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mk4savage

Monster Beetle (Herbie) rebuild

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This is my first Monster beetle, I bought it back in January 2010 from ebay of course!

Heres how it looked when I got it, It's even got OFP 857 on the license plate :unsure:

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Anyone know what these wheels are off ?

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It was in a state really, Filthy, incorrect screws fitted, servo cover missing and in desperate need of a rebuild. I thought what on earth have i bought ?

I ran it just once after a small repair on the steering and the gearbox was good but it seemed very slow as I remember, lack of grease and ball bearings I guess.

Drive shaft rubber gaiters both missing,

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Chassis split on one half, The other side was ok.

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Look at the length of the screws holding the rear bumper on!

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And as you can see from these next few it needed a strip down and a good clean to see what was good and what needed replacing.

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More incorrect screws,

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And a bit of gravel rash from the previous owner. This underguard was actually cracked where it bolts to the gearbox but I have repaired it with epoxy and refitted this.

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The screws holding the front shocks on were non Tamiya ones and were a bigger diameter thread and the holes in the shock tower had been drilled out but I have replaced this with a good second hand one.

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Broken body mount and the G1 part has a small crack in it as usual. I think that G1 part was fitted on the wrong side of the posts too ?

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The motor had the wrong spacer and pinion fitted, Looked like a Lunchbox one to me.

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The body shell isn't in bad shape really, it needs sanding, painting and new decals fitting. it's not broken anywhere which is good but it is a blitzer beetle shell, not a proper monster beetle shell. Oh, it needs new glass too!

I stripped this down and cleaned it all last year and packed it all away in the loft until a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was about time I started to rebuild it and I have been collecting a few parts for it and other cars B)

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I managed to get a new left hand chassis section to replace the original which was cracked where the rear swinging arm bracket screws to, I also downloaded and printed off a manual so i know its got the correct screws and is being built the way it should be. I managed to replace most of the screws with used ones bought from ebay.

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The other half was ok and I cleaned it up with a bit of cutting paste to make it a bit more shiny to match the new half. You can't tell the difference really

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I replaced the front upright arms with good second hand ones as on the original ones the screw pins wouldn't tighten up. New Acoms servo fitted.

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Re assembled gearbox fitted with new ballraces, It feels nice and smooth but we will soon see if it's any good when I take it for a test drive!

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Gearbox fitted to chassis, Note, the speed controller plate is fitted temporarily as I am waiting for a king blackfoot item and servo cover after seeing the monster beetle mods post on here!

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Ballraced rear arms,

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My repaired rear underguard re fitted, I decided to use slightly longer stainless cap screws and bigger washers to spread the load a bit on the underguard mounting points. It seems a lot better than with the standard small washers.

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Rear arms, driveshafts and good second hand rubbers fitted.

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Time to rebuild the shocks, For some reason the shafts are different lengths,

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So I rectified this using spacers left over from a short shock set and two spare O rings,

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Now they are roughly the same length,

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One set of rebuilt shocks.

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Shocks fitted to the chassis along with replacement shock tower and steering all set up.

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I didn't like the way the rears didn't tighten up properly in to the rear arms so I decided to drill out the arms slightly and use an m3 cap screw and nyloc nut to secure it. As this will be my runner I don't want the shocks coming off

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A couple more,

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New aluminium G1 part fitted, I would like to get the better quality one although these ones are good quality for the money, the better ones don't seem to be available anymore. This one will do for now.

Nearly new standard motor from my midnight pumpkin now fitted with the correct spacer, pinion and cover and rear bumper refitted.

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I used stainless cap screws and nuts on the body mounting posts too, I don't want to rely on the self tappers here as they have a habit of coming loose.

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With the wheels on,

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And just a couple with the body placed on,

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I'm still waiting for the servo cover and a frog aluminium underguard to strengthen the front up a bit, Thanks again to the mods page :unsure:

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Thanks Mate, Yeah there is something about the monster beetle, I've got three now. I just can't seem to help buying them :unsure:

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Great Job!

Thanx for the blow-by-blow description of your resto. I just finished the better part of a M/B resto and addressed most of the issues you described in yours (restos are never 100% finished at my place). Seems that people can't resist using all manner of non fitting screws bolts, and such.

Also amazes me how they manage to break parts in the strangest locations! I've done my share of smashing these cars, and never seemed to break the things they do. But that just makes these resto projects that much more interesting, eh?

Any ways....Looks Good!!!

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Thanks Mate, Yeah there is something about the monster beetle, I've got three now. I just can't seem to help buying them :(

Gotta agree with you on that. Nice work restoring and rebuilding. What are your other two MB's like? Any hop-ups or mods?

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Someone obviously loved and used it in the past - great to see it being reborn again :(

Love these pictorial rebuilds 8)

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Thanks guys for the kind comments,Much appreciated.

looks almost too good to get dirty now !

I'm not going to worry about a bit of dirt to be honest, I will only use it on short grass and maybe a small bit of gravel. I just want to enjoy it !

Great Job!

Thanx for the blow-by-blow description of your resto. I just finished the better part of a M/B resto and addressed most of the issues you described in yours (restos are never 100% finished at my place). Seems that people can't resist using all manner of non fitting screws bolts, and such.

Also amazes me how they manage to break parts in the strangest locations! I've done my share of smashing these cars, and never seemed to break the things they do. But that just makes these resto projects that much more interesting, eh?

Any ways....Looks Good!!!

I love to see other peoples rebuilds and spend hours looking through the various threads on here So I thought I would put my rebuild on here for others to enjoy too. It was seeing some of the rebuilds on this forum that inspired me to do mine.

Gotta agree with you on that. Nice work restoring and rebuilding. What are your other two MB's like? Any hop-ups or mods?

My one other beetle is/was a shelf queen, the shell is standard box art and the chassis is very good although the gearbox needs attention and there are one or two other things that I'm not 100% happy with but I will get round to it. The other one I bought very recently, The chassis is also very good on this, hardly a mark on it and it looks to me like a lot of new parts have been fitted. I would love to know where some of these came from ;) . The body is painted in a metallic red, it looks good but the roof seems out of shape somehow and you can see that some body filler has been used. It still looks smart though and is an original Monster beetle shell,the nosecone has a small repair on it where the spotlights are. The only mods at the moment are on the box art beetle I have replaced the G1 part with a red aluminium one. I would like another one of these but I think they have finished now as they were a limited edition.

Someone obviously loved and used it in the past - great to see it being reborn again :(

Love these pictorial rebuilds 8)

Yes it certainly has been well used, I would say it's been in a loft or something for quite a while judging by the amount of dust that had gathered on it! I love to see the rebuilds too, I find it fascinating.

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I did a bit more over the weekend, My king Blackfoot parts arrived and my new underguard. B)

Original speed controller plate replaced by King Blackfoot item. I managed to fit the receiver to the plate sideways and moved it forwards towards the steering servo so I decided not to saw off the MSC posts. I couldn't face hacksawing it to be honest, It's the only one I found and cost me £20 !

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Mtronics esc fitted where the receiver used to live.

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New Frog underguard fitted,I used 3mm machine screws to fix it to the chassis rather than the original self tappers and I decided to give it a good polish beforehand, It's come up like chrome :P

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I also changed the self tappers holding the front bumper on for some machine screws, it seems a lot tighter now and less chance of falling off.

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I just need to fit the servo cover now. I have given it a small run outside and it seems to be ok. Much better and faster than when I ran it the first time. The gearbox seems smooth and isn't slipping at all. The tyres are slipping on the wheels though so I need to sort that out.

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Finally, I fitted the servo cover from the king Blackfoot and stopped the tyres from slipping on the rims by fitting two small rubber bands (that the postman kindly leaves behind B)) to each of the grooves on the rims, I'd rather do this than use glue so I can remove the tyres easily if need be.

I'm not sure about the wheels yet, I would like something different maybe some of those alloy wheels I've seen on here if I can get some!

Anyway, here are just a few more shots to show you the finished article.

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and just a couple of outdoor shots,

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Just got to do something with the body shell now, Flat it down and paint it white again, some new glass and a new set of herbie decals which I've seen on ebay.

As they say, Watch this space !

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Nice rebuild.

I have a MB I've had in the loft for about 20 years and are planning a similar rebuild. Could you tell me where you got part G1 from (the gold aluminium part).

I also need the motor spacer K2 and end cap C12

Tahnks

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Hi,

Sorry for the late reply, I've not been on here for a while.

The G1 part I got from ebay, there doesn't seem to be any on there at the moment but I know the guy fabricates these and other items himself. His ebay user name is shoppingmollie30.

As for the other bits you need you can get the C parts tree from ebay that has the end cap included and I think the spacer is available also but I can't find one on ebay at the moment. I remember I got a new one on a parts tree because my car had a lunchbox spacer and pinion fitted, Totally wrong !

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Hi,

Sorry for the late reply, I've not been on here for a while.

The G1 part I got from ebay, there doesn't seem to be any on there at the moment but I know the guy fabricates these and other items himself. His ebay user name is shoppingmollie30.

As for the other bits you need you can get the C parts tree from ebay that has the end cap included and I think the spacer is available also but I can't find one on ebay at the moment. I remember I got a new one on a parts tree because my car had a lunchbox spacer and pinion fitted, Totally wrong !

Nice rebuild. Reminds me of way back when i had one.

the only things i got left from it are 1 x tail light, 1 x numberplate that says `Bugsy` and cover.And 4 x sets of rear mounts.

Mine was a second hand shed too which i rebuilt and ballraced

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Congrats! The rebuild looks excellent! Don't forget to share some pictures of the Monster Beetle in action sometime! :)

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the rims are from a traxxas BLUE EAGLE srt .. i have a set i had on my eagle before turning it in to a blue eagle ls , which had smoother dished rims and a few other upgrades . the eagle rims really widen the stance on any 2wd truck ., i put them on my frog which i modded in to a truck back in '89 and raced it in stock truck class .

you can still find them new in chrome in the states .. cheap as too ..and they take tamiya bearings

here is the frog in its retired tow truck guise ..

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Are those the same rims on your tow truck that are on my beetle ? They look wider somehow, Perhaps the camera angle or the tyres, I do like those tyres though.

I will try and post a video of it running when I next get it out, I've not used it much since the rebuild but it is good fun. I could do with some better battery packs though, mine are old hat and run down too soon. I still need to restore the body, I'll hopefully get round to that early next year. I also need to get around to sorting a few jobs out on my other beetles but I'm not sure I will run those yet, I'll post up some pictures and see what you guys think.

metalmickey0...I see your from weston super mare, It reminded me of one of my old favourites I've got hidden away in my loft..A lunchbox which I bought way back in 1997 from a model shop in weston, Locking Road I think it was. I don't think the shop is there anymore but the guy used to sell some nice old Tamiya models in there. When I saw that Lunchbox in the window of that shop I just had to have it !

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Are those the same rims on your tow truck that are on my beetle ? They look wider somehow, Perhaps the camera angle or the tyres, I do like those tyres though.

I will try and post a video of it running when I next get it out, I've not used it much since the rebuild but it is good fun. I could do with some better battery packs though, mine are old hat and run down too soon. I still need to restore the body, I'll hopefully get round to that early next year. I also need to get around to sorting a few jobs out on my other beetles but I'm not sure I will run those yet, I'll post up some pictures and see what you guys think.

metalmickey0...I see your from weston super mare, It reminded me of one of my old favourites I've got hidden away in my loft..A lunchbox which I bought way back in 1997 from a model shop in weston, Locking Road I think it was. I don't think the shop is there anymore but the guy used to sell some nice old Tamiya models in there. When I saw that Lunchbox in the window of that shop I just had to have it !

The rims on the beetle look like King Cab/ Monster racer rims (wheels) sprayed silver.

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