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mk4savage

Vintage Sand Scorcher Rebuild

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Hi All.

I got this off Ebay last week with the intention of a rebuild. I bought a nice Scorcher last year which has been built to a very high standard so the idea was to build one of my own to run.

Here it is as I got it, It's a bit of a wreck but is mostly there so I thought.

A bit of positive camber !

Broken front wing, The piece has been stuck on with tape but at least most of it is there. Anybody know what the best glue is to use to repair this ?

The Chassis.

I did notice that these front suspension towers have got small screws where the springs locate at the top. Others I've seen have small lugs as part of the casting ?

The Guy who sold it has owned it since 82 I think he said, Early 80's anyway and he and his dad built it on his 15th birthday. I must say it seems to have been built very well, I have now stripped it and all the screws seemed to be correct to me.

More photo's to come, As I said it's now in a million bits !

Cheers,

Matt.

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Nice find Matt. I think those front suspension towers make it a very early 'Mk1' Scorcher. Do the rear suspension arms have 2 bearings for the drive shafts too? For the front wing repair I would try EMA Plastic Weld or similar solvent type glue.

Looking forward to seeing this one progress, can't beat a good Scorcher rebuild :)

Cheers,

Rob

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Hi Rob.

Yes, Originally the rear arms have two bearings each, But, In the box that came with the car were a few spares and among them was this,

It's one of the original arms that's had a repair done but later failed. It's been replaced with a new one but of the single bearing type which is a shame if it's an early model but I suppose that is all that was available.

on the up side there is another new arm still in it's packet included in those spares so at least I have a matching pair.

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A couple of more photo's before the strip down,

Looks like it was well used.

Broken rear cage, Plus the antenna mount has snapped off.

Original speed controller and vintage Futaba radio gear.

Now the strip down has started.

Radio box all stripped out. As you can see it's scrap.

Same goes for the lid.

So then I stripped the rest down... and the result..

Bits everywhere.

Also found this damage to one of the front suspension arms.

The thread in this half of the gearbox casing has stripped where the chassis bolts up through it. You can probably see the lack of thread on this shot.

I thought I might be able to do something like this to overcome that problem ? I will try and get a washer on there and a shorter bolt of course.

Apart from these things it doesn't seem too bad. I've ordered a new radio box and I'm going for a Radshape chassis as I think the standard ones are a bit flimsy. I've also ordered a bearing set from RC bearings to replace the original brass ones.

Can anyone help with that suspension arm please ? Anyone got a spare they are willing to sell ? The lower ones are available from the re release kit but I can't find any upper ones. Also, are the re re ones compatiable with the vintage kits ?

Matt.

 

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Very nice original...

All those parts that are broke, are exactly the same breakages my original scorcher had back in early 80's. I'm sure every TC member will remember the same breaks :)

Its great to see you restoring this beauty.. ENJOY..

More pics when you can..

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The broken lug on the front suspension arm is exactly the same break on my Mk1. Been on the lookout for a replacement but having said that it seems to function ok without it. I will have to check the rear suspension arms for the 1 or 2 bearing fit. Mine didnt come with any receiver box, so I decided to go for the later 2010 box, as 30+ year old plastic is too brittle for a car I intend to "put back on the road". I have the original gear covers, but again have sourced the later ones for fitment.

I stripped and cleaned the shocks and just replaced the seals and surprisingly they work better than I was expecting and so far no leaks!

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Wow, what a cool find. Really nice car.

I love gettin cars which have been run and still have the personality of the previous owner. I picked up a pair of foxes last week and one of them has south personality it decided to leave it as is and restore it as a runner, but I'm not gonna touch the body.

Good luck sourcing your parts, an get it running again soon.

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Originals are still a nice find, even though the re-re has come. :) I have 3 originals myself, but usually only run my re-re. The first old one I got has been kept completely as it was when I got it (for free) from it´s original owner, besides a little cleaning and I changed 1 front tire as it was warped from being stuffed in a box for many, many years..My second one has gotten a full strip, clean and rebuild, and is now fitted with a Trinity 27 turn Stock-motor, coil over shocks all around, and a Lexan shell, and it goes quite well. (I modified this some time before the re-re came)..My third one has been recently acquired, and i have not done anything with it yet, besides checking the overall condition, which seems to be quite good.. As far as I can see, NO damage whatsoever to the radiobox, but on the other hand, it misses some bodyparts, like dorrhandles, indicators and mirrors. :( Otherwise, the body is also in great shape. :)I´m pretty sure that you have a Mk 1 version on your hands also, especially since it has the small lugs at the rear, and the screw-spring-supports upfront, and i doubt it has been replaced in it´s lifecycle, when you got it from the original owner. :)Have fun restoring it. :DCheers.Michael

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Thanks for the kind comments, much appreciated.

I've had a few things turn up in the post which I ordered for it but I'm still waiting for a screw set to arrive from the states so that will be a while yet and I've also ordered some parts from RC Channel. I'm going for the front and rear bumpers as I like the RC Channel products, they are very good quality. I've also ordered a set of the shock absorber mounting rubbers from them to replace the perished ones so these bits will take a while to arrive I would imagine.

It's getting quite expensive now and I haven't even thought of the body shell yet !

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The Scorcher you have is a Mk1 which has many differences between the later 'Mk2' and certainly a lot different to the recent re-re Scorcher .Your rear gear casings have seperate 'ear type' rear cage lugs as opposed to a 'solid' rear bar for cage mounting and various other small differences .You could try filling that duff thread in with 'chemical metal'and re-tapping it to look cleaner than a bolt if it is going to be a display 'shelfer' ( a Mk1 should be due to the rarity of the original parts)Those oh so rare front arms are lighter ,thinner ,weaker castings than the Mk2 and re-re , and apart from looking 'odd' the re-re arms have different sized ball races to the original .The twin bearing rear arms are the mk1 original type too , very hard to get hold of but if you are going to run it the single bearing type will do .All in all ,you have a very nice Scorcher with the early and rare black bumper , a much sought after bug

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Nice Mk1 you have there, I've just started restoring a Mk2 that I've had for a few months so will be following this thread with interest! Will post my own resto thread soon too to compare notes.

Can I ask what seals you used to recon the shocks please? Also what shock oil did you use?

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The Scorcher you have is a Mk1 which has many differences between the later 'Mk2' and certainly a lot different to the recent re-re Scorcher .Your rear gear casings have seperate 'ear type' rear cage lugs as opposed to a 'solid' rear bar for cage mounting and various other small differences .You could try filling that duff thread in with 'chemical metal'and re-tapping it to look cleaner than a bolt if it is going to be a display 'shelfer' ( a Mk1 should be due to the rarity of the original parts)Those oh so rare front arms are lighter ,thinner ,weaker castings than the Mk2 and re-re , and apart from looking 'odd' the re-re arms have different sized ball races to the original .The twin bearing rear arms are the mk1 original type too , very hard to get hold of but if you are going to run it the single bearing type will do .All in all ,you have a very nice Scorcher with the early and rare black bumper , a much sought after bug

Kev has definately hit the nail right on the head!

OSR

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Nice one . Looks like a bit of a challenge to a newbie like me. Haven't restored any early Tamiya RC's yet , but have purchased a couple of good candidates so I'll see how they go.

Have 2 re-re SS already but an original SS looks to be on cards for me at some stage ... I do like the look of the curved front guards on the original body

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Hi Guys,

Small update. Not done much to this over the last few months so it's still stripped at the moment.

I did buy a few bits and pieces for it as I mentioned earlier like a Radshape Chassis and aluminium front and rear cages from RC Channel BUT, I've decided not to use those spares on this model so what I've done is built another chassis mainly from Re Release parts... I had a few bargains from ebay and the rest of the bits I got from various suppliers. It's Turned out a very expensive way to do it though. It would have been cheaper to buy a kit I think but once I'd started collecting parts I had to carry on, Oh well !

For This model I've decided to try and re build it to standard spec but I'm yet to find a replacement rear arm with the two bearings. I did get a front suspension arm but I'm not sure it will be any good, The grub screw thread had gone, I've re tapped it at 4mm and I think it will be ok but not 100% sure.

I've also noticed that some of my images have disappeared from this thread, I think imageshack is playing up. I've had trouble on other forums too. Looks like it's back to photobucket in the future.

Matt.

I've fixed a couple of the images and I just realised I've still got to try and sort that thread on the gearbox casing without making more of a mess of it.

Anyone else had to do a similar repair ?

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Looks good what you've stripped so far. I see you have a broken rear cage, would you sell biggrin.gif? Not sure what you could do about the gearbox casing. Could just add a washer to you previous bolt, but if you wanted it original get a new gearbox case? As it happens I have an 80's SRB gearbox going spare ;)

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Interesting thread, I just picked up a mk1 to restore aswell.

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WOW, I just looked up this thread and found all of the photos gone, what a shame. I've tried to replace some on the first post but it won't let me add anymore. It's not the best attempt to repair the thread.

Anyway, It's been a long time hasn't it ? 2013, Hard to believe where time has gone. A lot has gone on and I've had a house move also so not really had time for any Tamiya stuff. This Scorcher I still have and as you can guess it's still in a million bits in the box. But, at least I still have it ! I'm struggling to remember where I was at with it to be honest. I'll try and add all the lost photos as I still have the file on my computer.

I think this is where I left it..

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The reason for my interest again was I've seen a few photos on facebook of Scorchers so I thought I'd dig mine out for a look and try and remember where I was at.

I had managed to find another front arm to replace the one I had which the grub screw thread had stripped and I re tapped it. I had totally forgotten about this until I read through this thread. I'd also forgotten I still had the original photos which is a bonus as after so long I couldn't remember what it was like when I got it.  Part of me wishes I hadn't stripped it now as it's just sat in the loft. 

I hadn't forgotten about the stripped thread in the gearbox casing though, I'm still not sure what to do about that. I may try the chemical metal suggestion.

I also managed to find a pair of rear arms, the two bearing type so I'll be able to replace the broken one.

I also got a replacement radio box but I don't think it's a vintage one. It is used but not vintage I don't think although they look identical. It seems to have yellowed over the years in the box also.

It looks like I'll need some new gearbox bearings and some damper bushes to re build it. Should I replace with ball bearings ? Just curious what everyone else thinks. 

I'm not sure I'll run it to be honest so will probably re install the original speed controller.

Let me know your thoughts guys.

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