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Hi people I have recently bought a non working Tamiya TGS XBG Nitro, currently rebuilding the engine and greasing all parts and hopefully it will be a runner as I can see all parts are here and the servos have been tested and working perfectly. The body shell will be changed as it is damaged .

I have just picked up an old Fighter Buggy RX (Correct me if I am wrong!) from a boot sale. Not bad for £3 including an Ansmann quick charger and 2 batteries! I'm going to restore this one as a runner for my 8 year old - should be a good buggy to start with. It has electrics and it all appears to work ok. The main issues it has are a broken rear shock mount and the rear tyres are completely shot.

As in, I hope it won't take long, rather than I hope the car will be fast. I think it is fast, but we'll come to that later. So, anyone who haunts this non-Tamiya section of TC may have seen my confusion over the steering system on a second-hand Kyosho Raider that I recently bought. The car looked great, had some of the electronics included and on a cursory check seemed to be in pretty good condition throughout. However, the steering was all over the shop, with the front wheels displaying an alarming degree of toe-out. Some debate ensued as to why this was, but it was narrowed down to the ball joint on the hubs being inserted into the 'inner' of the two available holes. This not only had a disastrous effect on the car's stance while stationary, but would have also had a similar effect on its steering ability while in motion, as shown by this image of it on full lock. So what's the to-do? Well, first of all, have a quick nose around the chassis to see what we can find.

Recently I went back to my parents' house to have a look through all my old RC gear from the late 80s and early 90s, as I'd got into a conversation with a friend who I did not know was an RC racer and wanted to know what I still had and what sort of condition it was in. It was all pretty much as i remembered it except for one rather bedraggled but complete chassis which I did not remember at all and could not even recognise. After some research it turned out to be a Marui Hunter and it appears to have been a drunk eBay purchase from some years ago, as I don't remember having bought it and had no clue it was there. It seems to be in reasonably good condition and lacks usable electronics, although it must have been kept in a garage or shed before I bought it as it needed a clean, some TLC and a modern radio, ESC and motor loadout. I have started buying the electronic components (ESC and servo so far) and have sourced a repro shell and wing for it, as well as a scrap Marui Galaxy chassis for spares, as I gather the Hunter and Galaxy share a basic chassis and some parts. The rebuild looks pretty simple and painting the shell will be no problem as that used to be my favorite part of a build, but i do have some queries about the type as I have never owned a Hunter before and had never remembered even setting eyes on one, although it clearly didn't get into the attic on its own. Thank you in advance if anyone has the knowledge and expertise to answer any of these. 1.) The Galaxy and Hunter share a chassis and the scrap Galaxy chassis I bought still has all the independent suspension parts in place. The Hunter chassis has its monoshock at the rear and it seems to work, but is it worth the effort of transferring the oil shocks from the Galaxy to the Hunter, or would the results not be good enough to be worth the hassle? 2.) The Hunter instruction manual I saw online indicated that the kit originally came with three pinions: 18T, 19T and 20T. The chassis I have only has one, which is attached to an ancient-looking 540 motor, although I haven't removed it yet to find out which one is fitted. Does anyone know what pitch these gears are, or have a way of working it out? 3.) The monoshock at the back of the Hunter rather unsettles me, partly because it looks like a very peculiar layout and partly because it seems to cause an alarming amount of positive camber on the rear wheels when it is sitting still. Does this just mean the shock needs recommissioning or is this the car's natural stance and it will settle down when it is moving? Also, would fitting the rear shocks and mounts from the Galaxy cure this tendency, as it looks horribly wrong to me, having come from lovely flat-stanced, double-wishboned Kyoshos. 4.) Way back in the day I briefly owned a Marui Toyota Land Cruiser before a friend crashed it and broke the chassis beyond repair. I cannibalised the car for usable parts, including the rear wheels and adaptors (which are the same as those originally fitted to the Hunter). These fitted perfectly well on to my Tamiya Grasshopper I, so given that the Marui wheels and adaptors fitted on the Grasshopper, does this mean that adaptors intended for the Grasshopper will fit on the Hunter, allowing me to have a wider choice of wheels and tyres? Thanks for reading and any help would be appreciated. I am rebuilding the Hunter as my daughter is getting to an age where she is becoming really interested in machines and I would love for us to be able to use it together. That said, I recently looked in our garage and found two other long-forgotten eBay purchases: a pretty decent-looking Tamiya Grasshopper II and a very sorry-looking Super Sabre chassis in need of a lot of care and attention. So it looks like I have a lot of work and hunting down spares on eBay in my future.

A few weeks ago I got it into my head that my fleet was missing a TL-01B, so I set about finding one to restore. A TC member kindly responded to my Wanted ad, and sold me a "TL-01B" roller that upon arrival turned out to be a clone with some genuine parts fitted. Maybe I'm being naive, but I'd like to think the seller wasn't trying to pull a fast one - the price was fair, and it was a pretty accurate clone, to the point that I couldn't tell anything was amiss from the photos he sent me beforehand, and it was only when comparing it side-by-side with the genuine article that I noticed the differences. Nonetheless, I wanted a TL-01B, not a "TL01-B", so I set about disassembly to see what would need replacing. As it turned out, quite a lot! The parts that I kept: The parts that I binned: Some of the plastics were definitely clone, some appeared to be genuine Tamiya that had been modified to work with the clone parts, and some were of indeterminate origin, so I decided that a full replacement set was in order. Time Tunnel Models had all the bits I required listed on their site, so I placed an order with them for a set of A parts, a set of B parts and two sets of C parts. As the TL-01B uses different front hubs to the touring TL-01, I also tagged a set of those, but unfortunately they were on backorder and not expected for at least two weeks, so I ordered a set from the Vintage Tamiya Store as well since they had local stock. Today my Time Tunnel Models order arrived: I was slightly concerned that the C parts bag didn't have a genuine Tamiya paper tag stapled to the top, but upon close inspection the sprues appear genuine, and I would like to think Time Tunnel Models wouldn't sell fakes, so I started rebuilding the model using the new parts. Following the manual (which I downloaded from TamiyaUSA), I made an unexciting start by attaching the steering tie rods to the servo saver using genuine Tamiya step screws from my bits box: Then followed the attachment of the battery "wings" and motor protector: Then on with the propshaft: I am not certain if the propshaft is genuine or fake - if it is a fake, it is a very good one, as it has the same measurements, weight and tooling marks as the one in my wife's genuine TL-01. In the end I gave it the benefit of the doubt and installed it. The propshaft sits in 4 bearings. The ones exposed to the elements have rubber seals, and the internal ones are metal-shielded. Then it was time to turn my attention to the gearboxes. When disassembling the roller, I was relieved to find that all the gears apart from the front diff were genuine. Luckily I had a spare genuine TL01 diff in my bits box, so this was not a build-killer. Can you spot the odd one out? With a genuine Tamiya geartrain installed, running on metal-shielded bearings for the internal gears and rubber-sealed ones for the diffs, it was time to close up the chassis: I am leaving radio gear installation until later, as I want to buy the car a new RX and servo, and I have already used up the month's hobby budget on the roller and plastics. Next up was motor installation. You can't get much more genuine Tamiya than a box-stock Johnson! This might get swapped out when funds allow, but I am quite tempted to keep it in there, as I am building this buggy to be a geocaching companion, and the Johnson combines reliability with economy - just what I need when taking the vehicle on a 5-mile cache series. With the basic chassis complete, it was time to add some suspension arms and hubs: The hinge pins fall into the same category as the propshaft - I am not certain if they are genuine, but they are identical to the genuine articles in every way that I can quantify, so I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. The dogbones I know are clone parts, but in this instance I am putting practicality ahead of purity, as they are solid-looking machined steel items that look and feel a lot more substantial than the metal-and-plastic ones supplied by Tamiya for the TL-01B. Rubber-sealed bearings occupy the hubs: And that pretty much brings us to where we are now: The front suspension is also in place, with the lower arms secured with a Tamiya U-brace from my bits box since the roller came with touring-style lower hinge pins. No front hubs yet - they should be here in the next day or two. The fiberglass plate that would normally go at the rear of the chassis has been replaced with a small bumper from an M03, as minor nose-to-tail collisions are common when travelling in convoy while out geocaching. Electrics, shocks and shell will follow in a few weeks when payday rolls around again. I'm thinking a Baja King shell would suit it. Since this isn't going to be a shelfer, and it isn't 100% pure Tamiya, I won't go for a box-art colour scheme. At the moment I am leaning towards a black-and-chrome scheme such as the one I used on one of my DT02s: Thread to be updated as parts arrive!

If you have a Kyosho Rocky and the original shocks, you already know how difficult they are to restore. One of the biggest reasons for this is because the shock shaft is an integral part of the piston design. The piston itself is unlike any other shock design by Kyosho: Unique shock shaft: Unique piston (notice that it is very thin and hollowed out with notches on either side): Tiny little spring to allow the piston to slide on the shaft to alter the shock vs rebound damping rate depending on impact force (non-adjustable unless you replaced the spring itself):

Found this lot at a boot sale last weekend for £20 along with lots of bits and pieces. Going to be a long rebuild I fancy. First things first... can any one tell me what wheel I need to get and new tyres which would fit existing wheels.

Morning all, While rebuilding my Fire Dragon (~1990's) last night, I was about to connect the pinion gear to the motor and noticed that I didn't have the "spacer" (B9 for those who know the build or the manual) which sets the distance between the gear is from the motor housing. My question is: Do I need this part to ensure the distance is correct or can it be measured or even estimated (gulp!)? Is it the same for all Tamiya sets (or at least those that use that chassis?) Any help from more experienced members would be much appreciated, Thanks Rob

I've probably crashed enough topics with this one. So I'll give it a thread of it's own... It must have been 2008 when I got this one off eBay... For a price that had only just reached double digits but then again it had been thrashed to the bone. Bought it off a fellow countrymen and the funny thing is that it was most likely bought at the same store where I got my first Grasshopper. Must have been around the same era (1986) as well. I'll post on the bodywork later but here's a preview slash flashback (for me) : Much to be done as the paint played a role in keeping the shell together. The term 'mad' in the thread title would in the mind of 'normal' people (read - that are not about RC) probably not only apply to where the state of this car will end up. Wanting to restore what the aforementioned people would only refer to as something to be quickly binned, the amount of time I've spent restoring and going into detail really is a bit crazy. Especially when you realise these can be bought in all variety for about half the price they were back in the day. None of that is a consideration of course when the purpose is to bring an original back from the underworld. My choice of broken chassis : A useful box of accumulated stuff : Taking the best from two to piece back together : Many trials later - alloy on top and FRP (cut from a Group C bit) on the bottom... Sides were reinforced with a combination of fiber glass matt and J-B Weld steel hardened epoxy : Added on the front - a new bumper, Super Hornet suspension arms and carbon reinforced knuckles for an F car. The suspension is not an exact match, it is slightly more forward so that got addressed with some modification : I cut off a bit too much and added the screws... They came in handy for a good finish : Another subject that may qualify as mad - trying to fit a high torque servo saver. Countless hours messing about with millimeters, making new servo horns and experimenting... Man, there really is no room to play with on this car. The basics on the image above but with those rings, it raised the servo way too much. Made about ten versions of similar custom servo attachments : But finally I got that to work! Also on the pictures - Super Hornet CVAs and home made tie rods for steering. Upper brackets were later replaced with the Super Hornet version because they are a bit better match (smaller). Once again, not much room to play with when fitting oil shocks. A crosslink for the shock mounts. Threaded steel with hollow carbon and reinforced adjusters : One of the adjusters got adjusted itself : Here with my other Hopper's shell for the picture : Oh my, rear setup yet to come. Let's post this and come back to see if it's not overdone.