Tales Of Finding Lost Bits

[HunterZero 76]

One of the common hazards in our build-it-yourself hobby is that occasionally bits come loose, and fall off. This usually triggers minutes of looking like a berk scouring the ground for that lost bit. Sometimes the search results in elation of finding that lost bit, and sometimes the horror of realising that it has vanished off the face of the earth, and that one lost bit means the car can't be run until a replacement part is sourced. And occasionally the driver is unwilling to accept defeat of a lost part, and a car is lashed back together with whatever is on hand so the fun can continue.

What's your best tale of lost and found? And have you ever lashed a car back together in an interesting way to keep it going? And have any lost parts resulted in spectacular crashes/breakages?

I've had a few...

I mounted the CRP front suspension setup on my Frog, but neglected to treadlock it thinking it'd be OK. Of course the whole thing fell to bits, losing both front dampers at about the same time. Several minutes on hands and knees later, I had found all the missing screws, nuts, washers and spacers.

Another one was recently with my TG10. The car was running along happily until it lost brakes. Luckily it was in an open area, so the car could coast to a stop quite easily. A quick check showed the tiny nut that holds the brake linkage ball joint on disappeared. The car has an undertray, but it wasn't caught in the undertray. So the search of the car park began, retracing the path of the car before it lost brakes. And lo and behold, a tiny sparkling silver nut caught my eye. I'd also found the righthand steering knuckle tie rod ball joint (it has tie rod hop ups) working itself loose and about 1 turn short of popping off. Threadlock promptly applied...

- James

[caprinut 0]

A former friend of mine had a Thondershot in the early 90s when we where teens..

He allways seem to missing his screws to hold the chassis together for a reason I don't remember now.

Anyway he allways held it together with coated steel wire, the ones they used when they connected up dynamite to blast.

And his car never failed, and it went throu snow, water and all, still going strong with the Technigold motor and 8.4 1500mAh battery he used..

Never had a problem with the MSC, neither him or me, just sercice now and then to clean up the MSC or the bend back the switching plate..

Used up many resistors for the MSC over the years, but our cars allways survived the battle.

I had a Hornet and Celica 959....

[Tamiya1/10 382]

I run my RC on paved tracks so I usually recover all fallen off parts plus someone elses. But I always do a quick check for loose parts before each run and that reduces parts from coming off. The only time I actually lost bits was when I ran my tank in the backyard and couldn't find the parts because of the grass. Yeah threadlock does work.

[Gruntfuggly 562]

I lost one of the springs that applies pressure to the brushes on a Dynatech 01R motor when accidentally running into some long grass. I've never seen those sold as spares anywhere, so I had a 99% complete motor that I couldn't use...

On the bright side I've had some 'distance' crashes before, with debris scattered over a wide area and managed to find everything - even R clips that seem to be able to become invisible at will...

[Kevin_Mc 411]

when i was 12 i took my TL-01 out and a wheel came off with the hex still attached, this let the pin slip out of the axle and it stopped just next to a drain. you can guess where it went!

anyway me and my granda took the car back to his garage where he cut a nail down to size and fired it in til a replacement pin arrived. I don't think i changed from the nail for about three months either!

[Guest Greg67]

A few...

I was given a group C car, and a nice one, anyway, saw pictures of peoples c cars, original tamiya material etc. I always wished I could have thouse plastic things that go ontop of the body and protect it from the body clips. Never seemed to find any. Well, long story short, was cleaning up the car, and noticed the receiver was kind of not put on well. I decided I would take it off and then remount it with new double sided tape. Oddly enough all four rings were under it! Nice surprise!

Was restoring a hilux this summer, and lost a few small bits on this shag rug (from the 70s). Went looking through the area and nothing! Ended up buying a few bags of spare parts. At any rate, one day at a family function, cousin goes " He, Greg, these yours?" In his hand, all my missing parts! Apparently me with a magnent, and combing the rug can't find anything, my cousin ends up stepping on all of them with his foot, reaches down and finds them all!

[floppydisk35 0]

First day I took it at Ta' Qali (which is a recreational park....or just a huge parking space..no, really ) I somehow managed to find and drive over the only pothole there was, which was around 2.5" deep and around 2 feet wide, which was too much for my second hand FF01. Lost the front-right arm's inner screw, but my father found it on the ground. A couple of weeks later, when I handed the radio to my father, he panicked when he was about to crash, and instead of turning somewhy he accelerated, slamming it into a fence (made from bricks...), to which magically that same screw disappeared. We searched it around for around 10, 15 minutes, but it was useless. When I was in the car on the way home, I found it inside the FF01's tub chassis!

Once more I took the same FF01 to a sand/fine dust/gravel ground in a scorching sun, which obviously rattled every inch of the car together with the ESC getting hot enough to not touch it for more than a second...and, obviously, I lost a knuckle arm which are famous for coming off at the worst possible moments. Fortunately the grounds were so white that the black screw was spotted easily.

The FF01 is the only RC I've got, and I just love it to bits...maybe that's why I love it so much.. and also because with 16 years of use, it becomes flawed in some ways or others. I know all its tricks, how to drive it properly, how to save it's front tires and how to slide the rear tires endlessly. It just puts a grin on your face, even if it's sitting on the chest of drawers waiting for some kind of new screws to arrive..

[TA-Mark 195]

I'd just fitted a 11 turn double mod motor to my TA03F Subaru and was giving it a test run in the street before we went down to the track for some racing. I was flying up and down the street at full throttle and braking hard, turning around and running another flying pass. At one end of the street there were some small undulations and as I braked hard over them, one of the rear dampers popped the lower eye off and the one side rear suspension collapsed throwing the car very hard sideways into the gutter. Parts flew everywhere in a big spray, tore the whole corner off the chassis. We spent the next 30 minutes searching the gutter and the grass of the footpath for the parts. Luckily we found everything except a few a screws, which I had some in my spares box. Repaired it all and still got to race. Only a small scrape mark on the body from where it impacted the concrete gutter. Needless to say I now glue the lower eyes onto the dampers so I never have a repeat of this one.

On my last trip to Bondall, after everyone else was finished running and out of batteries, I still had some life left in my Li-Po. I was messing about doing the two widely spaced single jumps as one big double jump with the Mamba Blazing Star. I messed up and landed nose first into the top of the 2nd jump which flipped the buggy end for end. The next landing was upside down on the rear wing/tower. It tore the rear tower off, and tore the screws out of the diff cover, split all the mount holes in the gearbox for the tower and diff cover (the diff cover itself was undamaged). Parts scattered all up the track, screws, swaybar mounts and the rear diff. We found all the parts except for one of the screws, but was unable to repair without new parts as the rear gearbox was destroyed.

Then a few weeks ago, I did exactly the same thing on my backyard track over the two single jumps on the last straight. Exactly the same damage to the rear gearbox. Found all the scattered parts this time. Blazing Star is still sitting on the shelf with a busted rear gearbox. Poor Blazing Star needs a bit of a rest I think.

I knew I'd bought 2 sets (16) of 2500mAh Ni-MH 'AA' transmitter cells and put them 'somewhere safe' about 2 years ago. I found them yesterday, and the new AA/AAA delta charger with them, while I was looking for something else. Bonus!! I was in need of a new set

[chris350z 0]

Once the half shaft came out the blackfoot as the little grub screw came out. I found the little grub screw and the shaft.

On the blitzer beetle the center of the wheel sheared out, just as I went round a corner.

Also on my monster beetle I was going flat out and went to turn and the C clip snaped, so I had no steering.

[Novastar 241]

Surely I'm not the only guy to lose the MC 10 axle pin from their Blitzer ?? Lol well I lost mine on the tiny figure 8 track I had constructed at my previous house in the backyard. It was only cracker dust and gravel which was much nicer on lost parts then my usual sandy creek spot but try as I might the pin had vanished straight after the rear tyre fell off due to a loose nut. So i dug up some wire which was a similar diameter and cut it to length. Amazingly this lasted several years and was eventually replaced with the spare pin from my gold lunch box kit. Needless to say all wheel nuts have been replaced with new ones and I'm always checking them

[DCLXVI 3]

Surely I'm not the only guy to lose the MC 10 axle pin from their Blitzer ?? Lol well I lost mine on the tiny figure 8 track I had constructed at my previous house in the backyard. It was only cracker dust and gravel which was much nicer on lost parts then my usual sandy creek spot but try as I might the pin had vanished straight after the rear tyre fell off due to a loose nut. So i dug up some wire which was a similar diameter and cut it to length. Amazingly this lasted several years and was eventually replaced with the spare pin from my gold lunch box kit. Needless to say all wheel nuts have been replaced with new ones and I'm always checking them

I always enjoy making ad-hoc repairs that works so well that you don't replace it even when you get the proper replacement

[Skottoman 306]

I mostly drive my RC's out in the street in front of my house. I wonder how many bodyclips, and other assorted screws and parts are out there from the years of driving.

I did lose a very needed ball cup from the rear suspension of my TB02 when I crashed. I couldn't find it after looking forever. Got my wife out to look for it with me and she found it.

A small black ball cup holder, on asphalt covered with small black berries the SAME SIZE as the black ball cup!

I've lost other parts and simply not found them in the street...

Cheers,

Skottoman

[BeetleLover 4]

I remember a Falcon arriving from a trading site win. It was a great car but I was disappointed the battery bar part was missing, seems they are missing frequently. I must have had the car several months before one day I was packaging up a car I'd sold on, turns out it was the same box the Falcon had arrived in. There under the flap of cardboard in the bottom of the box was the battery bar component Hooray!

James

[Saito 5]

The wheel nuts tend to come loose on my various off-roaders. I'm be tooling along with my Lunch Box or Thunder Shot and zing!...there goes a wheel rolling off in some direction. Fortunately I never seem to shake loose the drive pin and wheel adapter. I don't remember my older models having this issue back in the 80's.

[Jonny Retro 12]

I don't think I've ever found anything that's fallen off one of my cars ... unless you count the hump pack & battery cover that would regularly come off/out of my hornet back in the day - the car would come to a halt, but the battery would scoot inpressive distances at great speed across the tarmac - don't think I'd get away with that with a modern (caseless) hump pack

[markbt73 5316]

I don't think I've ever found anything that's fallen off one of my cars ... unless you count the hump pack & battery cover that would regularly come off/out of my hornet back in the day - the car would come to a halt, but the battery would scoot inpressive distances at great speed across the tarmac - don't think I'd get away with that with a modern (caseless) hump pack

Ugh. The last (and only) time I let my nephew drive my Grasshopper, he lost the battery cover and just kept going - battery trailing out behind the car by the wires, shrink-wrap getting sanded off on the pavement. I asked him why he didn't stop and he said "I didn't know it wasn't supposed to do that."

Not a lost part, exactly, but I still remember the puzzled look on my wife's face the first time I accidentally left a Tamiya box wrench in my pants pocket and stuck it in the wash. She found it lying on the bottom of the dryer and had no idea what it was.