Juhunio's TA03 Projects Thread

[Juhunio]

Remember this?

It already had a bit of a TRF vibe with the red aluminium pulleys, TRF dampers, belt, front universals, servo attachments, stabilisers and hardware. It also has a carbon steering link, carbon stabiliser holders, ball diffs, aluminium counter shafts and a few other goodies hidden under the gearcases

Well, after a few months hunting down the necessary parts I'm ready to give it even more of that TA03 TeRriFicness with a full carbon conversion 😃

• carbon upper and lower decks
• ridiculously hard to find J Parts in black
• even more ridiculously hard to find K parts, also in black (all hail the kit-breakers!)
• front one way to replace the front ball diff
• lovely red 5mm adjusters
• red aluminium kingpins
• aluminium heat sink
• all the necessary red hardware for the conversion

Coming soon!

[ChrisRx718]

Nice!

I hate to imagine what you paid for the J Parts. I remember 10 years ago when you could pick them up for about $15 USD from the likes of Asiatees... Not any more!

Look forward to seeing it assembled.

[Juhunio]

17 minutes ago, ChrisRx718 said:

I hate to imagine what you paid for the J Parts. I remember 10 years ago when you could pick them up for about $15 USD from the likes of Asiatees... Not any more!

Actually, guilty secret...I got an F-Pro David Jun NIB kit at a decent price from Japan and broke it out 😬

I already had a DJ chassis that I bought off eBay a couple of years ago and restored to mint (see earlier in the thread) but it came with no box or manual. So I bought the NIB kit from Japan and kept the box, manual, parts bag header cards and the black J Parts and sold everything else. After postage and fees I got back £35 more than I paid for it (including import shipping and fees). So the J Parts, box etc cost me nothing more than the time and effort to photograph and list everything...I'll take that!

[94SRUNNER]

Any updates on the TA03 fleet? 

[Juhunio]

On 11/19/2024 at 7:15 PM, 94SRUNNER said:

Any updates on the TA03 fleet? 

We moved house just over a year ago and the new layout doesn't allow room for RC car displays unfortunately, so I've been selling quite a few on.

Of the TA03s, the Purple F-Pro Drift Special AMG and the F Subaru Impreza WRC have both gone on to new homes and the F-Pro David Jun (chassis only) is up for sale

We've also been heavily focused on renovations and decorating for the last 12 months so I've had no time for RC but, today, for the first time in about 16 months, I picked up my tools again, resolving to get the TRF conversion of the Red RS GT3 done!

Once this one is finished it will also be up for sale but, for now, I'm going to enjoy the work ☺️

Updates to follow....

[Juhunio]

First job, take the front gearbox apart to swap the gear diff for the one-way. Pretty straightforward, just remove the four screws holding down the diff cover, lift the diff out and swap out all the innards! Found out a little later that I didn't need the 53218 part as I'd already fitted hardened cups in the original build 

 

Then back on with the diff cover ready to attach the new bumper in a bit...

[svenb]

Welcome back

[Juhunio]

I'd also managed to track down a set of the 49067 Red King Pins so was able to do away with the aftermarket set I'd originally used 

Much better 

And once I'd attached the plate for the urethane bumper that's pretty much it for the front gearbox...won't bother attaching the urethane strips yet, will wait until I can get the body shell back on to see what will fit 🤞

One thing that makes this not quite a full TRF build is the decision to stick with the plastic C Hubs. It's purely aesthetic; for this build I prefer the black plastic to go with all the red aluminium so will be avoiding too much silver aluminium (so no aluminium rear hubs or steering arms either). 

[Juhunio]

2 minutes ago, svenb said:

Welcome back

Cheers Steve, hope all is good with you?

[Juhunio]

Also managed to crack on with the rear gearbox today....nice new gold motor plate and drive shafts from a TA03R-TRF kit that someone had broken down, a heat sink, the elusive black K Parts and a reinforced damper stay

There were a few hits, and a couple of misses!

The first miss was the reinforced damper stay. It's only when you get to open one up and look at the leaflet that you realise what it actually does...

So, it's really only for the TA03-F, and really only for when attaching a body with a slant nose! And you need two, one for front and rear. So, not much use here then! Oh well...

[Juhunio]

The TA03RS-TRF uses a completely different diff and motor cover part, to accommodate the carbon fibre chassis plate. Which is why you need the elusive K Parts

Getting the motor cover off is simple enough, but getting the diff cover off means removing one of the e-clips from the end of the suspension shafts. Thankfully I managed to do it without removing the end of my finger too 

New diff cover on along with the K3 part which forms a bridge to connect the rear gearbox to the lower chassis plate

Then just a case of popping in the new gold drive shafts before reconnecting the dampers and upper arms. The gold goes really nicely with the red and adds an authentic touch of TA03R-TRF bling 

In the parts-stash pic at the top of this page there is a 53260 hollow carbon gear shaft but again I didn't need it as I'd already fitted one in the original build. This is another reason why it was good for me to take some time out from this hobby...I had too many projects going on at the same time, too many moving parts, too many ideas and lost track of what I had and what was needed where. It all got a bit overwhelming and I clearly made some wasteful purchase errors 

[Juhunio]

Final step for today was the motor plate and heat sink...another hit and another miss!

The gold aluminium motor plate replaces the cardboard part from the original kit, and requires 14mm cap screws which thankfully I had in the spare pots. 

It fitted really nicely and will again add a little touch of TA03R-TRF glamour

But the miss, at least for now, is the heat sink. It came to me in a mixed bag of TA03 spares I got from Japan but I only got the heat sink itself, not the associated motor mount plate. Turns out it uses a different fitment to the aluminium motor mount plate that comes with the kit; the kit part is below right and the heat sink mount plate is in the screengrab beneath it, showing the extra screw pillar that comes on the Hop Up plate.

That seems like a little bit of a nonsense to me. The plastic gearbox already has a screw pillar moulded into (see screengrab) it to accept a screw through the kit-original aluminium mount plate and plastic cover, but which is made redundant by the bespoke screw pillar on the Hop Up aluminium mount plate. Why they couldn't just use the screw pillar on the gearbox for the Hop Up heatsink is beyond me. 

But, hey-ho, without the mount plate the heat sink is useless so it can't go on and I'll have to stick to the black plastic... for now 

[Juhunio]

That's it I think for the front and rear gearboxes, next step is to attach everything to the nice carbon fibre chassis plates 

That'll be tomorrow's fun...

[svenb]

1 hour ago, Juhunio said:

Also managed to crack on with the rear gearbox today....nice new gold motor plate and drive shafts from a TA03R-TRF kit that someone had broken down, a heat sink, the elusive black K Parts and a reinforced damper stay

There were a few hits, and a couple of misses!

The first miss was the reinforced damper stay. It's only when you get to open one up and look at the leaflet that you realise what it actually does...

So, it's really only for the TA03-F, and really only for when attaching a body with a slant nose! And you need two, one for front and rear. So, not much use here then! Oh well...

The reinforced mount will fit a R mate not just for the F. I've a pair on my TRF R so they definitely fit.

[svenb]

1 hour ago, Juhunio said:

Cheers Steve, hope all is good with you?

All good with me Matt thanks. 

Think a few of us have missed your colourful touring car builds

[jonboy1]

Glad to have you back mate - have missed your builds  

[Juhunio]

6 hours ago, jonboy1 said:

Glad to have you back mate - have missed your builds  

Thanks JB, hope all is good with you 

[Juhunio]

First step with fitting out the carbon chassis plates is assembling the battery frame,  which involves both the J and K parts. The rear of the battery frame is made up of the K6 part, and we'll be coming back to that later 

I couldn't find any red M3 serrated nuts anywhere, so for now had to use stock silver ones. I have just found some black ones though, which are the next best thing, and they're on their way...

My servo was already built up from the original build so no need for any work there...or so I thought 

[Juhunio]

On to the steering; sticking with the black plastic arms because I'm not into silver aluminium on this build, but utilising the carbon fibre steering link alongside lots of lovely red hardware including the red version of the ball connectors (53643) 

A quick shot of the other side of the steering with those lovely red lock nuts which will be completely hidden from view once installed 

And then it was just a case of connecting it all up! Except it wasn't just that at all...

The eagle eyed will notice that servo link wouldn't reach the servo horn, it wasn't even close!

Turns out the plastic tub TA03-RS sites the servo much more centrally, where the carbon chassis TA03RS-TRF sites it way off to the side. After a little bit of head scratching, this meant effectively turning the servo upside down so the rotor was on the right instead of the left, removing the HT servo saver and then reattaching it in the opposite orientation. 

Then on with the front gearbox...easy enough

The rear gearbox was...not quite so straightforward!

 

[Juhunio]

So, the rear gearbox. As I mentioned earlier, the rear gearbox for the carbon chassis uses a different diff cover and motor guard part to the plastic tub version, and the manual instructs you to add the K3 part quite early on...

This is to add a bit of height to the front of the gearbox, bridging the gap between the gearbox moulding and the chassis plate.

Except...you don't need it.

The rear gearbox doesn't sit flush to the chassis plate, the front of it actually sits on the back of the battery frame (that K6 part mentioned above).  So when I came to attach it, the front of the gearbox was tilted upwards and it wouldn't sit flat, the two pillars on the bottom of K3 would not sit in the recesses of the K6 part. So I took the K3 part off the gearbox and fit perfectly. Weird!

So I went back through the manual and that K3 part is still there in various illustrations...

 

...right up to the point where you attach the rear gearbox to the chassis plate, when it mysteriously disappears leaving just the nubs on the front of the gearbox moulding to sit in the recesses on the K6 part!

This seemed a bit odd, so I checked the parts listing at the back of the manual and K3 is greyed out, meaning it's not used. So it would seem that Tamiya made a mistake in the TA03RS-TRF manual, not just in that one step where you attach K3 but in the six further illustrations of the rear gearbox that show the K3 part attached. I took a look at the TA03R-TRF manual and that also uses the K3 part, but there the battery frame is mounted further forwards so the rear gearbox sits behind it (not on it), flush to the chassis plate, necessitating the K3 part to fill the gap between the rear gearbox moulding and the chassis. 

So, with the unnecessary K3 part removed and the belt installed I was able to fix the stabiliser arms for a nice overhead shot before attaching the upper deck .

[Juhunio]

Finally, on with the upper deck and she's back up on wheels! The red countersunk screws all fit really nicely 

And a look at the underside and more of those red countersunk screws  Only downside is...she's got tan lines 

So the carbon fibre chassis plates are a vintage part, and I can only assume that the way this one has been stored for however many years means that the upper deck has left a pattern mark on the lower deck from their years spent strapped together . Obviously I bought it from a Japanese Auction about two years ago so there's not much I can do about it, it'll just have to be a little quirk!

When I was collecting all the red hardware together a couple of years ago I couldn't find any red 25mm or 16mm countersunk screws for mounting the battery frame and front of the gearbox, but I have found some this morning that will be on their way from Japan soon. They'll finish it off really nicely, it'll look much better with all red screw-heads in the lower deck 

[svenb]

Look great

I've always believed that most things work in three colours.

So I'd use some silver aluminium parts such as the knuckles, steering arms,motor sink and rear uprights.

That way you could justify to yourself the need for another hundred quids worth of rare hop ups.

With the odd silver aluminium nuts it could work.

But that's just my opinion 😉

I really like the red, very jazzy.

[svenb]

The red belt looks the biz, is it true the red and blue belt fade over time?

I hope not!

[jonboy1]

that really is a thing of extreme beauty - a beautiful collection to make an exquisite chassis.

a brilliant build thread as always, really have missed these  

I started out not loving the blue anodised parts, but have since flipped 180 on them. I can see me feeling the same way about the red having seen this... 

 

[Grumpy pants]

2 hours ago, Juhunio said:

Finally, on with the upper deck and she's back up on wheels! The red countersunk screws all fit really nicely 

And a look at the underside and more of those red countersunk screws  Only downside is...she's got tan lines 

So the carbon fibre chassis plates are a vintage part, and I can only assume that the way this one has been stored for however many years means that the upper deck has left a pattern mark on the lower deck from their years spent strapped together . Obviously I bought it from a Japanese Auction about two years ago so there's not much I can do about it, it'll just have to be a little quirk!

When I was collecting all the red hardware together a couple of years ago I couldn't find any red 25mm or 16mm countersunk screws for mounting the battery frame and front of the gearbox, but I have found some this morning that will be on their way from Japan soon. They'll finish it off really nicely, it'll look much better with all red screw-heads in the lower deck 

Wow, gorgeous!