Bolink Digger10

[Saito2]

I picked this mess up for cheap a couple weeks back as a part of RC history to add to the collection. Sadly, it won't get finished until I get the body sprayed this coming spring. Patience is a virtue and all that...I sort of wanted to run this on smooth dirt like a ball field, but without the gear lexan cover for the direct drive, that's a no-go. I'm no expert on these so any additional history or info is welcome. I've read, on smooth tracks, these gave the SRBs a run for their money, being very basic and very light. Hey, it has a diff that the SRB's didn't and a ball diff at that. Its hard to believe its was consider an "off road" vehicle, but times were different and simpler back then I suppose. Bolink tried a similar stunt years later, trying to cash in on the stadium truck boom brought on by the JR-XT with the Invader monster truck an interesting a rare beast in its own right.

Dirty:

Clean:

For now:

 

[BuggyDad]

How does the saying go? "If you can't fix it with duct tape, you aren't using enough" 🤣

[markbt73]

Nice! I love all the old simple Bolink stuff. Looks like it shouldn't work at all, your first implulse is "that's it?", but they're a ton of fun, and stupid-fast with direct drive. And you could probably run it in the dirt with no problem; from what I heard, those gear covers just trapped dirt in, they didn't keep it out.

[Saito2]

15 hours ago, markbt73 said:

I love all the old simple Bolink stuff. Looks like it shouldn't work at all, your first implulse is "that's it?", but they're a ton of fun, and stupid-fast with direct drive.

Yeah, this thing actually tempted me to take a look at the RJ Speed site. They still sell the twin vertical plate chassis-style Digger that Bolink sold in the early '90s.

[El Gecko]

17 hours ago, markbt73 said:

Looks like it shouldn't work at all, your first implulse is "that's it?", but they're a ton of fun, and stupid-fast with direct drive.

 

2 hours ago, Saito2 said:

They still sell the twin vertical plate chassis-style Digger that Bolink sold in the early '90s.

 

My cousin had one of those 90s twinplate Diggers and that was my thought exactly on seeing it for the first time: "that's it?" And then "this is supposed to be an offroad car? Where's the suspension?!"

Then we went outside to run it, and I saw one of the fastest onroad RCs in my life

[Mad Ax]

There were a few of these racing at Revival a few years back.  BMR's main straight is kinda bumpy, so they looked like a handful, but they were very fast in a straight line and surprisingly held their own over the jump sections.