GregM's brushless Baja Champ

[GregM 1109]

Inspired by XV Pilot's Baja Champ restoration and Mad-Bee's showroom entry, I decided to start my own Baja Champ build.

It all starts with a used Baja Champ, which turned up at my door yesterday.

Rolling chassis, a box full of bodyshells, two servos, ball bearings, and enough spare parts to build a second car, and the (Baja King) boxart lid. Too bad the lid was used as the shipping packaging, too, so there's now a postal sticker on it. Still, not pretty bad for around 40 €. A bargain or not? You guys decide on your own.

I have no idea where these shocks are from. Do you know?

The Baja Champ will be completely stripped down to give all parts a close inspection and a wash. The best parts will be then rebuild to a single car. Electronics-wise I'm planning to use a 2500 kV Carson brushless system and a Jamara 141390 LiPo battery (which just fits right into the TL-01B battery compartment). Bodyshell-wise, I'll be keeping the car close to Mad-Bee's Hot Shot-styled Baja Champ.

[speedy_w_beans 4272]

Early RC10 shocks?

[GregM 1109]

Guessing from a few pictures, I don't think these are RC10 shocks, as they are lacking the RC10's hex hubs/nuts/caps.

All the parts have been cleaned now. Thankfully, all plastic parts are still intact, apart from one broken prop shaft cover. I was also able to pull off all stickers and tape from the kit box without damage.

Thanks to the ultrasonic cleaner, the metal parts were cleaned from grease effortlessly. Let's see, how many ball bearings have survived this procedure - maybe I should have cleaned them separately, however some of them were rusty anyway. Replacing them with rubber sealed bearings might be the next item on the shopping list.

[XV Pilot 1936]

Rubber sealed bearings are a very good idea, especially on the diffs, hubs and inner propshaft locations where they are exposed to the weather.

Do you have a spare propshaft cover handy?

[GregM 1109]

Thanks for the advice.

Yes, I do have spares for almost all the parts. I even had to face the choice which of the six (!) supplied bumpers I want to use. The one with the fewest additional holes won...

Just kidding, only one bumper had been modified by the seller, the rest of them were almost like new.

The Baja Champ came also with three propshafts, six differentials, six friction dampers, additional highspeed gears... Digging all these parts out of the parcel box was like X-mas. If I get the car done and there's anything usable left you may want to get your hands on, I'll let you know.

The chassis has been built now. The build process reminded me a lot of the M-03. The steering assembly looks embarassing when building it (no ball connectors for the links), but in fact has a lot less slop than expected when the car is done and the wheels are mounted up. Speaking of wheels: The Hot Shot front wheels fit nicely, while the rear wheels come in close contact with the lower suspension arms. I will modifiy the arm ends by shaving some plastic off and shortening the screw pin.

I like how soft (yet beefy) the lower arms, upper links and steering links are. I initally thought about replacing the fixed plastic links with adjustable ones, but now I think all the plastic will help to take away impact force from the rigid chassis itself.

All in all I can say I've enjoyed the build a lot. It was pretty straightforward as the car just uses one common screw tape in most places (3x10mm). When assembling the gearboxes, one should make sure to use the right axles and tubes in the correct places, as there are three different lengths included. I didn't and thus had a hard time mounting the rear gearbox cover, until I found out what I did wrong.

For the driveshafts and cups, I've used a dry lube instead of grease. Let's see if this prevents wear and keeps dirt away from the joints.

[Percymon 2184]

The shocks look like Kyosho golds, as fitted to Optima Mid/Turbo Optima Mid in which case if the other three look as good as that one then you could make your 40euros back by selling those !

Project coming along nicely

[GregM 1109]

So they might be Kyosho gold shocks? Too bad I've got only one pair of them. I don't need them, so I'll check their condition first and then might be putting them up for sale on TC.

I am also looking forward to post some pictures of the build progress tonight.

[Percymon 2184]

Duratrax also did a gold shock that was very very similar to the Kyosho ones, but the cups and black springs look more Kyosho to me.

[GregM 1109]

Today I took some time to modify the rear lower arms.

Left: before. Right: after

The target is to let the screw pins sink enough into the arms, so their heads are flush with the arm contour. This can be done with a hobby knife. The screws themself have to be shortened, using a dremel.

This is the result:

The lower arms are now narrow enough to just clear the Hot Shot wheels. If necessary, it is possible to cut even some more material off the arm.

I once fired the car up, one time without and one time with wheels. Even without wheels, the rear drivetrain sounds very loud, like a drilling machine on full throttle. Is this normal with the TL-01B? I'm not used to 4WD buggies, the only other 4WD comparison I have is a TT-01, and this is a rather quiet car when put on the track. All my other cars are 2WD.

[XV Pilot 1936]

The TL01 has a few more gears in its geartrain, and would be a bit noisier than a TT01. However if it is sounding like a drilling machine, perhaps something is amiss. Mine isn't all that loud...

[GregM 1109]

I've took the rear gearbox apart and found crusty hard dirt between two teeth of the spur gear that connects the differential. This caused the diff to rock brutally on load.

I do not say it often, but now I have to:

LOL!

My bad. From four available spur gears, I chose the one that was bad. On the other hand, I can consider myself lucky not having chosen faulty gears for the front gearbox, as this would have caused a whole chassis disassembly to bare bones.

[XV Pilot 1936]

Glad that's sorted then!

[GregM 1109]

After reassembling, the gearbox is working so smooth now, just as if nothing bad had ever happened before. Another check on the rear arms turned out they just need a tiny liiiiittle bit more shaving, as slight contact with the wheels still happens under full suspension compression. More updates on the build will be coming tomorrow.

[GregM 1109]

Sorry, no new pictures today.

I found out that the front lower arms hit the Hotshot wheels on full steering lock. Reducing the maximum steering throw wasn't an option to me, as I wanted to retain full steering. So I modified the front arms just the same way as the rear arms.

These little mods helped to retain the Baja Champ's full articulation. Let's hope they won't affect the strength of the arms, but I'm rather confident they should resist bashing. The TL-01B arms are two-piece assemblies and hollow, so I could try to fill the tiny chambers next to the screw pin mounts with something for reinforcement. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Another story: There are some ideas floating in my mind what to do with the second TL-01B chassis, which still is in bits and pieces. Converting it into a rallye car using TL-01 arms is one of these ideas - I should have some TL-01 part sprues in my spares which are leftovers from other mod projects.

[GregM 1109]

It's official, the 2nd chassis will be converted to a '90 Celica GT-Four rally car. New bodyset, wheels and tires are on their way, but there are some missing parts where I would appreciate help:

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=70785

[GregM 1109]

Some new pics:

Next steps: Masking windows, painting body (black), applying decals, running the Baja Champ and having fun!

[kontemax 1725]

I would suggest you to adopt upper adjustable arms and longer shocks.

Max

[GregM 1109]

Hi Max, I like the plastic links as they are. The suspension would definitely benefit from longer shocks mounted on the outward holes on the lower arms, without changing the ride height.

[GregM 1109]

Can't believe five years have been gone by, haven't they???

Where have those red REELY aluminium shocks gone, you may ask. Well, let me tell you that they weren't that great. Even the stock friction dampers feel better if they're packed with the right amount of grease.

 

Recently, I've learned of Amass' Deans compatible connectors. Try them, they're great and you'll never look back to the old plain style of Deans, since the Amass connectors are much, much easier to unplug.

[Kingfisher 1171]

7 hours ago, GregM said:

Recently, I've learned of Amass' Deans compatible connectors. Try them, they're great and you'll never look back to the old plain style of Deans, since the Amass connectors are much, much easier to unplug.

The car looks great. I use those connectors on all of my cars and really like them. 

[GregM 1109]

Thank you Kingfisher!

[GregM 1109]

Here we go with fresh photos that I took today.

The friction dampers are just fine as they are. I won't swap them for another set of oil dampers. The 16.5 turns brushless motor got slightly warm, but not too hot to touch. The speed controller heat sink was good enough to dissipate the heat without the need for the fan that it was originally supplied with. The 19T pinion seems to be the right choice for this type of motor.

The stock antenna mount is pretty pathetic and will get lost at bumps. Now if that's the major concern regarding the Baja Champ, then I say it is a rather negligible concern.

Good thing that the LiPo battery is a hardcase one. You won't want a soft LiPo pack due to it being exposed and small stones getting caught up between the battery and the sidewalls of the battery compartment.

I had a good half an hour or more runtime on dirt and short, dry grass. When the LiPo low voltage cutoff eventually kicked in, I was already done driving the car and taking photos.

The all-terrain wheels and tires worked good on dirt and tarmac. They have good "meat" on them and are soft enough for mixed surfaces. I was able to spin out the Baja Champ's rear end by tapping the brake deliberately, but it won't spin out on accident. Four-wheel-drive with a fast motor and good tires was a nice experience.

[Jason1145 3986]

Nice Greg, without its rear wing I think it looks a little like a Bear Hawk, less is more again!

I like the slickness of the black shell, I might have to look see if there are spare shells around to do one like this, but I just mounted a F150 shell on TL01B and am enjoying the truck look for now... food for thought though cheers.

 

[Re-Bugged 10099]

Great Buggy 👍🏻. Those Tyres would be well suited to the conditions I mostly drive in.

Shame I only saw your post about the plug connectors a day after I bought some normal dean’s as I’m about to start dabbling with LiPo 😉

[Juggular 4961]

Deans being tiny and hard to pull apart, (and hard to plug) was the reason I went with XT60.  

If I knew about Amass connectors, I might have gotten them myself. 

I still wish some company came up with color-coded connectors.  I paint the + side red with a sharpie just to make it quicker to connect.  (also I soldered wong a couple times... I had to do this to avoid making the same mistake over and over again)