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dazaa

Not Just Another Boring Buggy Champ Build Thread

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If you would like to know which Futaba sets were used at the time of the original 2 SRB's being in production, then have a look at the following scans from the Ripmax ( UK importer for Futaba ) 1979 catalog . I 'purloined' this catalog from St.Helens College a LONG time ago when I was young and daft, but I needed it more than they did! And it was just left lying there in an empty classroom on a table, it looked uncared for! So I don't feel guilty, and I have read the catalog over and over so at least I made good use of it. I ain't giving it back now :)

In the scans you can see the 2M ( ' M ' series ) and the Medallion . My friend Wilf has a 3GS, it's from the early 1980's I think, I'll have to investigate that. The 2E and 2F and 2GS were being advertised in the Model Airplane News June 1980 magazine ( Tower Hobbies was the seller), the servos being listed with the 2E and 2F being S7's and the servos listed with the 2F were S7 , S22 or S23 .

I have two Futaba S28 servos in mint condition but I have yet to investigate fully the Futaba radios from that period. I'll look into it.

Best Wishes,

Alistair G.

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More scans from the 1979 Ripmax catalog featuring Futaba radio sets etc. Also price lists from the catalog are shown.

I have to admit to being much more of an Acoms fan than Futaba, of that era, as the Acoms sets looked way nicer. Until the Futaba Attack (grey one) came along in about 1986 which was just sooo nice looking.

Cheers,

ARG

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Is the esc from about the correct era for the car? Ofcourse using modern acoms stuff will be a great improvment on this set up but I may need the other stuff for some of my newer cars.

No I believe that the Futaba MC112B that you have is more like from the late 1980's not early 1980's. Give me a while and I'll dig out some magazine adverts with this ESC in them. If you want an old Futaba ESC there is one in a showroom hang on and I'll have a search for it. The correct Acoms ESC for the period as regards the SRB's is the AP35 , you can read all about it here complete with pictures, a manual, the box, and a youtube video of mine showing it in operation ;-

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=52698

Also be aware, old Transmitters give out either 1 Watt (very old), or 500mW (Acoms MK1,2,3). New radio sets put out 100mW, so have 1/5 the range from the TX side, in theory.

To be honest, I have a rule whereby I put PCM1024 into my Styrene bodied models and use a Futaba T6XS with CNC'd polycarbonate throttle and steering gates, with a Futaba FPR146iP @40MHz. Non error protected AM Digital radios have way too many glitches (especially indoors around metal objects) to trust with Styrene bodies... just IMHO of course.

Cheers,

ARG

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Also the analog front ends on the RX's are also sometimes better designed on the old ones it seems. For example Futaba FPR122JE is rubbish, the steering glitches when you apply throttle, but replace with the old FPR102JE and the problem goes away!

BTW beware of bad Acoms crystals when used on Acoms receivers. I had a problem with a bad crystal on my Frog... which I traced eventually to a bad Acoms RX X'tal. I replaced with a Futaba one and got perfect operation ;-

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=52464

So I am now on the lookout for a MK1,2 or 3 Acoms receiver crystal in either orange, blue, or green, as I have the frequency flags and clip and neck cords and TX X'Tals for those colors.

Cheers,

ARG

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First I want to thank you for taking the time to write that! You really must make sure you share your knowlege with us more often :) Good news is that the esc, futaba servo and the hitec reciever all work togeather. I toally understand what you mean about the hitec reciever, somtimes the car would go crazy out of nowhere. Today I fitted everything in the radio box. All fitted in nicely but I am beggining to regret using the hitec reciever, when I take it for a propper test run I will decide if I should replace it with a better one. Thanks for the pictures of the manual, will set it up tommorow. Good news is I think I have all three vintage reciever xtals you need. Probably from cars which came without controllers. All three I believe are from mk3 AS7 set ups......But they are just the metal xtals no plastic cases or anything. I also have an As1 servo, no good to me as I don't have the blasted reciever!!!! Even though the esc is too modern for the car I will leave it in there for now, it looks alrite and is no doubt better than the srb msc.

Probably need to type abit more but I can't think of anything to type :lol:

more updates tommorow.

dazaa

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Hi Dazaa, you know how I mentioned that the Futaba MC112B that you have was a tad late for the SRB... I don't think I realised how late... I just found this full page advert inside the front cover of the Radio Race Car April 1991 magazine ;-

Note how it mentions your ESC so it must have been in production at that time. I don't know when they started with production on it.

Cheers,

ARG

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At first glance I thought this would explode when I put power through it.

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Broken reciever wire.

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Old plug cut off, new one attached, and it all worked!

Just curious about something, you are 14 years old, so I have to ask - can you solder well yet? Sorry if it sounds insulting, just wondered. It's a vital skill in this hobby, I feel. If you can't yet, I can help you out there. I learned how to myself, my late dad was never interested in showing me how to do anything, he never taught me how to solder and he never taught me how to drive. The selfish ***. He died when I was 21 so I had to figure everything out the hard way. I remember nearly cutting the top of my finger off when I was trying to make a Fairey Marine Huntsman 31 boat kit in wood when I was 14 and he just looked at me and said "that's what you get for being stupid with a knife". How very helpful... there was blood everywhere. I find it amazing that I have managed to learn what I have, considering my upbringing LOL.

Best Wishes,

Alistair G.

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Just curious about something, you are 14 years old, so I have to ask - can you solder well yet? Sorry if it sounds insulting, just wondered. It's a vital skill in this hobby, I feel. If you can't yet, I can help you out there. I learned how to myself, my late dad was never interested in showing me how to do anything, he never taught me how to solder and he never taught me how to drive. The selfish ***. He died when I was 21 so I had to figure everything out the hard way. I remember nearly cutting the top of my finger off when I was trying to make a Fairey Marine Huntsman 31 boat kit in wood when I was 14 and he just looked at me and said "that's what you get for being stupid with a knife". How very helpful... there was blood everywhere. I find it amazing that I have managed to learn what I have, considering my upbringing LOL.

Best Wishes,

Alistair G.

Sounds just like my Dad.

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I toally understand what you mean about the hitec reciever, somtimes the car would go crazy out of nowhere. Today I fitted everything in the radio box. All fitted in nicely but I am beggining to regret using the hitec reciever, when I take it for a propper test run I will decide if I should replace it with a better one.

Yep the Hitec RX (in my case the HFS03MM ) from my Ranger 3 is just one of those weird designs that I had never met before that had an open loop gain of infinity when no TX signal is present, which is a really stupid design IMHO so the car goes mental no matter where it is or what you are doing.

However the normal heavy glitches that cause the car to go off suddenly and smash up the rear cage or slam the front end into a wall cracking a Styrene body horridly are when you are using an AM Digital radio control indoors near the Fridge, Cooker, radiators etc.. This is because they are receiving multiple signals instead of just one from the TX, since the signal bounces off metal objects. The longer path lengths mean that the signal is delayed, meaning that the pulses the RX receives from the delayed ones are not the same as the direct non delayed version. So the multiple pulses overlay each other and cause corruption and the receiver goes mental as it thinks that the signal is genuine and tries to respond to the various corrupt signals so glitches horridly... this is called Multipath .

In an FM radio this doesn't happen nearly as much, I think because the strongest direct signal is on a different frequency from the delayed versions as the modulation is constantly changing in frequency. I don't have these problems on FM PPM ( Pulse Position Modulation ). I still get the occasional moderate very short glitch so I thought 'nuts to it' and I went to PCM1024.

The reason that PCM1024 does not glitch ever indoors (unless there are stupid amounts of interference present, e.g. from HOME PLUG ( POWER SOCKET ) NETWORKING - (usual dislaimer!)) is because it includes REDUNDANT data that is used to generate check sums (CRC and RS product codes just like on a CD and DVD) as an ERROR PROTECTION layer so that in the case of lots of multiple data corruptions the original signal can be recovered perfectly. Also they interleave the data so that long run length data errors can still be corrected. Hence the zero glitches on PCM radios!

Hence the reason why I make sure that my Styrene body cars get PCM512 or PCM1024 !

Outdoors you won't have much of a problem with conventional AM non-error protected Digital Proportional radio sets as there won't be many signal reflections on e.g. a beach. However be warned when running fast around parked cars. Your model can still veer into a kerb as you get a standing wave or signal echo from a parked car. It's happened to me a few times on AM. That's the rub with non-error protected signals.

Unfortunately AM Digital radios were invented long before error protection via RS product codes became practical, this is because error protection needed VERY fast digital processing circuitry that was impractical in the late 1970's before VLSI became widespread and came in at higher clock rates at cheaper prices.

Modern FSS radios are a wonderful thing, they use Frequency Spread Spectrum technology like DAB and DVB-T Freeview does in order to split the spectrum into small frequency bands and also uses error protection. This makes the reception very robust. However it still gets affected by really bad interference or by really noisy motors (make sure to use the 3 capacitors on your motor at all times).

Unfortunately the modern radios tend to look like either 1 ) Alien artefacts from Mars and 2 ) seem to nearly use always use a wheel whereas 30 years ago nearly everything used sticks. I have no hope of ever using a wheel radio, I tried one already and it was like watching a 1 year old control it, it's just so counter intuitive to me. However I am not a great driver of either 1/10 scale or 1:1 cars (lots of near misses in 1:1 :wub: )...

Cheers,

Alistair G.

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Sorry for the delay in updates. Been REALLY busy with other stuff and havn't been able to do anything on the car. I did manage to test run it for a few mins but the esc still needs to be set up propperly. Bodies still need to be sent off to Connor for restoration. Really falling behind on this project, mainly due to lots of exams at school. I was thinking of maybe sending this off to tamiya for thier mueseum...any ideas on this?

Again sorry for the delay, sadly 1:1 life is more hassle than 1:10!

Dazaa

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Finally I have found time for a long awaited update! Regarding soldering, I do have a nice soldering iron however am yet to master the art of soldering, any tips? I think tape will have to do untill I feel confident enough to try soldering those tiny wires. Unfortunatly this is quite brief, and I have only managed to strip the wheels apart and clean them. Pictures below. I am still yet to send the body's off for restoration! I hope you guys understand that exam revision takes up alot of my free time, but one day this project will be completed!

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Hardly anything to brag about!

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What a job it was getting those apart!

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As you can it was well worth the effort. The fronts cleaned up great and with abit more effort removing that silver paint I will have a pair of lovely front wheels. The rears are terribly curbed but will have to do, on the plus side the tires are really good.

(A very stressed) Dazaa

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Regarding soldering, I do have a nice soldering iron however am yet to master the art of soldering, any tips?

(A very stressed) Dazaa

Hi pal, nice to see you having a little time to dabble with RC stuff once more.

Yeah I had to master the art of soldering all on my own, like many TC members I imagine, since my late father wasn't a very nice person at all to put it mildly and he never taught me anything useful, least of all how to solder.

I can give you quite a lot of tips.

First thing to do is to make sure you have a soldering iron which is up to the task (at least 40 Watts I suggest, preferably 50 or a little more but over 50W is not really needed, and 10-20W is not sufficient for e.g. 14 AWG wire).

The most important thing that you must ALSO buy is A STAND. Please take a moment to consider the consequences of not doing this. Severe burns which can never be fully recovered from (burns don't fully heal without scars). Not good. So please buy a stand. They are only 6 quid, and it will hold your iron very sturdily. I got a Draper brand soldering iron stand for a few quid from B&Q.

BTW as far as what I use is concerned, I have an Antex TCS50 50W iron, mains powered with a Silicone (not the cheaper PVC version) insulated cable. This is enough power for battery and motor connections, as well as being temperature adjustable via a small dial, and the Silcone insulation on the cable is so you can't burn / melt though the cable by accident since the melting point of the Silicone is way above the 450 degrees C maximum of the iron. Also, the tips are interchangeable. I have the 1mm, 3mm, and 6mm tips (bits). Also I ONLY use the bits which have a single eliptical face (the angled / chamfered faced ones), not the ones that are just like a plain cone (as I can never get the latter type to tin properly as I can never keep them clean).

Next thing is you need to be able to conduct the heat onto the target item. So you will need a clean bit. If your bit's tip is heavily discoloured and dull / brown / black then you will need to abrade the crud off with medium coarse abrasive (Silicon Carbide P400 or P600 used wet). I had to do this once (this was the breakthrough that enabled me to be able to solder anything at all). Yes you will slightly damage the Nickel plating on the bit but believe me if you have this problem and don't solve it then you won't be soldering anything.

The dark coloured crud that is on the bit is an OXIDE that does NOT conduct heat at ALL well. Soldering is in 2 words all about HEAT TRANSFER (and the SPEED at which it is transfered).

If the bit is merely gold coloured then (when the iron is up to working temperature) rub the face of the bit on a piece of WETTED (with tap water) foam pad, specifically for use with soldering irons, that comes with the soldering iron stand. Your bit will magically become clean and shiny. DON'T rub for more than about 1/2 second at a time LOL.

Now you need to TIN your bit. So you will need some solder. The best stuff is the traditional Tin / Lead solder. Lead is a cumulative poison. Do not handle it (use pliers to pull it out of the cylindrical dispenser, don't pull it out with hands). The solder should have a decent FLUX in it which lowers the required melting point and chemically cleans the joint as you are soldering the item.

I buy Deans Racing Solder which has the most tenacious and active flux that I ever saw. Also it flows better due to 2 per cent Silver.

(later EDIT: this is no longer available so I imported Radio Shack .032" Rosin Cored Solder (Ebay) from USA since it's 60/40 Tin/Lead solder and has a lower melting point and flows better than the Lead-Free **** that is now the only stuff available in the UK because of new health and safety laws. Happy to say that the Radio Shack one works excellent and has made many many good joints)

Open windows when you solder as the flux is probably poisonous (and smells, so the people who live with you will be annoyed by it if you don't).

Immediately after you have cleaned the bit as mentioned above on the wet sponge, tin the bit (apply a blob of solder, not too much) and make sure the whole of the tip is covered. This is so that the bit has no oxide insulator on it anywhere on it's face, and it prolongs the bit's life, and solders more easily.

You will have to wait about 1 minute to 1 1/2 minutes for the iron to warm up to working temperature usually, from cold. After you have tinned the bit, the iron lost some energy to melt the solder (so temperature dropped), so wait another 10 seconds before actually soldering anything.

If the solder falls straight off the bit and won't tin, it's either not hot enough or you have crud on the bit. So either try again i.e. clean the bit with the sponge or if that fails, remove the crud with the abrasive sheet (when the iron is cold and unplugged!) and make the angled part of the tip shiny (you don't have to abrade anything else).

Now the bit is tinned on ALL of it's face, turn off the iron (switch off).

The idea with soldering is that you transfer the heat BY LIQUID METAL as it's WAY faster than heat transfer by solid metal. So by tinning the bit, the bit will now be able to contact whatever you are trying to solder with it's full face instead of just a tiny portion of contact area, since the solder on the bit is acting as a filler and allowing fullest possible heat transfer to the target item.

Next thing is to e.g. take your 14 AWG Silicone cable and strip off about 6mm of insulation off the end using a craft knife (watch fingers!).

Now switch back on iron, wait for it to come up to temperature. Now clean the "tinning" off the bit by wiping the bit on the sponge. Now re-tin the bit.

From this point you have about 30 seconds to do the next operation before the flux becomes EXHAUSTED and useless.

Now press the face of the bit against the wire lightly (whilst holding the wire in a rather small table vice with NON serrated jaws that you can buy for a couple of quid from a DIY shop) and let the wire heat up for maybe 10 seconds or a little more but not a lot more than this. Now whilst holding the bit against the wire, add some solder to the wire NEAR the bit BUT NOT TOUCHING THE BIT. The solder will FLASH and flow all over the wire, and now the wire is tinned.

You cannot simply touch the solder against the bit and expect it to flow onto the wire e.g. within just a few seconds of trying, since the wire would be cold. The target item has to be HOT ENOUGH TO ACCEPT the solder (you will know, since it will flow freely on it).

Now tin the motor tab in the same way (take much care since e.g. RS540S has a plastic endbell!), you can do this operation in about 4 seconds once you get practised, which does not allow the plastic to melt.

With the above I can tin and also solder a 14 AWG wire to a High Temperature type (Nylon instead of PVC if I remember right) gold plated Deans style connector in about 6 seconds, WITHOUT it being melted or deformed in any way (since it never gets hot enough), but for your first few attempts don't be dissappointed if you melt a few connectors!

EDIT: Later on with more practice I am now able to tin a Nylon Deans style connector in only 3 to 4 seconds with the smaller 2.3mm bit on the 50W Antex iron. This does not allow the Nylon to get hot enough to melt! Also I blow on the metal of the connector twice after the solder has gone solid to make sure the Nylon cools even further below it's melt temperature faster. I reckon I might even dare soldering standard (i.e. non-high temperature Nylon) Deans connectors now LOL.

When doing 14AWG you will need the 6mm bit (also for doing cell to cell connections), but later on when you are more practiced you can preheat the wire end with the iron for 20 seconds and use the 3mm bit for Deans connectors, but the 6mm bit is still needed for cell connections. For tiny jobs on receiver circuit boards I use the 1mm bit and remember 50W is overkill for electronics stuff so be careful (2 or 3 seconds at the most LOL).

When you have finished, tin the bit and then switch off. Always try and keep the bit tinned for the reasons aforementioned above.

Well I hope at least some of the above helps. I know I found soldering to be a frustrating dead end full of voodoo magic until I figured out what I was doing wrong (in my case using a dull dirty bit and pressing the item against the un-tinned bit for many many minutes with nothing happening except damage to stuff LOL).

Let me know how it goes.

Usual disclaimer incase any kids are reading this... Soldering irons can be very very dangerous as they work at temperatures of hundreds of degrees and can burn you very easily. Be careful out there. Adult supervision is mandatory.

Best Wishes,

Alistair G.

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As always Alistair, your detailed response is very much appreciated by me, thanks very much. Unfortunatly, I just havn't had time to try soldering the esc wires. I have however found time to strip the body down. Initially, I covered the whole shell in "heavy duty caustic over cleaner" found in wilko's, despite all the warnings about it being corrosive ect, it did nothing to the horrible paint despite being left for 24 hours, it just left a white powder on everything. Then a can of nitromors caught my eye. I carefully covered parts of the shell in a thin layer of paint stripper and waited no more than a minute for fear of melting the shell. Well, it seems that it doesn't actually melt the shell, infact it hasn't had any adverse effect on the plastic. It did take well over 3 hours of continuous work to get down the plastic but there where 4 or 5 layers to strip afterall! Thankfully the paint wasn't hiding any suprises, well apart from 2 hairline cracks and a pretty big one around the back(see pic) probably caused by my heavy handedness while stripping the paint. Now, I need some advice about repairing the cracks. I think you need somthing behind the big breaks to hold them togeather, and then fill the gap in ontop. What type of filler do I need? Any advice on body repairs is welcome as this is the first shell I am restoring and i don't want to mess it up.

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As it was, horrible thick black paint litterally thrown over the shell.

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Took a good 2 hours to get to this point. Getting the black paint off was the hardest bit, everything underneath must have been normal model paint as it came off nicely.

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Otherside....not very nice.

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After I had started wet sanding the whole body, the nitromors leaves the plastic quite rough, so you need to go though all the grades which has left me with a lovely rough key for the paint.

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Alot of sanding later.

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The big cracks, look pretty easy to repair. I think it may be worth glueing a strip of plastic behind the break at the back to add some strength as its pretty weak plastic there.

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Hard to see, but the crack goes right down the corner. Not really visible but defo needs some glue behind.

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The only crack the paint was hiding, probably just need too reinforce it from behind. I also stripped the roof and driver's head, but I will be using the body from the other shell which has been painted pretty nicely so I didn't strip it. I may decide to paint it again later. Suggestions on the repairs welcome.

dazaa

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Dazaa, loads of soldering videos on Youtube. Have a look there, do a bit of practising and you'll be fine.

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Am really enjoying the step by step progress you're showing. Very encouraging for others who might endeavor a project like this

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Just wanted to let you guys know that I am still here, just been really busy with exams but only 2 days of school left and then plenty of time to finish this.

dazaa

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Just wanted to let you guys know that I am still here, just been really busy with exams but only 2 days of school left and then plenty of time to finish this.

dazaa

Good to hear that you still have an interest in RC models, and I'd like to hear how you get on with the soldering, it would be nice to know that I actually managed to help someone do this.

When I was 16 my late father said I was like a butterfly, always going from one hobby to another, never quite staying with one. However I've proved him wrong with RC models since I first became very interested in them when I was 7 and apart from a break for a few years here and there I'm still here and my bedroom looks like an RC model shop and I'm 36 LOL.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

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Whatever happened to this great SRB build? :mellow:

What a great thread. It really shows what is best in our TC community! :)

Now I would love to see the Rough Rider alive and running! ;)

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Just spent the last hour and a bit reading every post of this thread only to find it doesn't have a conclusion. Really disappointed although I've learnt a fair bit from Alistairs posts so thank you for that.

Don't hold much luck of getting any closure on this but I've PM'd the OP just in case he still monitors the email address that it's linked to.

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[...] Really disappointed although I've learnt a fair bit from Alistairs posts so thank you for that.

Alistair is so knowledgeable he should write a book on the subject.

Just spent the last hour and a bit reading every post of this thread only to find it doesn't have a conclusion. Really disappointed although I've learnt a fair bit from Alistairs posts so thank you for that.

Don't hold much luck of getting any closure on this but I've PM'd the OP just in case he still monitors the email address that it's linked to.

That's too bad. I really wanted to see the finished car! A bit sad. :(

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Guys, it's been a few years since I've checked the forum, never mind actually looked at any of my cars. Unfortunately I no longer have the interest in rc cars that I used to, however my fairly decent collection is still with me, all over the place, but not sold. This RR ended up being fully built and has sat on my shelf for at least 3 years, I never did get round to actually driving it, but it's in once piece and will stay that way even if only as a display piece. I will try and get some pictures up today for anyone interested but it's a fairly boring standard rr with a battered and badly painted shell.

I've got LOADS of spare parts which will end up in the for sale section soon, enough to build another srb, celica GRB, monsterbeetle ect.

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Hi Dazza, good to see you poke your head in! I am after some parts for a mk2 scorcher, pm me what you have please :)

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