Sand Rover Love

[Dadio 126]

The Tamiya Sand Rover was my first RC car way back in the old days , I really wanted a Rough Rider but even as a combined Birthday and Christmas present that was more than my parents would spend , then the Sand Rover came out and it just fit in the budget .

Now in all honesty I was a little disappointed by the performance , it was no where near as quick as my friends Rough Rider but that didn't mean I didn't drive the tires bald and the wheels off it and later the Acoms radio gear was transplanted many times into new cars . 

These days I feel that many still hold my original opinion of the Sand Rover , it seems the least loved of all the vintage Tamiya cars and maybe rightly , who knows . Now I got back into RC a few years ago and then started collecting my dream cars of the past , I'm not going to go into my collection but suffice to say last year I secured the last of my dream cars leaving me something at a loss as to what to do next , that's when I saw a Sand Rover Chassis on eBay at a low price and I started collecting various other parts to complete the car .

One of the aspects to my Vintage RC hobby is to CAD model and 3d print parts so this project started with a complete CAD model , this also gives me a model that I can create my own parts with so with this build I thought I'd go to town and show the Sand Rover some long awaited love .

The list of parts custom made through CAD and 3d printing for this build are as follows .

Side Pods for the body , many full size beach buggy's have these below the sides of the body between the wheels so I designed some , these are simply held in place with servo tape to the sides of the chassis , its important to me not to have to drill new holes in what are now very rare chassis so parts must use existing screw holes or non damaging methods of attachment .

Full lighting set designed to accept LED's , these replace the front and rear lights and fit using exiting holes , the body does need additional holes for the wires , front indicators are non functional and can be either screwed in place or fixed with thin double sided tape , the rear number plate lamp is also possible to illuminate .

Dashboard , this is also illuminated and replaces the decal dash .

Engine , this requires the fitting of coil over shocks fitting instead of the fibre glass leaf spring as the engine mount uses the leaf spring mounting slot at the rear of the gearbox , the engine is made of eight parts all 3d printed as well . 

All the files for 3d printing are now free downloads on Thingiverse .

Anyway enough of me droning on here are the pictures   , Oh I have a celebrity driver ! 

[Gebbly 587]

Thats a beauty, I love all the details like the light up dash and I particularly like the little blue wires attached to the engine, very clever. I cant help the feeling that the driver is missing a very important navigator / co-pilot

[Dadio 126]

21 minutes ago, Gebbly said:

Thats a beauty, I love all the details like the light up dash and I particularly like the little blue wires attached to the engine, very clever. I cant help the feeling that the driver is missing a very important navigator / co-pilot

Thanks , your not wrong about the missing passenger and I think I'll have to sculpt one by hand , there are no 1/10 scale Scooby's on sale , no 3d print files that could sit on the seat or in the back , I could get a 1/12 scale one but it would be small and he's a big dog really .... its a problem .