Kol's DT-02 - RR Concept

[Kol__ 3377]

Hi guys,

I picked up a fairly decent eBay deal recently, a rere 2010 Holiday Buggy on the DT-02 chassis.

Once received here's how she looked...

Unknown aftermarket front and rear shocks

Himoto waterproof ESC, no idea about it

Additional Sport Tuned and silver can spare motors...

Flux 27x1 motor fitted, removed...

All in all not in too bad a shape. Need to test the electronics. I'm not a big fan of the Holiday Buggy body (sorry HB lovers), so initial plans are to source another body and go with a blacked out look on this one, as opposed to some of my other current bright yellow or bright orange projects!

[Goudar 526]

Seems in pretty good condition, did you get any idea for the body ?

A Mad Max "Apoca'day" Buggy ?

 

I find this military style on YT.

 

Good luck with your build, I'm pretty sure you will find something nice.

[Kol__ 3377]

Cheers @Goudar, haha that army HB is badass!

I've no plans for the HB body really. It has a cracked front wing, which isn't the end of the world of course, but it perhaps isn't one to be a runner. I thought about maybe cutting the roof so it sat low like a hot rod, which would also make it weak and not ideal as a runner. If it'll work (after measuring, which I haven't done yet) I think I'm actually going to cut out the rear slatted rear window from the HB and fit into my Beetle shell... it 'bugs' me there's no rear window

As I understand it the standard fit options for the DT-02 chassis are the below -

Holiday Buggy

Sand/Street Rover

Sand Viper

Neo Falcon

Desert Gator

Nissan Titan truck

Super Fighter G

TRF-201

I'd like the TRF-201, but they are not currently available

Anyone know of any other DT-02 body shell options? Maybe there are some other bodies that can fit with some minor tweaks?

[ThunderDragonCy 7886]

@Kol__ If THE TRF201 body fits, then the Azarashi caynk and Quracca bodies will fit. Penguin bodyshells do trf201 repros for 12 quid. Their shop is on facebook 

 

[Goudar 526]

@Kol__ oh yeah an Hot'liday could be amazing ! I awlays dreamed about a Tamiya Hot Rod... Maybe cutting archs front and rear and fit some on-road tires ? Cause the shell may be to flimsy for off-road duty.

Seems pretty sweet on papers but not as a runner : /

 

Same during my rebuild of the Blitzer I found that thing really akward. And there is a window in instruction book !

[Kol__ 3377]

Thanks @ThunderDragonCy, I'll check Penguin out. Now I wondering were I read that the TRF-201 shell will fit the DT-02!? I think for £12 it's worth a punt to find out

14 minutes ago, Goudar said:

Same during my rebuild of the Blitzer I found that thing really akward. And there is a window in instruction book !

Yeah I think the original MB and BB came with the full surround of windows, the rere'd did not 

[Kol__ 3377]

Disassembly began...

Insane amount of grease in the gearbox, tbh it seemed more like Vaseline! So covered in grease and motor mount points cracked, I picked up another set of gearbox casings.

Also a nice little surprise!... a 3x6mm screw loose in the gearbox, you can see it covered in grease, and the gear is totally chewed up. Lucky I have a spare set of gears already in a previous parts haul purchase.

[Kol__ 3377]

21 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

@Kol__ If THE TRF201 body fits, then the Azarashi caynk and Quracca bodies will fit. Penguin bodyshells do trf201 repros for 12 quid. Their shop is on facebook 

Ok, so it took some work, but today I managed to track down a Team Azarashi Caynx body shell at DMS Racing in the UK and it should be arriving tomo. Hope it fits the DT-02 chassis nicely and if not can be made to fit. It's quite low profile body as well, so hope it can fit the electronics in it. The bath tub is quite deep, so that should hopefully not be a problem. Shall I say hope again?... yeah why not... hope this works!

Also, Penguin do make and sell the 201 shells for £12, but the guy said he needs to redo the mould so it will be a few months before they're available again.

[Kol__ 3377]

Here's the pics of it stripped and cleaned

And the rebuild begins, only upgrade being fitting full bearings throughout

Going with black dish star wheels I had spare

Gears inside gearbox seem ok, but new plastic gears fitted

For now I've fitted the Flux motor that came with the car, with a 19T steel 0.8 module pinion as opposed to the standard 17T

Found some turnbuckles my parts bin so fitted for camber adjustment front and rear

Wheels on

Both the front and rear sets of shocks that came with this car were not suitable for it in anyway, so they've gone in the parts bin for another build. I had some spare Blitzer Beetle black CVA's so I've fitted those and they perform well as always.

Got to say I'm really liking this car, there's something about it. The chassis is cool, it's simple and straightforward. Still planning on a black out design for this one.

[TurnipJF 9192]

On 3/11/2022 at 12:47 AM, Kol__ said:

Still planning on a black out design for this one.

Looking forward to seeing how it comes out! I went for a blacked out look on mine too, but couldn't help adding some chrome.

 

[Grumpy pants 4485]

Great chassis the DT02, cheap and fun to run.

You can Rite dye the yellow wheels if required 👍

The only thing I found with my HB was amount of junk that collects in the chassis, but I found a chassis cover solved that nicely.

[Kol__ 3377]

On 3/12/2022 at 1:04 PM, TurnipJF said:

Looking forward to seeing how it comes out! I went for a blacked out look on mine too, but couldn't help adding some chrome.

 

Thanks @TurnipJF, that Sand Viper looks awesome!

On 3/12/2022 at 4:10 PM, Grumpy pants said:

Great chassis the DT02, cheap and fun to run.

You can Rite dye the yellow wheels if required 👍

The only thing I found with my HB was amount of junk that collects in the chassis, but I found a chassis cover solved that nicely.

Cheers @Grumpy pants, I'm using a shell that's pretty tight fitting so hoping it will keep the dirt out. I had a look online for a cover, but couldn't see any. Where did you get yours bud?

[Willy iine 18806]

@Kol__  Please let me know where you got your body..!    but if secret no need to tell, I understand.  

[Kol__ 3377]

38 minutes ago, Willy iine said:

@Kol__  Please let me know where you got your body..!    but if secret no need to tell, I understand.  

Lol, it was a Team Azarashi Canyk body - AZ-0030. I think it was the last one at the distributor in the UK though and I think they made it about 10 years ago and is discontinued now. Could be available in the US maybe?

As you'll see from the update I'm about to put up, I had to butcher the shell, so hopefully no die hard Azarashi fans will read this!

[Kol__ 3377]

There's quite a bit of bump steer with this car, particularly with the shorter left hand side steering arm. I moved the ball joints on from the stock top holes as seen below to the lower holes to lower the inner ends of the steering arms in an attempt to get them more level with the ground - that seems to be one of the secrets to reducing bump steer.

This does give some minor clearance issues with the chassis at full lock, but I think filing off some of the ball joint head on the shorter arm at the servo end to mitigate that. Failing that I'll notch out the wall of the chassis to a very minor degree.

I also moved the shocks out to the outer lower mounting point as this lowers the chassis in relation to the wheels, helping again to get the steering arms more level to the ground and also puts a little more weight transfer towards the front end. Result is that the bump steer is significantly reduced, but still more present on that left side (when 'sitting' in the car).

I then bought and fitted a new servo, as the spare I had was pretty crap.

[Kol__ 3377]

On 5mm rear hexes there is quite a bit of rear axle that protrudes from the wheel.

So I fitted a set of 7mm instead.

[Willy iine 18806]

Thanks, @Kol__!  Unfortunately for me, I searched but I don't think I can source that body.   

 

Oh well.. anyway, I placed order for a DT02 kit.. forgot the name of the yellow buggy* LOL.. a few cans of paint (black, gunmetal), Holiday Buggy wheel/tire set, and Egress damper set.   

*Sand Viper

Edited March 24, 2022 by Willy iine
Sand Viper is what I bought!

[Kol__ 3377]

So, onto the body shell. As posted above in response to @Willy iine's query, I went with a Team Azarashi Canyx body shell and one of the Team Azarashi rear wings. This is the first polycarbonate/lexan body I've worked with, so it's a learning experience and I do question why my first is a custom one, but hey let's crack on... 

The body is a similar shape to the DT-02 chassis, but as I found out the rest is not such a good match, in particular the front end.

Whilst I had originally intended to keep the nose of the shell, where it fits through the shock tower it just makes the shell sit too high on the chassis, even when trimmed as much as possible.

So I decided to cut the nose off and go with a more Rising Storm/Neo Scorcher look. A bit drastic, but it just wasn't going to look right sitting so high at the front and the Canyk nose didn't really suit the front end of the DT-02. I did however manage to get the rear of the shell to slot nicely into the hole in the rear shock tower which I think is a nice touch that make it look more like this shell is meant to be there.

Onto the window masks...

Although the shell comes with window masks they were pealing due to age and also a shockingly bad fit. So I made my own out of Tamiya masking sheets.

This is the stock window mask format and also gives you a clear view of my butchery of the front end of the shell.

To be honest I'm just really not keen on the pointy front window, it just doesn't do it for me. So I tried rounding off the bottom and extending it backwards, but then decided that it just looked a bit odd...

And so I settle on simply adding to the mask to round off the front window top and bottom. Could always remask and paint in more black to get back to the stock window at a later date if desired.

[Kol__ 3377]

12 minutes ago, Willy iine said:

Oh well.. anyway, I placed order for a DT02 kit.. forgot the name of the yellow buggy LOL.. a few cans of paint (black, gunmetal), Holiday Buggy wheel/tire set, and Egress damper set.

Oh nice one @Willy iine, I look forward to seeing your project come to life, assuming there will be a build thread?

[Kol__ 3377]

Onto the paint. Given that the Team Azarashi sticker set I picked up had both black and white on it, I had toyed with the idea of painting some white on the shell, maybe around the canopy. However tempted to mix it up, I decided to keep it simple and go all black on this first shell.

It took 5 coats of increasing thicknesses of PS-5 Black to get it completely covered with no light bleed and didn't get any runs which was a result!

Really happy with the outcome...

[Willy iine 18806]

33 minutes ago, Kol__ said:

Oh nice one @Willy iine, I look forward to seeing your project come to life, assuming there will be a build thread?

Thanks, but I won't be doing a build thread.   I will post up a few pictures along the way in the general 'What the heck did I do?! today'  thread.   

 

Very clean masking and paint job there, @Kol__!!!    Looks very nice.

[toyolien 4682]

On 3/24/2022 at 12:00 AM, Willy iine said:

Thanks, but I won't be doing a build thread.   I will post up a few pictures along the way in the general 'What the heck did I do?! today'  thread.   

 

Very clean masking and paint job there, @Kol__!!!    Looks very nice.

Why no build thread? Would be good to follow along. 2wd buggies are my favorite :o)

[Kol__ 3377]

So onto the stickers, body first. With the original theme for the buggy being stealth and having gone with an all black shell, I gather all my potentially suitable stickers from the last six months since getting back into the hobby and also the Team Azarashi sticker set I picked up with the body shell...

Having looked at the Team Azarashi sticker set I knew I wanted to go with the long white team name along the side of the shell where I had originally thought about putting a large Tamiya logo from the TRF sheet. So added that and then built up the side with more white stickers. Added the 'A.S.S' because it just cracked me up, have since Googled them to find out what da fa they actually do This also added a little accent of red into the mix.

Cut up these ETRC number boards to get some 77's that would better suit the black and white theme.

Wanted to have something Tamiya on the buggy, the plain black and white combo wasn't quite doing it for me and as the red accent from the A.S.S sticker had opened a door to add some more red, I created these red Tamiya stars.

Added a few more white stickers and cut up this Reinert sticker to get the red 'R's

Finished up with this for the shell...

[Grumpy pants 4485]

On 3/8/2022 at 11:24 PM, Kol__ said:

Yeah I think the original MB and BB came with the full surround of windows, the rere'd did not 

They did and the tint was much darker as well 😊

[Grumpy pants 4485]

On 3/23/2022 at 10:28 PM, Kol__ said:

Cheers @Grumpy pants, I'm using a shell that's pretty tight fitting so hoping it will keep the dirt out. I had a look online for a cover, but couldn't see any. Where did you get yours bud?

I can’t remember @Kol__ just that I wished all my runners had something similar to keep the cr@p out 😂