The tale of the unloved Surikarn that finally found a loving owner.

[wtcc5 5758]

Installing the diffs in their housings:

 

Then threading the central shaft into motor mount, front chassis support, spur gear and both diffhousings (forgot to make a picture of the assembled spur gear and mount):

Suddenly it looks much more like a car 

 

Rear suspension drive shafts, hubs and camber links:

New hexes 

I bought a whole tie-rod set because the 6mm cups weren't available at that time 

[wtcc5 5758]

I continue with the front suspension with new c-hubs:

A very different parts design compared to what I know.

 

Added to the car with new one-way outdrives:

 

The result so far:

[ThunderDragonCy 8383]

So beautiful! Will you be adding the extra top camber links now you have those c hubs?

[wtcc5 5758]

@ThunderDragonCy: Thanks for remembering me of that! I will definitely take a look at it!

Edit: Looked at it and will do it 

[ThunderDragonCy 8383]

@wtcc5 Yey! 

[wtcc5 5758]

Time for the delicious red motor installation:

 

Then the support-battery brace located below the topdeck:

I use titanium screws here, because the shop couldn't deliver enough red screws 

 

Next is the high-torque servo saver and the servo mounts:

I had the choice between the original shape grey ones and wrong shape red ones...

... went for the grey mounts and a very questionable color change via Edding (please don't kick me off TC ).

 

Last step for today: Adding the topdeck with a "billion" screws:

 

[wtcc5 5758]

The yellow stabilizers have some scratches. I hope the new red endballs will cover this...

I didn't use the grubscrews, because the manual doesn't mention them. Not sure though if Tamiya forgot to add them to the manual...

 

In the next step I rebuild the dampers and equipped them with red aluminium parts.

This is how they would look with white springs. Of course I will use yellow springs. Strange that the yellow springs of the 53571 set are darker than the original ones...

 

When I tried to install the dampers, I discovered, that I would have to use insanely long screws. And what weights in worse is, that I find it is too much red involved with the red aluminium cap  on top:

Unfortunately, I need to order black plastic caps, as the ones that came with the car are badly worn and scratched...

 

So I continued with body posts and bumper:

The original bumper is not available at the moment (only on Ebay for too much money). That is a bit surprising, as it was used for all F103GT cars that just came out months/years ago. I decided to wait until it is in stock again and used this still era-correct Hop-Up-bumper. The bumper-base is brand new. The old one looked not much better than the chassis in front.

 

The bumper design really influences how I see the design of a chassis.

 

For later (after the dampers will be installed), I prepared the tires. I have found Sorex 28R tires and Tamiya 2mm Offset wheels in between my hobby stuff and combined them with the black Sorex insert:

 

 

[wtcc5 5758]

The damper caps arrived and I could replace the aluminum caps:

 

But before I put the dampers on, I decided to go for a brand new stabilizer set to make it perfect:

 

Oh... and the rear damper stay had deep scratches and had to be replaced also 

The gloss 

 

The chassis with dampers:

[matisse 1626]

The black V Parts are much better

[G-rem 5]

Amazing build, as always !  

Would you mind tell me what is the diameter of the ballstud below, please ? Or the inner diameter of the aluminium shock caps.

 

Thanks !

[svenb 4256]

20 hours ago, wtcc5 said:

The damper caps arrived and I could replace the aluminum caps:

 

 

I've the red caps on mine and of a similar mind🤔

The blue caps look superb but the reds look a bit much!

I'm tempted to strip the red anodising off and fit them to a set of 49141 dampers on a TB Evo or is that sacrilege?😮

[wtcc5 5758]

8 hours ago, G-rem said:

Amazing build, as always !  

Would you mind tell me what is the diameter of the ballstud below, please ? Or the inner diameter of the aluminium shock caps.

Thanks !

Thank you!

The ballstuds have a diameter of 4.8mm

 

@svenb:  As long as it looks better than the original I see no problem here. Just keep i mind, that deanodizing will take material off.

 

Time for some pictures of the 99% finished chassis. Some more details will be worked on plus a body will be done too.

 

And now with Sorex tires:

 

[G-rem 5]

Gorgeous ! Thanks for the measurement  

[ThunderDragonCy 8383]

That is absolutely gorgeous! There is something so simple and purposeful about this era of high end Tamiyas. 

[wtcc5 5758]

Body reveal 

It is gonna be a 2006 Mercedes-Benz DTM C-class.

 

New tires on and body cut:

[ThunderDragonCy 8383]

Oooof! Lovely

[wtcc5 5758]

Masking done:

Tamiya preferred to have window decals over window masking stickers for this body, so I had to do it myself...

 

Painting done. Fortunately no mistake happened and the tiny last rest of the gun metal paint lasted for the lower portion of the body:

 

Attaching the the stickers was no problem and rather easy for a Tamiya body. Unfortunately while drilling the right side mirror hole and test fitting the mirror, it fell out of my grasp and into the sink drain, were it disappeared   I then took the time to disassemble the whole drain pipe below the sink, but it was gone... "insert badword"! Frustrating! So with only one unpainted mirror it looks like this:

 

 

 

[wtcc5 5758]

A little more work on details.

 

First, I added the second pair of turnbuckles to the front hub:

To make it look equal, I chose to use 6mm balls and ballcups on the inner mounts.

 

Then (a day later), a little more red hardware arrived:

For the full red experience:

 

The bumper left the chassis for the body. It wouldn't fit under the relatively short Mercedes front. The bumper plate got the correct sticker:

 

And last for today, I ordered a set of body parts for the second mirror and painted them era correct in bright yellow:

[SupraChrgd82 1434]

She cleaned up nicely!  Stunning resto!  

[ThunderDragonCy 8383]

@wtcc5 The extra camber links look great. I don't know if it's any better to run, but I am really tempted to find some c hubs so I can do it on my TA04. 

[wtcc5 5758]

@ThunderDragonCy: Tamico still has them. Let me know if you cannot get them for a reasonable price

[ThunderDragonCy 8383]

59 minutes ago, wtcc5 said:

@ThunderDragonCy: Tamico still has them. Let me know if you cannot get them for a reasonable price

Thanks, but I found some in the UK this morning. 

[TwistedxSlayer 1303]

**** that is a good looking chassis.

[svenb 4256]

On 1/16/2022 at 8:12 PM, svenb said:

There is a unofficial TB club going started by our beloved but not seen i a while @TwistedxSlayer

🙄

[GeeWings 2859]

@wtcc5that's excellent. I tell myself I don't want/need to get in to Tamiya beyond buggies and trucks. Then I see a car like yours and the itch gets stronger!