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Avante 2011 (Black Special) Build - #84270

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Simple but effective mounting system

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In my experience metal to metal fixings are complimented by a subtle drop of blue locktite

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The gearbox cover includes installing a counter gear that connects the torque converter to the rear diff assembly

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Tamiya instruct us then to move on to the rear sway bar, which is very thin? but sometimes metal is like that it can be small but strong. (ATT)

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And then the rear bumper

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You should connect the rear sway bar to the braces in the rear upper arms before to continue. ;)

Max

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She's coming along now for sure. Id built a ton of cars before owning and building my own 2011, have to say, it really was an adventure, such a fun build, the suspension/arms was the area for me, so cool to see it take form!

lee

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My Self, i enjoyed building my BS a lot....Felt distinguished compared to vintage! :)...everything in this kit is neat and gorgeous!!!!

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Step 16 in the build and we are focussing on the rear arms and axles. There's quite a few parts involved and some very tasty looking ball link setups to boot!

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The Avante uses metal wheel hubs that are secured via cap head screws. Rather than using the kit supplied allen key, I went with one of my Wiha drivers which I find give a superior tension. You can really 'feel' the torque as you screw it in to place with these drivers. It seemed to me that the correct size is 263P which happens to be quite a commonly used driver for grub screws etc on plane kits. I still like to use a tiny drop of locktite though:

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There's also a grub screw to be installed in to a cross joint, being metal to metal I like to also have a small drop of loctite in play:

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We then go back to the 'Anti wear' grease and lube up the cup, pin, and ball joint of the wheel axle

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After the pin is installed it is then possible to torque up the grub screw by pushing the axle all the way to one side. This then leaves a quite tight assembly.

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Repeat twice and we have rear axles...

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My next tasks in this step were to fit the axles and rear arms. Start with an axle, fit a bearing, then the hub, then another bearing, then the pin, then the wheel hub :

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and repeat again...

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The rear arms are cleverly molded with a plastic and metal component, to which we add the ball links. Tamiya require that the ball links sit at a certain angle though so they supply metal shims in the set to help achieve the right angle. I found that on one side it needed no shims, on the other I needed three. There's very little length difference so hopefully it does not create a tracking issue. Knowing the kind of play that is normal in the rear wheels of Tamiya kits I hope that it should be within tolerance.

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Flipping over to the next page (11) and it's time to attach the rear arms.

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Tamiya give us a small alloy stand, standard bolt and locking nut at one end, and a pin system at the other.

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Although not technically complex or cumbersome, this part of the build feels quite rewarding because the overall size of the Avante starts to build

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But it would not be a car without some axles!

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To which Tamiya instructs us to add 'Diff sponge' to the rear diff joints. This seems to be a similar urethane material to what is installed in the RERE Hotshot but no cutting required for the Avante

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Breaking out the AWG again for the dogbone...

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Carefully guide it through the assembly and in to position (as that AWG is hard to get off!)

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Flipping over to step 19 it is time to makeup the upper arms for the rear. Relatively few parts, but complicated to get it right..

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Starting with a threaded shaft, we add locking nuts (that are not LOCK NUTS btw), then a ball end stabiliser guide followed by another ball end. This then has to be measured for length and to ensure that the ball ends are aligned correctly as per the manual. I chose to do a dry fit first, then use a little locktite to compliment the locking action of the single nut....

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Then make another one :)

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To which we add screws and more locking nuts.

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Around about now was when I realised that my sway bar had fallen off the model, I went hunting for it and found it in the box..

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The sway bar is threaded through the stabiliser guide and then screwed down at either end

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I do the fast assemble with the screw driver, then hold the screw and the final torque with the Tamiya tool

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Repeat on the other side

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And then it's time to sit back and admire the workmanship over a glass of milk and some Cranberry infused Wensleydale on Black pepper crackers :)

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Tonight I start work on the front end suspension, hopefully there is still crackers and cheese to be had!!

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Love the Avante. It's an engineering marvel with all those links and arms.

Might I suggest replacing the plastic rod ends in favor of aluminum pieces. Mine cracked on the first outing.

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Love the Avante. It's an engineering marvel with all those links and arms.

Might I suggest replacing the plastic rod ends in favor of aluminum pieces. Mine cracked on the first outing.

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Can you tell us how you sustained this damage?

From the look of it, seems like the sweep back suspension mechanism was activated beyond it's limit.

Did the PA2 alloy suspension joint break?

Could it also be becos the linkage rod was not screwed in all the way in the plastic end?

This is one of the front suspension weak points. When I ran the Avante in 1989, that rod was made of Aluminium and had always bent. After re-bending a couple of times, it snapped. Changed that to the optional titanium rod and that sorted it out.

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Can you tell us how you sustained this damage?

From the look of it, seems like the sweep back suspension mechanism was activated beyond it's limit.

Did the PA2 alloy suspension joint break?

Could it also be becos the linkage rod was not screwed in all the way in the plastic end?

This is one of the front suspension weak points. When I ran the Avante in 1989, that rod was made of Aluminium and had always bent. After re-bending a couple of times, it snapped. Changed that to the optional titanium rod and that sorted it out.

Chaps if you don't mind could you start a new thread for this discussion, I think it will be a good one and would be better served in it's own place rather than cluttering up my BUILD thread ;)

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Last night's build activity focussed around the front end suspension and we pickup from the manual on page 12, step 20, Bag C :D

... and we start by releasing the very tricky rocker arm system

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The idea behind the rocker arm system is that it gives some lateral impact relief to the front suspension so that if the front end gets a solid whack (from a tire, curb, ankle, basketball hoop stand etc etc) then the whole suspension does not get bunched but rather the shock is absorbed by this firm plastic tube that Tamiya supply in the kit. I've not seen this design before so I am building it with interest. I am in two minds on how effective it will be, as part of me thinks that it may introduce unwanted toe out slop in the suspension. However going from experience offroader buggies are not that precise anyway so probably it just doesn't matter.

Tamiya supply a rocker arm and guide shaft for each side, the arms sit in place, the shaft holds it and allows it to rock one way or the other. The suspension arms are then attached to the rocker on each side:

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The position of the arm is controlled by this very thick rubber tube which Tamiya call the 'Radius Arm Protector'

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Simple, yet effective?

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Tamiya now instruct us to install the front bumper, sway bar, and sway bar stay.

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I found a test fit to be handy for this as the brackets swing around all over the place on the bar. Overall it's simple enough though.

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Because the under bumper screws are going metal to metal, I added a drop of Loctite to each (not shown)

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The front suspension arms use a similar system to the rear, they are just shorter and also have provision for steering.

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First step attaching the lower shock mount

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Then the sway bar brackets and end links are installed. Again Tamiya prescribe the 'shim' method of lining up the end links according to a picture in the manual. I will say that while this does in a way work, I am not in love with the engineering behind it. There was a lot of fiddling aroun, fitting, refitting, tightening, checking etc etc to try and get these right. One problem here is that the threaded rod is steel but the end link is alloy, which means that every time you screw it up tight and then untighten it, the piece becomes looser and looser, meaning that maybe you run through this process 20 times and you need another shim! In my book shims should be used to take up slack in mechanicanisms that rely on precision gaps, not be used to try and achieve a 'binding angle' if that's even a technical term. At any rate, I resorted to getting it within about 5% of where I thought was perfect and then locktiting the badword out of everything. It's not moving now :) I will say though, for anyone who has light OCD you could possibly entertain yourself for weeks on these two arms as they kept me going for a good hour or more and I'm pretty slack!

As a follow up thought, I think it would be a much better idea to make the rod in the arm adjustable length and not be messing around with the shims, however presumably Tamiya use this system for a reason and they know a lot more about engineering than I do (ATT).

Here's the front arms ready to rock:

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Step 22 then prescribes that we make the front lower arm rod for attaching to the frame:

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There is then a pin system for attaching the main pivot points

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