars even tho people call me crazy for running "shelf queens," but I just love vintage RC cars and trucks. That's why I dont bash. I usually just do some light runs here and there, then put it on the shelf. I just started collecting in April 2022, so yeah, I am late, but I was able to run in all seasons and conditions from summer heat to winter snow, and I found myself loving the fall season. I recently ran my blackfoot III the other day, and I just loved the crisp Kool Air and running wild in the leaves. I had a lot of fun. Plus, your motor doesn’t get as hot like the summer runs, lol. Wich season and weather conditions do you prefer to run? Lets see some pics!

I am looking for any aluminum parts. Bumbers, shocks, mounts, wheels ect

Im repurposing this thread to keep my builds in one place, leaving the posts about my TT02B Scorcher, linking to my Terra Scorcher thread for the pics and comments for when i put it together but i dont expect there to be much more happening in that thread. My Terra Scorcher build. Hey all! A couple of days back i started a Plasma Edge 2. This is the first ever kit im building and my first hobby grade RC car since a Marui Big Bear i had back in the nineties. (Had two or three toy grade cars since) A couple of years back i got back into RC with building/flying fpv drones and foamboard planes, was good fun but ive since fallen out of that, too much repairing compared to RCing, im hoping a car will be a bit less maintenance per battery pack In an earlier thread over in Other Makes i showed off the 3d print that got me back in RC this time, after getting that together i wanted to pick up a kit. I was looking between the Plasma Edge 2 and the Neo Fighter, both look real good but since id never had a 4wd i decided on the TT02B over the DT03, even tho it cost a bit more. Following the instructions to get it together was very straight forward after looking at a couple vids in preparation and building a 3d printed 1/10 rwd buggy a little earlier. As for pics of the build process ill go with "draw a circle, draw another circle, now draw the rest of the f###ing owl" rather than spamming lots of pics that most of everyone will have no interest in seeing. I followed along the instructions, only difference from box stock was adding in ball bearings. Since getting it to the above state ive had it out for a little test drive, so happy with how it moves, even if the ground was mostly frozen except for a little patch of gravel at work. Today i properly attached the antenna holder using the top hole on the inner servo mount, added some foam to the underside of the battery hold down to prevent rattling and added little shelf where a battery voltage alarm was attached as i dont know what, if any, lipo cut off the carson dragster 70A esc has (it was included in the kit rather than the tamiya esc i was expecting). I also designed and printed 10mm extensions for the shocks to hopefully give a bit more ground clearance. Sadly they turned out to be a bust as the arms will not go more than a mm or two lower. Was expecting them to be able to go down at least 10mm since they go up more than that but the cups for the drive axles hit the arms just slightly below horizontal. To get a bit more clearance ive put in an order for some 96mm tires on 12mm hex rims, its not a huge step up so hopefully ill be fine without changing the gearing, the rims should be large enough that they will fit over the axle carriers, offset wasnt specified but in case the included rims arent good ill just 3d print my own to fit. Until the new wheels (and some other random bits) arrive i figure im going to paint the body shell, from my tabletop mini hobby i have an assortment of acrylics and an airbrush, seeing that the proline body colors are water based i feel relatively sure they are also acrylics so i think ill be fine with what i already have. Im having a hard time deciding on how id want to paint it tho, the strongest thought i have is red because "Red Wunz Go Fasta", i think it would look nice with the visible black parts of the chassi, white shocks and black/white/blue/yellow of the decals. Will update upon more progress.

At first I didn't like the blackfoot coming into this hobby last year as I was a Tamiya King Cab Nissan lover but it grew on me and I said to myself I have to at least have 1 in my collection so after researching I noticed tamiya made quite a few versions of them. I have always been the person to root for the underdog so I went with the least popular one the blackfoot III. This is my take on it so far. The driver is back from the dead and want some get back on the ones responsible for shooting and killing him off. I gave him a superstock motor with a 3s lipo to help catch them and run them off the streets. I just hope they don't have a brushless system in theirs lol Anyway I had fun building this one and wanted to share. What is your favorite blackfoot? Lets see those builds!

Hi all, After many years of neglect (30+), I have finally pulled two Beatties bags from my loft, containing a Blackfoot and a Midnight Pumpkin. In the first instance, I'm keen to get the Blackfoot up and running again, but with upgrades and would love some advice on ESC, brushless etc. as I'm really confused by the new stuff! To begin with, I have completed a full strip down, removed all of the old bearings, done a bit of necessary supergluing and placed a few orders for: - New full bearings - MIP super ball diff - Universal 'dog-bone' drive shafts - Aluminium oil filled shocks - New counter gear I'm looking once I have all of this installed, to go to: - alloy rear hubs - An ESC and brushless sensor motor - Ni-MH batteries (3,300 mah) - Pin spike tryes So, my immediate question is - Which budget motor and ESC option would be best to maintain comparable speed to the silver can, but give better running time? Am I daft for considering this upgrade if I'm not after massive speed boosts? And... am I missing any other more worthwhile upgrades?

After finishing my DT-03 Bug-Truck, which is basically a DT-03T with a beetle shell and offroad tires, and after taking this picture with the Racing Fighter and the Neo Scorcher, I thought about giving the Bug a 4WD brother.

(Project Punisher Beetle Udate) Meet Frank, this is the driver and his dashboard. But what I am really proud of is the chasis work I did. If only you seen it before it was like the person who had it ran it thru a oil field thats why he sold it so cheap. The body was giving to me and said I know you will do something epic with it so I took that color splash stickers off and here we are. Im just waiting for Frank's steering wheel to come and its almost done. Thanks for whoever is following this build and have taken interest in it! 🩶🖤🩶🖤💀

Started when tried to look for a Blitzer Beetle but due to the pandemic there was a shortage of kits available. Next I found a Sand Scorcher body and started to think 🤔. I pulled my Monster Beetle body off and placed it on my son’s TT-02B Plasma Edge II. Overall it appears to fit but is tight. Also knowing my son’s TT-02B a lot of upgrades are required and I have been slowly amassing upgrades / hopups. Next I discovered Tamiya Club and realized I am not the only person with the same idea 🤗. A lot of great projects by others and here is my interpretation. I took a day off work and here starts my 4WD Blitzer Beetle build. EDIT: now with 4 wheel steering EDIT again: Completed (Oct 18, 2022)

I'm doing some cheap upgrades on my MF01X Rally Bug, and I was thinking of making it RWD both for accuracy and to reduce heat on the motor, should I remove the front dogbones and the driveshaft or just the driveshaft? And on a side note, how important is an aluminum motor mount if I stick with the torque tuned motor?

Looking for a Chrome Blitzer Beetle Body & Or Kit for a friend.

So ive been knocking together a Sand Hopper, this required body mounts, they attach using regular tamiya screws to the regular mounting holes on the chassi. To fit the shell i trimmed down the point of the chassi to the level of the bumper mounts and notched the bottom of the front of the beetle shell maybe 3mm. (ignore the hole in the battery compartment, it is unrelated to mounting the shell, my 2s 5000mah battery didnt fit so i removed the rear wall of the compartment and cut the hole in the top so the power/balance leads are protected inside of the tub.) Files are oriented for maximal strength when printed, the prints will require supports. ADDITION: Made a cover for the point of the chassi, file attached. SandHopperShellMounts.zip frontcover05.zip

I've kind of got to the point where I look around my basement and realize just how deep into this RC hobby I've gotten. I've been enamored with RC since I was about 15 and as I sail past my mid 40's every now and again I take a step back and look at the horde I've accumulated. Pretty much my entire basement is now a hobby shop, and stuff just keeps coming in. It occurred to me that if I got hit by a runaway chicken truck tomorrow, how on earth would my wife sort out this mess? To that end, I've put a hold on new purchases for now, and embarked on a project to sort, categorize, and assign approximate value to everything I own.... it's quite the project and something I wish I had been doing as I went! As I've been sorting though stuff, I've been finding all kinds of bits that are leftover from previous builds - partial kits that I've robbed, plundered, or parted out over the years. Not to mention quite a few restoration projects that I started and got distracted by some other shiny new object and just never finished. About 1/3 of my collection is projects that are "in progress.." So in-between sorting, I've been tinkering with some of the projects I've forgotten I had. Messing around with a Tamiya always brings a smile to my face, and reminds me of the simple fun I had when I first got into this hobby - something I'm sure many of you feel as well. So, to that end, I'd like to post up some of the Tamiya projects I come across. I used to buy and restore vintage Tamiya quite often - tearing down a car, cleaning it and rebuilding/modifying is one of my absolute favorite things to do in this hobby! However prices lately seem to have gone through the roof, and parts have been slowly drying up since the MAP price increase years ago - I guess there's no more profit in parting out anymore, so I've since stopped and stick to new kits. Thankfully, I've accumulated enough stuff to keep me busy for quite a while. So instead of posting several different threads, I thought I'd create just one and post up projects as I go. Updates will be somewhat sporadic as my main goal is my spreadsheet, but I DO want to finish these if nothing else as it makes them easier to classify. So far I've found a Bearhawk, Falcon, King Cab, most of a King Blackfoot, Thunder Dragon, Bruiser, and a dual motor M02. Not to mention about a dozen newer kits in bits I can piece together, and some that just need some paint - CC01, TA03, DF03RA, and more. About 20 in all that I hope to have finished by Spring. Drop in once in a while and see what's cooking! ------------------------ Alright, enough blather - let's see some pics! First thing that caught my eye was this poor Monster Beetle Trail. I stole the portals for my TL01 and the body and gearbox were built and sitting on the shelf. Sorting though my TL/MF/WT/GF parts box (since they all intermix) I found a simple TL01 suspension and grafted it on. (Note the unfinished WW2, Konghead, and TL. More fodder for later builds. :)) However, the wheel wells on this body don't line up at all. Not sure if this was a re-pop from something or a newly designed body, but it's not even close. Without the portals, the tires hit the body terribly. Normally I would shave the body to accommodate, but instead I messed around a bit and come up with...Tada! TL01B arms move the wheels out much further. With the short WB and wide stance it looked silly with the stock wheels so I slapped on some SC wheels with a bunch of positive offset to bring the width back in. I think the stance is spot on! I'm undecided on wheels and tires just yet, but going with SC wheels and tires gives me a lot of options. It's just mocked up for now, but I like it. Need to figure out some electronics, sort out some details and do some painting.

I finally found the Blitzer in stock, wanted one for so long. I never liked the orange wheels and thought this little bug deserves some attention. This will be not box art and hoping this will look like in my vision when done. What I am trying to do is… -try and guess! This will have 2.2” narrow front wheels and 2.2/3” wide thread rears. Anyway, lets start the build. The kit includes the new 04 esc, but I will use the TBLE 02. Like allways, Tamiya manual is super easy to follow. I did add ball bearings ( Had extra set of Carson DT-02 bearings laying around) Blitzer uses the same bearing size. Gearbox all ready. Notice the Sport Tuned motor.(it may be changed to ~10.5t brushless later)

I bought myself a beater BF on eBay as a Xmas present to myself. Lots of vintage hop-ups and a body in decent shape. After a month or so of Tamiya putty and sanding and spraying and fixing and redoing this and redoing that, I’ve decided it’s good enough for me. The sunroof was my wife’s idea The best part was finding NIB chrome for $40 delivered. Score! Terry

This is the begining of something I've been planning for a while. The idea is to start with one kit, A rally Beetle, and see how many different cars I can produce from the one chassis. Wheels and tyres can be changed as well as mounting posts but other than that not a lot. OOps forgot yes different body spacers.L/M/S none. I have the beetle along with a WW body set and a Pumpkin set to start with.The beetle is going to use a set of "Herbie" stickers I bought a while ago, so a nice easy white paint job!!! The only problems I have is the wheels and the colour? The kit wheels are not right at all. Herbie had banded standard vw wheels. Sometimes with hub caps sometimes without.The tamiya VW wheels would be good but too narrow., and banding them too much aggro. Any suggestions. The colour is another issue. In some pictures he looks very off white? (Apparently its called VW pearlweiss) He also has a sun roof!!!!!

Hi. My first post, so thanks in advance for any help offered! I've just bought and built a 2016 Blackfoot. Everything standard apart from metal ball bearings. 3000mah nimh battery. The transmission seems very smooth and working properly. But with the motor in, if i turn the rear wheels forward (with my hands) it doesn't turn as easy as I think it should. When I turn them in reverse its harder again. So this was concerning. The gear mesh is good. When running it, to me, the truck seems slow. I expected a quicker pickup. With a 10T pinion the top end is never going to be that quick. The engine gets hot quickly and after 4 or 5 minutes it is extremely hot to the touch. ESC is not hot. After about 5 minutes the car loses any punch it did have and after about 7 minutes its lost a lot of speed. It could run for a few more minutes but the fun has gone by that stage. Other thing to mention, it doesn't freewheel very far. In reverse, though reverse is slow, it practically doesn't freewheel at all. I'm trying to work out how much of this is normal as Ive never had a tamiya truck before, and how much is a problem. I'd be happy to buy a better motor and battery but no point if the same problems persist. My daughter has a Tamiya Racing Fighter, same set up, and it is so much faster, runs so much longer, motor doesnt get hot etc, that I'm left a bit disappointed with Blackfoot. It looks great though!! Many thanks for any advice.

Hi All, I am in need of 3 spotlight stickers for a project. The blackfoot appears to have the stickers I'm after and I'm sure I have seen some other models with the same/similar design. The following is what I'm looking for: Please could anyone let me know if they have anything suitable. Need a minimum of 3. Thanks in advance!

Just wat to say hi.. I have been waiting for my wee boy to be old enough for me to pull out my old monster beetle and must have had a hard life before was put away.. I am looking to see where is the best place in uk for spare parts

Hi everyone. Just a heads up, I have been in contact with Don regarding his .50 caliber customs CNC rear ORV arms, and he is now considering the option of another parts run if there is enough interest. He is going to contact some local machine shops to work out minimum numbers and minimum pricing required and take it from there. Obviously the rear swing arms are the crown jewel item, but other possible parts if it goes ahead are steering blocks, front arms, rear shock mounts, rear body post brace, and motor cover. Some links to show examples of his parts - https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/tamiya-frog-brat-orv-aluminum-468167415 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/tamiya-monster-beetle-black-foot-mud-440019891 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/tamiya-vintage-blackfoot-monster-481068476 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/tamiya-monster-beetle-black-foot-mud-401325750 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/tamiya-frog-monster-beetle-blackfoot-132398427 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/tamiya-frog-brat-blackfoot-monster-137667539 https://www.tamiyaclub.com/trades_model.asp?cid=97760&id=23382 Don's plan once he knows minimum cost and numbers is to start a go fund me page to raise the capital required. He is happy for me to share his email address so any questions can be sent directly to him, but please genuinely interested inquiries only - Don McAtee - mcateedon@gmail.com Lets all support him on this and cross our fingers in the hope that it goes ahead Cheers, Dave.

I couldn't find any answers with the search function - forgive me if this has been discussed before: I have a 2011 Beetle Blitzer kit coming in the mail. I would like to make my own lexan body - for my own use, not interested in the bay etc. It's hard to find a replacement body here in Canada + my 3 boys will inevitably wreck the original body. Question: Is there a way I can mold the body that came with the kit so I can reproduce it with Lexan? I'm sure someone has done it - easy to reproduce an already made body using Plaster of Paris, but I was hoping to copy the body that came with the kit. Thanks for any advice!

Hi All, Looking to put dyna blaster wheels and tyres on my beetle/blackfoot project. Has anyone done this? I have rere frog hex adapters but am assuming I'm going to need different front spindles for the front wheels. Any help muchly appreciated!