Midnight Pumpkin Black Edition...and some blue bits

[middleagedgrup 218]

Shhhh!  Be still.  Close your eyes, slow your breathing and cast your collective memories back to those heady days when the young(er) youse (Scottish plural for ‘you’…look it up) were building your first Tamiyas.  Remember the excitement of opening that box for the first time and the eager anticipation you felt as your car slowly materialised out of the morass of plastic, metal and electronics?  And as you throttled-on for the first time, perhaps in the street outside your parents’ house, experiencing the contentedness of knowing that you had built the masterpiece in front of you?  Do you remember?  Excellent wasn’t it!  Now, open your eyes again before you fall asleep.

Well, what follows is my homage to those moments; a celebration of the simpler times by building a simple, honest, grin inducing, rough-around-the-edges but loveable machine.  My first Tamiya was a Mud Blaster, so it seems natural to return to the off-road for this build.  An ORV would be an obvious choice of course, but perhaps too obvious.  If we’re talking about a non-ORV off-road truck then there is only one contender in my mind… one which I so very badly wanted when I was a youngster.  Ladies and gentlemen: I present my Midnight Pumpkin build.

Courtesy of a generous birthday present from Mr and Mrs Middleagedgrup senior, I just happen to have a nice black edition sitting in my pile of shame waiting to be built.  To it, I shall be adding:

• Tamiya torque tuned motor;
• GPM Aluminium Hi-torque Servo Saver 25T With Aluminium Tie Rod (GPM LB025TM);
• GPM Aluminium Front Knuckle Arm (GPM LB021);
• full bearings;
• 3D printed rear axle brace;
• Tamiya CVA Short Shock Set II (50520) x2; and
• a homemade front shock tower brace.

Compared to some of the other mind-boggling and hugely impressive builds on here, the simplicity of what follows will hardly set the world alight, but that’s kind of the point.  And if my little bit of mindfulness above has managed to spread a bit of joy to you, dear reader, then I guess that alone justifies this build!

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2022 by middleagedgrup
Changing uploaded images to external hosting

[bRIBEGuy 3044]

Always great to see another Pumpkin build!

[Nikko85 3453]

Love it, one of the best looking Tamiya ever made IMO.

[middleagedgrup 218]

2 hours ago, bRIBEGuy said:

Always great to see another Pumpkin build!

 

50 minutes ago, Nikko85 said:

Love it, one of the best looking Tamiya ever made IMO.

Thanks both!  Suspect this may be a very short build thread - can't imagine it taking too long to complete, but I'm going to enjoy it.  I always loved the look of the MP  - there was one that used to sit next to a Monster Beetle in the window of Wonderland models in Edinburgh (where I got my Mud Blaster) and I always had my nose up against the glass, staring at them, whenever I passed by. 

[toyolien 4680]

Thank you for doing this build. I had an original Pumpkin for Christmas in 1989. I spent weeks staring at it in the Tamiya catalogue, hoping I'd get one. Looking forward to your build.

[middleagedgrup 218]

20 hours ago, toyolien said:

Thank you for doing this build. I had an original Pumpkin for Christmas in 1989. I spent weeks staring at it in the Tamiya catalogue, hoping I'd get one. Looking forward to your build.

Oh, you're welcome - it's fab to hear people's connection with these sorts of models!

[middleagedgrup 218]

Right, let's get this show on the (off)road.  First up, let's attach the GPM servo saver to the servo, remembering to use a bit of blue Loctite (I use 243) on the thread of the screw to prevent it shaking loose, and mount the kit supplied servo-stays.

 

Then it's the turn of the body mounts:

...before then mounting the servo unit to the chassis:

 

In goes the power switch...

...closely followed by the ESC and receiver in the traditional orientation.

And so to the gear box.  For lubricating the gears I've been using Finish Line Dry Bike Lubricant, a teflon based lube which goes on easily and without any mess.  I use a toothpick to make sure the lube has got properly between all the teeth.  You'll note the use of the rubber skirted bearings here in preference to the kit supplied plastic bushes.

 

 

That's the first side of the gearbox completed, so on to the next  - here are the constituent parts:

Here's the counter-gear getting some blue-ball-bearing loving, both front and back:

 

And here it is seated in the gearbox along with the bevel gear and axle shaft:

The final piece of the gearbox jigsaw is the differential spur gear and 3x small bevel gears:

Rather than using the kit supplied Tamiya grease, I've taken to using ProGold EPX Grease which I've slapped into my decades-old ID grease-gun for ease of application (you'll have by now picked up on a certain bicycle-workshop je ne sais quoi to this and my other builds...).  This goes onto the shafts of the small bevel gears to hold them in place in the differential spur gear, with the Finish Line lube going on the teeth.

 

Time to close that bad-boy up.  And that's the gearbox done now too!

We're really motoring along now.  No guesses for what the next instalment brings... 

[middleagedgrup 218]

So we're now at Step 9, and I'll probably end up swapping in a Sport Tuned later on, but for the meantime we're going with a Torque Tuned and the kit pinion.  My understanding is that the brass pinions like you get in the ORV and CW-01 chassis kits are plenty hard enough and don't need to be swapped out for a hardened or steel pinion, but no doubt one of you fine folks will shout and correct me if I've got that wrong!  I also like the look of the Tamiya uprated motor mount (22027) , but will stick with the kit supplied mount in the first instance.

Threadlock is essential for the spur grub screw, so don't forget to add a dab.  Otherwise, once the motor's fitted and running, the grub screw backs out and spits itself into the gearbox.  Mmmmm, crunchy.  Don't ask how I know this... 

Zip ties = the pinnacle of backstreet customisation chique.

I guess I'm not going to argue with Dom Toretto.  

Once the motor mount is attached to the motor, we move on to affixing the oh-so tacky wheely bar to the rear of the gearbox.  This thing is ripe for an aftermarket replacement later on - I mean just look at it!  *gip*

 

Then we slap the motor assembly on the side of the gearbox and move on to Step 11!

 

 

[middleagedgrup 218]

Next up we have the assembly that holds the gearbox to the chassis, the design of which is guilty for giving the Pumpkin (and the Lunchbox for that matter) it's characteristic axle-tramp.  There are a couple of mods that can be done to remove this feature from the chassis (one involves adding a 5th shock to the rear end), but I'll be going with the axle brace pictured at the top of this build.  It works by being screwed onto the battery holder plate and cups the housing of the gearbox to eliminate any vertical motion, but still permits the gearbox to rotate within the cup, thereby enabling the suspension to move up and down.  There's a taper on the cup of the brace too which permits the gearbox to rock from side to side, allowing the left and right rear wheels to move vertically at different rates.  Quite neat really!  I've decided to build the car without this in place initially, to run the car about for a bit, and then install the brace so I can gauge the difference it makes.

Anyway, here's the offending hardwear:

 

Note in the above picture the two 3x15mm screws holding the axle springs back - these get removed once the holders are attached to the chassis, allowing the springs to pop back and press down on the gearbox retaining rod.

Not a great picture (just a symphony of black plastic), but this is the gearbox now attached to the chassis.

Next up is step 13 and the bounciest of bouncy shocks I've ever seen!  What a delight these things are...boing!!!  As with the axle brace, I'll be keeping this part of the build standard initially and install the kit shocks first, have a bit of a scoot around with them installed, and then put the CVAs on to revel in their smoothness!

 

Adjustable soft-jawed pliers...perfect for snapping suspension eyelets onto ball connectors.

Here comes a gratuitous rear-end shot showing those shiny silver pistons in all their tacky glory - marvellous!

This little rig won't be going anywhere without any power, so next on the list is to construct and attach the battery holder assembly:

 

 

At this point we're also meant to build and attach the steering arms, but I'm skipping this step given the GPM items we're using, although I do have to adjust these to make sure they're the correct length.  I'm also taking the opportunity to remove the eyelets that came pre-installed on the GPM arms and instead use the alternative connectors that came with the GPM kit - the ones that look like Tamiya low friction 5mm adjusters:

Time for the verniers!

 

If the above picture tells me anything, it's that I need to arrange a manicure again soon.

Step 15 calls for attaching the battery tray and the front bumper mount, and who am I to disagree?

 

 

Reflections at this point?  It's a really simple build, but no less enjoyable for it, and I can't wait to get this thing bouncing across the back garden soon.  Have been completely taken in by this build already!  Next up will be the front arms and suspension, but we'll leave it there for the moment I think.  TTFN.

[middleagedgrup 218]

Arms.  Really useful things, are arms.  They stop your hands from falling off, and give you somewhere to keep your elbows.  My Midnight Pumpkin also has arms, made as follows:

You'll note that we're using the GPM Racing uprights instead of parts BS5 which, when installed, make the front arm assembly look like this:

 

The front bumper is identical to that used on my old Mud Blaster, which is a nice little coincidence and connects to the motivation behind this build.  Some may say that it's a sign of the Tamiya gods' approval of what I'm doing here; some sort of divine thumbs-up.  Me?  I just see it for what it is: Tamiya using the same parts across multiple models to keep manufacturing costs down!

So that's the front arms attached and hooked up to the steering arms.  Turns out that I got my turnbuckle measurements very wrong - they were way too short the way I had initially set them.  A good amount of adjustment later (read: lots of twists on the tie-rods) and they are now the right length!

Time for some pogo-tastic front shock action!  Again, just temporary ahead of fitting the CVAs:

 

So we're now in pretty good shape.  The chassis is all finished, with only the wheels to construct and install.

 

Always love this part: attaching the wheels to the chassis.  Can't put my finger on exactly why this is - perhaps it's because this is the exact moment when the chassis comes of age; is all grown up and ready to fly the nest?  Either way, always feels bit momentous, so please indulge me whilst I enjoy my moment.

 

 

 

That's it.  We're there!  All done, complete with goofy front-end camber and all.  As anticipated, a very straight forward process with no surprises and much joy to be had.  Next up will be the job of painting the body and installing the radiator/grill, windows, roll bar and spotlights, tailgate etc.  Most of my creative side was thrashed out of me as a youngster, meaning I lack the vision to do anything other than box art for all of my cars (that, and a dogged pre-disposition to follow rules to the letter), so the body will be a symphony of TS-14 (gloss black) with blue flame decals.  I toyed with the idea of champagne gold base-coat, finished with a candy green top-coat and pearl lacquer...but then my son decided that he wanted that combo for his spare Lunchbox body.  And, to be fair, I think the slab-sides of the Lunchbox do look rather fab with that combo.  But that's for another thread!

[middleagedgrup 218]

A few coats of Tamiya Fine Surface Primer later, topped off with a few coats of TS-14 (Gloss Black), and the body's looking in great shape.  I painted the rear brake-lights with three coats of X-11 (Chrome Silver) followed up by four coats of X-27 (Clear Red) over the top to get a nice bit of depth.  I opted for X-6 (Orange) for the small lights under the headlights as I think they look better as indicators (rather than the X-2 (White) called for by the manual).  All stickered up and good to go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've managed to drag my son into Tamiya ownership - he and I built his Lunchbox Black Edition earlier this year, so now I've got something to chase him around the garden with!  Happy days! 

 

Right, time to have a hoon and get a feel for the rig before fitting the CVAs and the axle brace.  See you all later! 

[Kevin_Mc 411]

They look great together, I hope youse have good fun racing round the garden 

[Nikko85 3453]

Awesome. Always loved a LB or Pumpkin.

I need to get one at some time, just look like a hoot.

[toyolien 4680]

They look marvellous. Painting the body black (even though the plastic is black) makes them look loads better. Nice job, on both.

[bRIBEGuy 3044]

Looks great!  Well done.

[middleagedgrup 218]

22 hours ago, Kevin_Mc said:

They look great together, I hope youse have good fun racing round the garden 

Correct usage of the word 'youse' there (see my first post) - I approve!   We've had a great time hooning around the back garden, with the cars bouncing around all over the place and more-or-less going in the direction we want them to - the steering is somewhat vague to say the least...

[middleagedgrup 218]

5 hours ago, Nikko85 said:

Awesome. Always loved a LB or Pumpkin.

I need to get one at some time, just look like a hoot.

 

4 hours ago, toyolien said:

They look marvellous. Painting the body black (even though the plastic is black) makes them look loads better. Nice job, on both.

 

4 hours ago, bRIBEGuy said:

Looks great!  Well done.

Thanks all.  I'm very happy with the way the body came out - and completely agree that the black paint makes a massive difference.  @Nikko85 you have to get one of these CW01s, as they're a total hoot!

[middleagedgrup 218]

So having scooted around with this thing for a bit, I can indeed confirm that the amount of axle-tramp is next-level!  And the shocks?  Well, they are indeed shocking, so I guess they do live up to their name.     But are they successful as dampers?  Err, not so much.  Time, I think, for a bit of upgrading: break out the axle brace and CVA shocks.

This is the part I described in my earlier post and which we're going to use to tame that possessed rear axle.

I've removed the battery tray from the MP for this as we need to drill some mounting holes for the brace, doing so from the inside-out as it were.  The brace will be seated at the bottom and situated inside the two ribs which you can see running vertically in this picture:

Mocked up comme ca.

First things first, we drill out two holes using a 3mm drill bit and a hand drill:

 

I'm going to be using 3mm screws to hold the brace in place.  I had a couple of M3s left over from when I restored my Mud Blaster - I'm pretty sure this bag is from a rere Subaru Brat, but any appropriately lengthed M3 will do.

Before putting the screws through, I ran a 3mm tap down the newly drilled holes and the brace (the instructions that came with the brace also advised doing this):

Et voila!

Re-install the battery tray and everything looks ship-shape.

You'll note that whilst the mounting holes for the brace are slap-bang in the middle of the battery tray, the brace itself is offset and doesn't sit centrally on the battery tray - this is to accommodate the joint running down the length of the gearbox where the two halves of the housing join together.  Nice!

So that's the brace done and dusted.  CVAs next...

[Grumpy pants 4485]

Great thread 👏

[middleagedgrup 218]

As mentioned previously, we're going to be installing the Tamiya CVA Short Shock Set II (50520) x2.  The kit can be installed in a number of different configurations, so make sure you follow the provided instructions to make the correct config for the MP.  For this application we need to build 4x 80mm shocks, using 2-hole pistons (X9) and spacer X3 to give a stroke length of 21mm.

 

I'm going to be using Tamiya's damper oil air removal tool (54152) to make sure we've purged all of the air from the shocks before sealing them up.

I have no words for the next picture.  I just hope that Mrs Middleagedgrup doesn't see these photos and get the wrong idea about this thing's intended usage.  It's basically a Vacuvin (disclaimer: other quality wine sealers are available).

Moving swiftly on...  We have to add mounting brackets to the chassis in order to install the new CVAs:

...which then look like this once in place.  We've lost the silver plated cylinders, so visually the suspension now doesn't look as bling as it did with the kit supplied shocks in place, but I'm going for function over form here and comfortable losing the 'show' for a bit more 'go'! 

On to the front suspension next - take one last look at this and say your goodbyes now, cause it's getting replaced:

CVA installed - note the overly long M3 machine screw holding the mounting bracket to the chassis.  I've intentionally gone with a 20mm screw  to accommodate a home-made shock-tower brace which I'm going to fabricate and add on next.

 

 

[middleagedgrup 218]

2 minutes ago, Grumpy pants said:

Great thread 👏

Aw shucks.  Thank you Sir, most kind!

[middleagedgrup 218]

To make the shock-tower brace I'll be using some 5mm threaded rod, some 5mm adjusters and some aluminium ball nuts.  Unfortunately, I could only get hold of aloominum ball nuts, so I guess they'll have to do!

Having measured up the BCD between the shocktower screws (95mm) it's time to screw a 5 mm adjuster onto one end of the threaded rod...

...and add a ball nut to the shocktower screws.  I think I may well have over-clubbed the length of screws needed by 5 mm or so - I'll get the brace made first before circling back and swapping out the 20 mm shocktower screws for some 15 mm items.

Cutting the threaded rod to length using my patented technique of using the lid of my tool box as a work bench...  I'm sure I'm not the only one to do this, right? 

My name is Middleagedgrup, king of kings, look upon my works ye mighty and despair! *

20 mm screws now replaced with 15 mm ones...perfect!

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...so without further ado...here it is in all its magnificence...the Middleagedgrup Shocktower Brace!

 

Now, if this thing starts flexing and/or popping off during use (which I don't think it will, but just working out contingencies) then I'll reinstall the 20 mm screws and add a flanged nut to the top to hold the 5mm adjusters in place.  But for the moment, this is now done...

...until the next mod, that is.  Not saying anything, but remember how much outrage that kit wheely bar caused? 

(* 10 points if you can name the poem)

[bRIBEGuy 3044]

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone would definitely been overkill for the brace. 

Looking good there Ozymandius!

[middleagedgrup 218]

1 hour ago, bRIBEGuy said:

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone would definitely been overkill for the brace. 

Looking good there Ozymandius!

And that's 10 points to team @bRIBEGuy ! 👏🏻 In true University Challenge style I should now probably go on to pose a further three poetry questions worth an additional 5 points each, but I'm not sure my recollection of the GCSE English syllabus is sufficiently acute enough to do so. 😂 

[middleagedgrup 218]

Hey all.  Just a quick Sunday morning update to share a couple of modifications to the Pumpkin.  We're saying cheerio, standard wheely bar; hello, GPM wheely bar!  Oh my, I cannot describe how happy this hop up makes me feel - the difference between the two parts is like night and day / chalk and cheese / hot and cold [or insert your other favourite polar opposite idiom here].   And look!  This front arm bulk mount seems to have fallen into my online shopping basket when I was buying the wheely bar - disaster!  Oh well, I guess I'll just have to install this too.   And last up, is the Tamiya 22027 Aluminium Motor Mount, which I note comes complete with its own set of hex screws to replace the standard JIS items.

 

 

 

All said: just a nice little set of quick hop ups to make the Pumpkin my own.  Now, to get out and enjoy it!  Hope everyone's having a great weekend so far.