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Hello guys my name's Craig, I'm from Melbourne, Australia and I think I'm going through a mid-life crisis of sorts at the age of 40 haha as I just last week picked up an old Tamiya off one of the local buy/sell sites and I now have another two cars coming in the mail lol. I was off work with a virus and started looking through the local rag with the search criteria being "VINTAGE TAMIYA" and I came across a 1996 (hardly vintage but old enough) Fighter Buggy RX for the princely sum of $25.00AUD! I'd actually never heard of them and after some quick googling I found them to be on the DT-01 chassis which was shared by the likes of the Grasshopper and Hornet so I thought it wouldn't be too bad as I recognised those two models from my older cousins who had them back in the '80's. The photos on the ad weren't the best but I made contact expecting it to have been sold already. I picked it up later that morning. I think it was a pretty good score. After checking it out I found the original manual to be in excellent condition, along with basically everything else. The stickers (sadly they're missing from the box) had never been fitted to the body which barely had a mark on it and the only thing missing was one of the hex drive nuts from the rear axle. The back tyres are worn below halfway and the front are hardly touched. I'm going to guess and estimate less than 10 batteries were put through the car before it was put back into it's box and forgotten about. The missing hex splined nut prolly got lost somewhere along the way and that was that for the little buggy's life. Until 21 years later I come along and start cleaning it up! Nothing in my house stays "stock" for long so I got researching for some good ideas on tricking out this little gem to go a bit harder. And look a little cooler as well. That's how I found this Web site and I'd like to congratulate all of you on sharing your knowledge, love and passion for the hobby. I'm truly grateful and was so pumped I felt compelled to sign up and say g'day! Right, where was I... So after a bit of online research and chatting to a friend about some crazy things to do the first thing I did was order a FLY SKY FS-GT3B remote, the 12mm splined hex wheel hubs and a full set of sealed bearings for the diff and wheels. I then read about someone using a turnbuckle kit from another model's hop up parts bin so I ordered it (#53300) for the steering link. Then I ordered a better steering servo. A Hitech HS-5485HB digital jobbie that should provide a bit more reliability. I then got an iMAX B6AC battery charger. Then I got a bit excited. I ordered a 4300kV brushless motor and ESC combo lol. Nothing exotic just a GoolRC waterproof 3650 4300kV with a 60A ESC. I've read some pretty good reviews and for less than $61AUD posted I thought what the heck. Then a set of Wild Willy 2 chrome wheels which have an amazing negative offset to give some fat dish (and widen the track a bit - helps roll over prevention - learnt that one from someone in here) and the correct uprights with the slightly longer axle (#0445169 & #0445207) got the nod along with some blue anno nyloc wheel nuts. I just have to find some excellent quality tyres for the odd wheel size. Haven't managed to find a modern tyre in that size as yet... Some blue anno adjustable oil filled alloy shocks (100mm rear, 85mm front) are on order as well. I then ordered a MAD BULL body shell as I didn't want to destroy the beautiful original condition FIGHTER body shell as this thing is prolly going to be crashing alot... I'm going to paint it French Blue with a pearl clear. I've always loved the finish on the '95/6 Hoffman Bikes Taj model bmx in the baby blue colour so I loosely matched the colour off a pic on my phone to the colour of the caps in the Tamiya spray colour rack in the hobby shop lol. It won't stay pretty for long, though... Then, the silliest choice of all was a 4500mah 3S 40C lipo battery lol. I think I'll start this buggy off on a 2S lipo for now till I get used to it and get the chassis/suspension/steering dialled in. I'm prolly going to get some threaded rod and make a stronger, adjustable steering rod to replace the soft plastic ones it came with. I might even get into making a double wishbone front end in the future... When replacing the plastic bearings in the diff I cleaned it all out and repacked the center with sticky synthetic helicopter prop grease. Should do the trick in keeping both wheels humming. I hope... I'll need advice on gearing too, please guys and gals. Feel free to offer your knowledge... I'll be making a wheelie bar, installing some dune buggy lights and crashing the badword out of this thing hopefully soon! I'm still waiting on quite a few parts to arrive but in the meantime I've pulled the whole thing apart and given it a clean and I was pretty chuffed at the overall excellent condition of everything. Even the batteries still work perfectly after only one quick charge and a test in my mate's Stadium Thunder so I'd hazard a guess to say that everything is in working order. I'll prolly never know as I've ripped it all out lol. I'll try to include some pics and if any of you guys think I'm either doing the wrong thing or would like to offer some constructive criticism please feel free to get stuck into me lol. Really, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Anyways I'll update this thread as parts arrive. Cheers for now, Craig.