Pics of 959 Runner resto nearly completed

[NitroMusky]

Been working on a mild restoration of my 959 over the past month and thought I would share some pics of the near-finished product. I'm going to run it some while my daughter runs her FROG but this one will be only in parking lot and only when its clean (relatively speaking) and dry...c'mon spring!

It was well run and bashed as a teen back in the day. Kind of kicking myself now for not getting any before pics as this thing was a mess, but got wrapped up in the excitment and dove in. In any case, to give you an idea, the LHS had us putting some motor oil concoction in the time, so needless to say the underside and around the gearboxes were caked with oily dirt buildup, especially around the drive shafts. Here are a couple pics of the old tires and the underside to give you some idea of how well it was used:

found the lower suspension arm cracked on disassembly. have a new one on hand, but will run it with the now-epoxied one, given the cost of that part these days. I do have a new midsection and skid plates on the way too that will go on once it put it away for good....

It was completely disassembled and every part cleaned, placed into bags and then carefully reassembled. I tried to reuse all the original parts or spares I still had from back in the day and only bought replacements for those few that were no longer usable or missing. Everything is basically stock and electronics (futaba ESC and Rx) are the same as when it went into storage. the only exception was adding full bearings and the front stabilizer and center diff from the celica grb. Also the motor is original technigold, but the blue you see there a heat sink I put on it back in the day. Given how tough it was to slide that baby on I didn't want to see what a scratched up mess the motor might be underneath or make it worse trying to take it off, so i left it. I also put the resistor cover in place to give it a bit more of a stock appearance and because I don't like the looks with a big void there. once everything is set I will zip tie all the wires, the twist ties are temporary.

I'm still looking for rear mounting posts, as I had cut the originals down to use a different body on it. So as you can see in the next pic, for now the fronts are mounted without the spacer. If anyone can locate some new or used rear posts that don't require buying the whole mount parts bag for an arm, leg and my first born, let me know!!!

The rally tires are unused, purchased 20 years ago for posterity purposes...guess I anticipated this day even back then! These will be used on the shelf only. Now if only I had purchased a few of the E parts trees for the ball joints... After seeing Xoestar's resto I also purchased some M05RA wheels and tires to use for running. hot glue was used to adapt the hex size to that of the 959. they are a little shorter than the stock tire, so its more prone to bottoming out, but only running on flat pavement I don't think this should be a big issue. but it also should put a bit less strain on the motor and gears, which is good.

As for the original body, it was a basket case. cracked up in all four corners, scuffed all over, unpainted other than the black windows and red/yellow blinkers, the stickers were misplaced or not aligned correctly and in the case of the stripes, never put on. I spent alot of time restoring it and cleaning the scuffs with citrus-based adhesive remover. I then removed the stickers with a hair dryer and reapplied them (still have a few left to resposition). I then painted the whole thing as practice for a ***** repro yet to be purchased. I followed that up with off-the-shelf red and gold pinstriping to make my own decals by hand (except for the red ones around the rear vent, which was intact thankfully; and fortunately, the reds matched well).

A lot of mesh and some off-brand shoe goo adhesive then went into repairing the body as best I could, but the adhesive shrank a bit and curled the body in a few spots around the front wheel wells. I knew going in that the body would never be shelf queen quality, but should look decent enough on the pavement. and it was good practice for the next one.

[oldie]

Nice work, looks like my original shell (thankfully had the presence of mind to get a spare bodyset back in the day!). Wheels look great, will hot glue hold up?

[NitroMusky]

Thanks. I think the hot glue will hold up well, or at least well enough. I aligned the 'points' on the hub with flat section of the hex so that I could get more glue along the flat part of the hex.

The first time I tried it I didn't use enough glue to fill the void all the way around and I could spin the wheel shaft by hand while holding the wheel. Now I think it would take more torque than the car could give it. Made a couple passes on the carpet in the house and worked fine, but time will tell.

If the glue does wear out, it's easy enough to dig it out and redo it as the glue thankfully does not bond to the wheel overly strong, it's more like a pressed in adaptor (and I was able to pop the hub back out with no problem after forming, just a little grease on it before I started was all I needed).

Oh and my presence of mind on the body was to give up on the thin 959 bodies...now wish I had thought like you!

[Xeostar]

Hi,

I like the look of your 959, they do scrub up well :-) I found it felt good bring it back to some sort of life after so long in neglect.

For your rear body mounts:-

http://vintage-tamiyaparts.com/CMS/product...7gj1m807jlq0mm4

And for your wheels, the Madbull (and other similar) wheel hexes are cheep, fit the 959 splined drive shafts and are 12mm so will fit you hubs with no glue. :-)

[NitroMusky]

Hi,

I like the look of your 959, they do scrub up well :-) I found it felt good bring it back to some sort of life after so long in neglect.

For your rear body mounts:-

http://vintage-tamiyaparts.com/CMS/product...7gj1m807jlq0mm4

And for your wheels, the Madbull (and other similar) wheel hexes are cheep, fit the 959 splined drive shafts and are 12mm so will fit you hubs with no glue. :-)

Thanks Xeostar, I didnt know there were wheel hexes that would fit. This is great, I will check those out. I did see the NIP mount parts but 35 dollars American is too much to me for a non-wear part...I could see that if it was getting really scare because everyone wore theirs out beyond usability and are replacing (sorry Tony if you're reading this )...I picked up a lot of other parts each for a fraction of that-many new,, and just the day before I realized mine had been cut, there was a pair that sold on ebay for 2 dollars. I have to believe there is someone with a pair willing to do a fair price, just have to find them.

[HornetKid97]

try finding a parent whose sonehad one, then you tell her it is worth maybe $20 then you got your parts plus extras. (Insert micheavous laugh)

[loco_oso]

Looking nice. I really like the complexity of the suspension on these cars. Thanks for sharing!