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Hi all, As most of you know my collecting has mainly been Tamiya Nitro for some time. I have just picked up another car to restore and I thought it might be good to do a restoration thread. This will show how I select a car to restore, how I analyse what I need, restoration tips etc. So, I have just picked up this auction lot from Ebay UK. These are the auction pictures. I paid £42 for the car and £8 so £50 all in. Now that may seem a lot to some if you go by the pictures however I will explain why I think that's a fair price. On first glance the car appears to be whats left of 43512 the Ford Focus WRC XBG TGS kit. The body certainly would suggest that. It does however have a lot of ball bearings on show, that might suggest a TGS-R chassis as they were ballraced. So what else can we go by? The dampers are friction shocks so that would fit. The engine could either be an FS-12SS found in the TGS range or an FS-12SW found in the TGR-S range. The two engines are actually identical apart from the carb throttle linkage and idle screw. Lets have a look at that then. OK, so that is the early throttle arm and so its an FS-12SS engine and confirms the kit is probably 43512 and its been ballraced retrospectively. Obviously lots more could of been changed but for now i'm happy. So my thoughts on the pictures. The engine has its recoil starter and its not broken. These are now nearly £30 to buy if you can find one The fuel tank hasn't got its pump snapped or the fuel connection broken. Another £14 to replace All the Tamiya radio gear is still there.(untested but a fair cost for two servos and an RX). Body is scrap but it will be cut up for paint removal practice and the wing mirrors and rear spoiler removed, cleaned and stored. The rest of the car is pretty complete. Par for the course on TGS restorations is a centre tub replacement and the underguards. The rest I will attempt to restore. The only other issue with these is the shock mounts snap on the front and rear gearbox casing. No way to tell yet but I already have new ones. So there you are, the start of the project, more to come when I get the car but here are some more auction pictures.

Just got my TT-02 in the mail the other day! Going to get paint tomorrow and more parts soon. Hopefully this will help others with rally built TT-02's!

Recently I made the mistake of taking the family to the local RC parking lot races. It was nice to see old friends and watch cutting edge models in action again. The kids enjoyed running around, and bugging everyone as they worked hard testing and tuning. This was a great evening, and even my wife and my mother came along to chat and tend to our newborn son. The problem is after I left I got a serious itch for RC again. Not long back I purchased a set of Tamiya star-dish wheels in black color (I think from a DT02 of some kind), thinking they would look so nice to dress up my old Dyna Storm runner. This really got the desire to build/restore a car churning within me. Before I knew it, I had spent countless hours internetting to source parts for "A SIMPLE RESTORATION". Here is a photo of the car as it sat shortly after building it back in 2005. All I wanted to do was restore it to it's former glory... Before I knew it, I started looking at hop-ups. Remembering all the different vendors I've purchased from over the years, I knew right were to go to find odd parts. This has become a truely international build with parts sourced from many different countries. Greece: - Dyna Storm Carbon Chassis Plate - Dyna Storm K Parts - Dyna Storm E Parts - Dyna Storm Press Parts Bag - 53011 Titanium Screws - 53083 Rib Spike Front Tires USA - Dyna Storm Carbon Front Upper Deck - Dyna Storm Carbon Rear Upper Deck - Dyna Storm Y Parts - Dyna Storm Ball Connector Bag - Dyna Storm Gearbox Parts Bag - Dyna Storm Shock Towers - 6mm adjusters (gray) - Black Star Dish Wheels Japan - 53008 Sealed Bearings - 53017 Titanium Screws - 53018 Titanium Screws - 53030 Sealed Bearings - 53084 Square Spike Rear Tires - 53124 Tungsten Carbide Diff Balls - 53162 4mm Aluminum Lock Flange-Nuts (black) - 54043 Titanium Coated Piston rods Singapore - 53066 Sealed Bearings - 53095 Titanium Screws UK - Dyna Storm A Parts Oman - Various Titanium Screws