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TurnipJF

Turnip turns a "Bear Hawk" into a Blitzer Blackfoot

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Hello everyone!

 

This thread is to document the restomodding of a chassis that I bought off @SteelRat recently for the princely sum of £15.00. As expected from the low price, it needs a lot of work, but I am confident that it will come out really well in the end. The end might be a way off yet, but by popular demand I am starting the build thread now. Just expect a delay or two while I wait for parts and the budget to buy them.

 

Anyway, on to the project. This is the starting point:

2021-11-27_08-50-12

 

The chassis is a tad odd, appearing to contain a variety of pieces from different places. The front spindles indicate that it was a buggy, but the red uprights of the Bear Hawk are absent. Some of the parts are attached with stainless hex hardware, but there are also standard JIS screws and a totally unsuitable wood screw in the mix. The rear features universals riding on rubber sealed bearings, but the gearbox internals still ride on plastic bushings. I suspect that this is the remains of several Blitzer-based cars, possibly assembled from the leftovers of another restoration project. As such, it will need a few bits to bring it back from the brink, but most of the hardware is present, so a restomod is quite achievable.

 

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The first step was to disassemble and assess the parts, dividing them into three categories: too hacked, cracked or otherwise damaged to be of use, worn but restorable, and pretty much good to go. There were also some parts that were missing entirely.

Category 1 parts included the gearbox casings (cracked at the upper arm mounts), the main tub (cracked in several places and hacked at the rear), the front bulkhead (bumper mount hacked off), the front shock tower (cracked at the shock mounts), one of the rear upper arms (stretched and stripped by the oversize wood screw mentioned earlier), the spindles (damaged through fitment of oversized ball connectors) and one of the rear uprights (cracked and stripped upper suspension arm attachment).

Category 2 parts included the lower arms, a few of the screws and nuts, and the hinge pins.

Category 3 parts included the universals, gearbox internals and the rest of the screws and nuts which were in need of a cleaning but showed no significant wear.

Missing parts included the motor cap, rear shocks, rear shock tower, body mounts, front bumper and a few other fixings.

I have a system of ensuring that my hobby remains affordable by only spending £50 per month on it. That way, I don't need to feel any guilt at all about whether my projects are cheap or expensive in total. The more costly ones just take a bit longer. So with the monthly hobby budget remaining after the purchase of the roller, I bought a set of gearbox plastics, a main tub and a set of D parts. These would allow me to make a start. However further progress will have to wait for next month. :)

 

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So, after the requisite cleaning of the parts, reassembly started with the diff. The internals are slowed slightly with AW grease, while the external teeth got a thin smear of standard kit grease.

 

2021-11-27_09-50-01

 

 

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The cleaned, greased and reassembled diff went into the gearbox casing along with the cleaned and greased spur gear. The diff rides on fresh rubber sealed bearings and the spur on metal shielded ones as it is protected inside the gearbox.

2021-11-27_09-55-31

 

The spur gear has some ingrained greying from being used with an aluminium pinion, but the tooth profile remains undamaged so it should be good for many runs to come. (I will be using a steel pinion to help prevent further wear.)

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The gearbox was then closed up with a mixture of new and freshly repolished hardware.

2021-11-27_10-34-46

 

I am quite pleased with how the nuts came out. I can't even tell which are new and which are repolished. :)

 

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With the gearbox having progressed as far as possible until I receive the pinion and decide on a motor, I turned my attention to the tub. This moulding dates back to the Falcon with its trailing arm rear suspension. The mounts for said suspension are blanked off with two little plastic plates.

2021-11-27_10-36-56

 

The stock screws are 10mm items which protrude 2mm into the battery bay. Not sure why these were chosen by the designers as the extra 2mm doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose, so I replaced them with 8mm ones which end flush with the edges of the moulded recesses in the tub.

2021-11-27_10-36-13

 

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And that brings the project to a pause, for now. More sprues will be ordered come next month's payday, and we'll continue with the suspension and other bits.

Until then, I need to give some thought to what this chassis will become. I have a set of spare long spindles from my Mad Bull and some unused Stadium Blitzer wheels left over from my Aqroshot build, so it could become a stadium truck. I also have a Blackfoot bodyshell in my stash, which might look good on the chassis. The Monster Beetle shell works nicely in Blitzer Beetle guise, so perhaps a Stadium Blackfoot might work equally well?

I don't have a Bear Hawk bodyshell, neither can I find any for sale at an affordable price, but I do have a Mad Bull and Super Fighter GR shell in my stash. Neither are a direct fit on this chassis, but both could be adapted to fit without major surgery. An idea I had was to take one of these shells, cut off the rear and build a cage to replace it, paying stylistic homage to the Bear Hawk.

A third approach I could take is to go non-Tamiya with the bodyshell, instead adapting a Kamtec one to fit. I rather like their Morris Minor van shell which I have used on a couple of projects. I was thinking I might fit one of these, lengthened to suit the wheelbase, and pair it with the Aqroshot road tyres and Stadium Blitzer wheels. Or even better - fit Aqroshot front tyres and some other brand of rears with a similar on-road tread that are wide enough to fit the wheels without the weird stretched sidewall look.

But the bodywork will need to wait until January at least, so plenty of time to ponder it! :)

 

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Nice start to the build there @TurnipJF and gearbox is looking good! Shame so many of the parts were unusable, isn't that always the way with second hand cars/projects, sometimes you can end up replacing so much of what was purchased. Tbh though even the hardware if bought separately would add up to a pretty penny, so all in all a very good purchase here.

Nice work on reducing the length of the stock screw for the chassis blanking plates. I'll remember that for my modified runner build, one for the future that one though.

What was your process for polishing up the hardware?

I rested a knackered old Blackfoot body shell on my Mad Bull the other day and it did look awesome as a Stadium truck style body.

Look forward to seeing this one develop, and wise words about having a monthly budget, wish I could adhere to such stringency!!

 

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This build looks in a solid start. I will keep an eye on your topic for your body shell final choice and it turns out.

 

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Interested to see how this turns out, looking for alternative ideas for my blitzer beetle. Hadn't thought about the Blackfoot shell...

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Great start @TurnipJF 👍

I’m happy to break out my Tamiya black plastic spares for you to pick through.

Let me know if this would help and I’ll upload some pictures 😎

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@Grumpy pants Thanks, that is very kind of you. I think I'm good though - I can't see any of the missing bits amongst your stash, and my wife has kindly offered to get me the remaining sprues that I need as part of a Christmas present. 👍😁🌲

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11 hours ago, Nobbi1977 said:

I have a manta ray shell if that would fit. 

Thanks for the offer, but in homage to the original Bear Hawk's hard plastic body, if I go the buggy route I think I want to try to get a hard body to fit, even if it isn't a Bear Hawk one. The offer is appreciated though!

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14 hours ago, Busdriver said:

Blitzer Blackfoot! I love it. 

The name has quite a ring to it. I'm tempted to go this route for that reason alone! 😀

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On 11/28/2021 at 1:27 AM, Kol__ said:

What was your process for polishing up the hardware?

Pretty simple really - just a soft cloth, some "Brasso" metal polish and a drill to hold and spin the hardware. The screws had a piece of 3mm I.D. plastic tube around them to stop the chuck from damaging the threads, and the nuts were attached to the end of a piece of threaded rod, with a locknut to stop them from moving as the rod was spun in the drill. It was really quick, with most pieces only requiring a few seconds of spin time to regain their shine. 

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2 hours ago, TurnipJF said:

The name has quite a ring to it. I'm tempted to go this route for that reason alone! 😀

Can’t really take the credit there was a thread a year or so ago for a Blitzermog. So I just applied the same logic. Having said that it would make a great truck!!!

Edited by Busdriver
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Great work so far 👍🏻
Also good to see Mrs TurnipJF keeping up the tradition of a Tamiya Santa Christmas helper 😉

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Nice start - love the idea of the Morris Minor van.  The more unique the better!

If you did go down the route of the Blackfoot shell, you could call it the "Blitzfoot".  (I did initially consider "Footblitz", but that sounds too much like a dance themed movie from the 80s).

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True to her word, Mrs Turnip negotiated with Santa to arrange for all the missing plastics to appear under the Christmas tree. She also arranged for a new screw set, steering servo and receiver to appear, so this model will soon be looking as good as new.

Hoping to do some work on it this afternoon/evening, so more photos will be coming soon! :)

 

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This evening's progress:

2021-12-29_12-26-17

 

2021-12-29_12-26-52

 

With the rear arms assembled and attached, the gearbox can be mounted on the back of the tub. With new plastics, new screws, new bearings and a new diff outdrive to replace one that was significantly more worn than the other, it is looking very much improved. 

Tomorrow will see the front end coming together I hope.

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