4281 1/8 Nitro Kyosho/Hobao Porsche 959 - It's a big one!

[acprc 1443]

So my second restoration leading into 2022 will be this. The 1/8 scale 4281 Kyosho Porsche 959. This one was purchased from Yahoo Japan and finally (after some real help from a Japanese friend) arrived with me this week. I paid £111 for what you see below.  In all its glory

 

Kyosho teamed up with Hobao on this kit and it was a very limited and expensive issue. The chassis is basically a Hobao Pirate with Kyosho adding front and rear bumpers, exhaust system, wheels and the body. The other thing about them is that parts are almost impossible to find, they are very rare. Also, Kyosho never listed the kit in its product catalogs, I have them all for the period and it isn't listed. I have three in the collection including this black one and have been collecting any parts I have seen for about three years. I have the sum total of about 5 parts bags!!

These are the other two

So the eagle eyed will notice that the rear wing is missing on the black one. Originally the bumper and wing were cut out from lexan together as this photo from the manual shows.

However, over time the rear wing has gone. Now Kyosho only issued the complete body set and as they are selling for approx £500 and are rare that's a non starter. The solution will be to try and 3D print a new one and affix it. I'm hopeful that I know a man that can help there! However, if anyone has one lying around please get in touch!!

The other plus point is that the cars of this era generally use very generic hardware and lots of restorable metal parts. This means for example a 3mm cap screw can be replaced with generic hardware and I don't have to hunt out unobtainable Kyosho bags. That said I will have to restore as much as I can due to low availability of the parts.

The chassis will be stripped and cleaned and then each piece restored to get me where I need to get to. The chassis plate and rear bumper being metal will probably be blasted and then repainted in matt black. Once this is done I can reassemble on the fly.

The alloys on these are actually metal and thankfully the tyres dont appear to be glued. Once clean I will carefully assess them and see whats best. Blast, repaint etc etc.

Lastly the car has no engine. No big deal as I can source something appropriate for her. The kit manual calls for an OS 21 size engine so should be able to get one.

Maybe a long term one this but stay tuned. One last picture to give you an idea of the size of this thing!! Its big, that a 1/10 mini shell.

[M 800STD 586]

Cool car, love the shell.  Wanted one for my Landmax.

They do come up on ebay now and then, but at a cost.

OS .21 would be nice, as they are beautifully made quality engines.

[acprc 1443]

13 minutes ago, M 800STD said:

Cool car, love the shell.  Wanted one for my Landmax.

They do come up on ebay now and then, but at a cost.

OS .21 would be nice, as they are beautifully made quality engines.

Thanks, the shell will look good finished I think. I have some engine choices in the other two cars but a period OS is the right choice I think.

[M 800STD 586]

Cool.

I wouldn't go too period.  Maybe an RX?

was thinking an OS 4 stroke, but then you would have to change pipe set up.

[Torhaantje 66]

Great project! The porsche 959 was mentioned in the 93/94 Kyosho catalogue btw.

Rick

[M 800STD 586]

Try also Buyee and Jauce.

[Torhaantje 66]

@acprc: I found the catalogue and took some photo's:

[Torhaantje 66]

[Torhaantje 66]

[acprc 1443]

2 hours ago, Torhaantje said:

Thanks however that isnt the same kit. Thats the later one issued on the Inferno DX chassis. The body is however the same. Compare my chassis pics to the one in the manual.

 

Box from the later Inferno

Box from my one

 

[Torhaantje 66]

Oops....my bad 

[acprc 1443]

6 minutes ago, Torhaantje said:

Oops....my bad 

LOL, easy mistake. Its the same body

[acprc 1443]

So managed to get some time today to start stripping the 959

Basic chassis

Basic hand tools

After about an hour we had. Some bits to throw away

A tub of hardware

A tub of metal (alloy) parts

A tub of rubber and chromed plastic parts

and a tray of plastic ready for cleaning. The tray also includes some parts that will need further disassembly after a clean, like shocks and diffs but also a few parts that are sized due to the alloy and steel reacting.

I was also left with the chassis plate and radio deck. As suspected the screws have siezed into the alloy support posts so they will need attention in the garage.

Some good progress. Nothing obviously broken, the diff crown gears and pinions all looked good. I will replace the bearings and brass bushings as a matter of course and I will need to make a decision on hardware (screws etc). Do I replace like for like or use a set of matched allen head screws.

The chassis plate and metal rear bumper will be cleaned and then its going to a local company I use for blasting. I will get them to blast it, Zinc prime it and then satin black top coat it. Should look great when done.

Some garage work Monday night then into the Ultrasonic.

 

[acprc 1443]

Made some progress on the 959 this week.

Plastic parts all clean. They have come out very well and in good condition too.

The brake disc being plastic has had it! Will need to find or match a new one.

Alloy parts are now clean and using my polishing wheel started to give them a shine. Happy with how these look now, final polishing to go.

Sorted all my hardware and started ordering replacement screws etc. Also ordered new bearings to replace the old ball bearings and the brass bushings.

The rear bumper cleaned up well but is going to need to be sanded back, primed and then repainting. I do actually have a new one but this one I think will be saved.

I am going to have to work out what to do with the shocks. The anodizing has worn off so they will either be polished smooth and left like that or polished and then sent off to be re-anodised. I think I have found a rebuild kit so thats something.

Chassis parts to clean now, front bumper, main chassis plate. Diffs to be stripped, cleaned and rebuilt and the tank to clean.

 

[acprc 1443]

Interesting day!

Found a new set of rear shocks in Germany for 25 euros!

and put a cheeky bid on this and won it in Japan. Parts car probably as the front end is damaged but has a very good body. It also has the potential to yield an engine, engine mounts and the missing muffler parts.

 

[acprc 1443]

Got a few things done this week but really just awaiting some deliveries. A quick recap:

Plastic parts are all now done and ready to be rebuilt.

Front bumper cleaned up very nicely. A few scratches but not bad at all. Top surface will be plastic polished before it goes back together.

A nice pot of shiny metal hardware all ready to refit

Fuel tank having been through the Ultrasonic now looks great

Some of the new hardware started to arrive. I generally match one for one and only throw out the used parts when the project is finished.

The original car has fake brake discs and calipers behind the wheels. The discs on the back were destroyed and the calipers are all missing

But I have a nice new set!

Chassis plate cleaned up nicely and has minimal damage but just needs a fresh lick of paint. That will be sanded down tomorrow ready for painting along with the rear bumper

Once the new bearings arrive I can start to build up the front and rear diffs and gearboxes and start to hang the suspension arms etc. Progress!

[acprc 1443]

So,

Lots of hardware arrived this week. New screw, e-clips, bearings etc so the chassis will see some progress over the weekend.

Chassis plates sanded, zinc primed, sanded and primed again

and then 4 coats of satin black with a sand before the last coat.

Happy with them, now to start rebuilding. More to come this weekend.

[acprc 1443]

So the weekend saw lots of work on the 959 and she now looks like this

Front and rear gearboxes were built up with new bearings and grease, teeth on the gears were ok and then the gearboxes were fitted to the chassis.

Fuel tank was fitted with new hardware, has come out really nicely.

Front bumper and cleaned up body posts fitted

Rear bumper with rear posts and the cleaned up exhaust fitted

Radio plate deck mount posts fitted

Made up some steering arms to replace the damaged ones

Found a suitable engine. This is an O.S  21 RF-B with the correct mounts, clutch and flywheel.

Also found a nice period Shumacher engine that has the same Cylinder head and carb for the OS engine. This will get renovated.

and found the correct manifold part I was missing

Its not all plain sailing though. The spur gear is badly worn/damaged in places so will work to get a 3D printed alternative as they are almost impossible to find. Shocks need to be done and I have a shock mount plastic part missing. I will be painting the brake calipers (they were missing on the original car) to add a bit of bling.

Good progress though.

[M 800STD 586]

Spur gear, wasn't there a steel replacement?  I swapped mine out because the red spur gear was prone to damage.

I would also recommend replacing the plastic disk brakes with the fiber ones.

 

[acprc 1443]

9 hours ago, M 800STD said:

Spur gear, wasn't there a steel replacement?  I swapped mine out because the red spur gear was prone to damage.

I would also recommend replacing the plastic disk brakes with the fiber ones.

 

I think there is a steel replacement but really hard to find now as well. Judging by the Pirate, Hobao, Ofna, Graupner and Kyosho groups everyone is looking for both plastic or Steel ones. I have seen the fibre one badged as Graupner so will pick one up.

[M 800STD 586]

Needless to say, if you use the steel item, you'll need steel clutch bell.

If parts are hard to find you might want to look at MP/DX parts.

[acprc 1443]

A busy week but sadly not on the 959. A new greenhouse has kept me distracted! That said, there has been progress.

So firstly, the new brake disc arrived and is ready to be fitted. I will probably upgrade this later though.

Having sorted out my engines this week I found another OS 21 RF-B I didnt know I had! Now this may sound odd but I have been collecting for some time and I do simply sometimes forget items. So the engine has been built up using parts from all the engines I have. The engine mounts, clutch parts, flywheel and manifold went through the ultrasonic and then were cleaned using the polishing wheel with the scouring pad fitted. They came out great and were fitted to the engine with nice new hardware. The carb from the Scumacher engine was swapped over as well. The clutch bell was washed and then polished up and then chemically blackened again.

Before

After

And the engine now looks like this, almost ready to go back in. Engine mount bolts just need to be cleaned and reblackened today.

The other engines are continuing to be rebuilt accordingly as I have 4 of these 959 to ultimately restore.

 

[acprc 1443]

Some small bits of progress this week.

Managed to get the shocks dismantled, cleaned, painted and refitted. The bodies were put through the ultrasonic then polished smooth. Once done they were etch primed then coated with matt black enamel to match the original kit ones. They came out great and were fitted to the car. The missing shock mount was removed from one of the other parts cars.

Front shocks

and rear

They are not yet filled with oil as the cap o-rings need matching and replacing.

New engine bolts arrived. I ended up matching the originals and buying 20 as I have 4 cars to eventually restore

Engine is now ready to go in once the spur gear assembly is in.

Fitted new brake discs on the front

and rear

These are just for show and look great behind the kit wheels. I had thought about painting the calipers however the original 959 has black ones so all I now need to do is replicate the Porsche logos on the caliper. These came as part of the original decal set.

Also fitted the top deck and started working on the linkages to the two Futaba servos. I am using the linkages that were on the kit when it came however these are a bit bulky so will make new ones from piano wire.

Chassis now looks like this

Getting there bit by bit

[bRIBEGuy 3044]

Great thread so far.  

[acprc 1443]

14 hours ago, bRIBEGuy said:

Great thread so far.  

Thanks, slowly getting there