Wood5tock's Boomerang Resto

[wood5tock]

Whilst I am hopfully on the last leg of Super Hornet II I really fancied getting my hands on my next project.

The plan is to have two Boomerangs, one for show and one for running. With this in mind I kept an eye out for a couple of suitable donors and just over a week ago I managed to win the second Boomerang off of eBay. The idea is to strip both and evaluate the parts for use either for restoration (display) restoration (runner) or dispose of due to damage.

So here are the two I managed to win

The yellow one is the rougher of them both so I have decided to strip the white one first

initial inspection reveals the plastics to be really rather good condition especially the blue bits. with minor restoration these could easily be good enough for display. And here was me thinking I could just use them as the runner version.

However once I hooked up a battery to it and ran it up on the bench sign of a lot of wear in the drive train and joints became apparent. Nothing to worry about though.

The seller said the wheels are pretty new and indeed they are

No usual splits at the back from jumps and tight screws

No for a bit of project management. Well you all know I do like a bit of organising

One printed off manual for a certain web site we all know and love

Did these as well. I intend to take the parts off pop them into there respective parts bags, restore them and when it comes to the re-build just use them along with the manual to build it as we would build a new kit. No need to rely on my useless memory

A few odd bits Like these. Come on experts, Sabre, Hotshot ???

Very happy with these and they're not stuck either

LOOK SteveU30 IT'S THAT STAND AGAIN

Nice bit of classic receiver filth

One original MSC in nice nick. Anyone know where I can get an original lexan cover for this? Money waiting

Most electrics now removed, just the steering servo to go

You can see what I mean about the condition of the plastics and most of the screws are in mint condition too, with their original cadmium coating

Font gearbox and sub assy out

Rubber seal bearing used too

One almost empty tub having just lost it's rear gearbox

Usual wear and tear on the steering slide

Intresting use of a cut-off damper rod as a steering pin

And here we have one empty tub

[Fruitfly01]

I do like a Boomer. Definitely a classic car, and lovely to look at. But in my opinion, a PITA to work with. Over engineered and too many parts to do one job, which I guess was typical of earlier Tamiya buggies. Which is probably why we love them so much.

[matman]

I would say them rims ( wheels ) & the red hubs are Hotshot RE RE . The steering pin is always lost ,

When you sell the car with out the servo , as they leave the pin on the servo . I used the wheel pin that

the hub & axel use . That fits well , But you can get them now with the re re .

You can still get the vintage drive cups , dog bones , out drives on Evilbay . As

the re re are different , as the gear box is different slightly . As the drive cups where the bearing goes

is deeper for the E-clips on the re re & The vintage use C-clips .

I love the Boomerang , So i will be looking at this like a hawk . ...

So if there is a screw out of place !! Your in trouble & not allowed to organise for a week !! ..

This is going to be a great build Oh!! NO it's "build's" .....

[WillyChang]

steering pin needs to be 3mm & smooth where it goes into the rack slot.

(original pin is 3mm with a 2mm threaded part)

If you use 2mm axle pin you'll have pretty floppy rack.

recently was scratching head to make a replacement from a long 3mm screw

with threads that only went partway... that'll take care of the smooth shank bit.

But fortunately i found an original pin spare

[mongoose1983]

While I must admit I am no fan of the Boomerang myself, but it is always a pleasure to see restorations like these.

Thanks for sharing the process with us, mate!

[Klausen]

Great thread, looking forward to follow the process. I hope to ad a Boomer to my collection again some day. Great plan with a shelfer and a runner

[Boothy]

Ohhhh I love boomers

So gutted I missed out on the re re, was twitching about buying one and never did

Looking forward to this thread

[wood5tock]

I do like a Boomer. Definitely a classic car, and lovely to look at. But in my opinion, a PITA to work with. Over engineered and too many parts to do one job, which I guess was typical of earlier Tamiya buggies. Which is probably why we love them so much.

Having built the Novafox I find the Boomer nice, not least because you don't have to take it all apart if you make a mistake with the electrics as I did on my Novafox

I would say them rims ( wheels ) & the red hubs are Hotshot RE RE . The steering pin is always lost ,

When you sell the car with out the servo , as they leave the pin on the servo . I used the wheel pin that

the hub & axel use . That fits well , But you can get them now with the re re .

You can still get the vintage drive cups , dog bones , out drives on Evilbay . As

the re re are different , as the gear box is different slightly . As the drive cups where the bearing goes

is deeper for the E-clips on the re re & The vintage use C-clips .

I love the Boomerang , So i will be looking at this like a hawk . ...

So if there is a screw out of place !! Your in trouble & not allowed to organise for a week !! ..

This is going to be a great build Oh!! NO it's "build's" .....

I was thinking along the same lines regarding the rims and hubs. NO ORGANISING FOR A WEEK!!! I shall keep my nose to the grindstone then ON BOTH

steering pin needs to be 3mm & smooth where it goes into the rack slot.

(original pin is 3mm with a 2mm threaded part)

If you use 2mm axle pin you'll have pretty floppy rack.

recently was scratching head to make a replacement from a long 3mm screw

with threads that only went partway... that'll take care of the smooth shank bit.

But fortunately i found an original pin spare

Thanks for the extra info on the dimensions of the steering pin that will help me out no end, I notice in the manual it doesn't give the dimensions

While I must admit I am no fan of the Boomerang myself, but it is always a pleasure to see restorations like these.

Thanks for sharing the process with us, mate!

No probs buddy

Great thread, looking forward to follow the process. I hope to ad a Boomer to my collection again some day. Great plan with a shelfer and a runner

Oh yes

Ohhhh I love boomers

So gutted I missed out on the re re, was twitching about buying one and never did

Looking forward to this thread

I know I wished I had got a re-re when they were around

[Fruitfly01]

Having built the Novafox I find the Boomer nice, not least because you don't have to take it all apart if you make a mistake with the electrics as I did on my Novafox

The open chassis is definitely the cars main advantage over it's predecessors. The biggest problem for me was the front gearbox. I put in some new gears, but because they are so coarse they didn't spin freely once the box was fully built, and they made a horrible noise. I took that front gearbox apart more times than I ever care to take apart any gearbox. Eventually I found the offending gear and replaced it with a used one which had properly bed in. I'm so glad it wasn't the rear gearbox that was giving me problems. Dealing with the motor setting plates more than once would have been a real headache. And since the car was a restore/shelfer, I nearly just gave up on it being mechanically sound, but that would have bugged me even more.

Although much derided, I think the Thundershot family of cars was a huge leap in design over the Hotshots. Not as iconic, but certainly nicer to work with if being used as a runner. But hey, enjoy your Boomer. They are classic cars and they do look good. I just can't imagine anyone putting up with maintaining them when racing back in the day.

[WillyChang]

if you want a quiet car from new... we used to bolt them together without grease & shocks

then run the drivetrain with 540 on 2-cells (2.4V 1200mAh!) until they

ran out... repeat with the other 4 cells in pack.

Then hookup a new pack and run same with MSC in reverse.

After then you stripdown, dust out the gearcases then grease up.

With the limited power available from 1200mAh lasting 6mins... Hotshot drivetrain is bulletproof.

They didn't need any fixing on raceday; commoner failures were popped shocks,

broken triangle hubs, ejected dogbones and front bumper ripping off

on landing a jump after middle screw falls out.

(put tape over oval hole, works better than loctite)

Hotshot Motor spacing plates is genius easy to do, doesn't take much concentration.

Fox's D-plate system is much harder, gotta check which way its pointing & in which notch.

[wood5tock]

Hotshot Motor spacing plates is genius easy to do, doesn't take much concentration.

Fox's D-plate system is much harder, gotta check which way its pointing & in which notch.

Having now done both, built the 'Fox' box and now stripped the 'Boomer' box I totally agree such a simply idea which works a treat

[wood5tock]

Over last night and this afternoon I managed to get the rest of my first Boomer stripped down.

I think these are past their best

The other drive shaft seems good however, so I'm guessing either one was replaced or there is some awful imbalance somewhere. Hotshot format aficionados your experience greatly received

These are all pretty warn as you can see the chromium has worn of showing the brass underneath, all the slots are butchered like this...

...which have caused a little wearing in the ball sockets in the suspension arms

These were a bit of grief ti get out with the slots ground out but they came out in the end

I thought that the sight of proper bearings when I took off the wheels was a good thing but it turns out all the inner bearings are still plastic bushes. Having said that the bushes have no signs of serious wear so the outer bearings seemed to have at least done half the job

Drive cups are in good order

An there we have a front gearbox with the sub assembly removed.

On to the back box to see what goodies we have here

Drive shafts are spot on at the rear, which makes the wearing of only one of the fronts even more confusing

[mongoose1983]

Drive shafts are spot on at the rear, which makes the wearing of only one of the fronts even more confusing

I like your work and attention to detail here. Must have been the previous owner changed the rear driveshafts first, leaving the front ones "for another occasion". I know many of us had that way to do things back in the late 80's-early 90's

[wood5tock]

Rear 'proper' bearing are full metal ones which is yet another odd thing in the bearing dept

Once again plastic busing left on the inside of the drive cups and sighs this time of wear.

Curses a crack! Oh well only one found so far

Complete rear sub assembly taken off

Both front and rear gearboxes ready to be opened up

Rear drive joint looks good

Ah the adjustable motor plates that Willy Chang was talking about

He's right this is genius Although the screw head is rounded to b*****y

Pinion shows no wear but also no, or very little, signs of lube

[wood5tock]

First impressions are good no signs of serious wear but again no signs of lube either, apart from a little around the metal parts

More standard bushings

Well it's definitely a vintage 'Boomer' there be a 'C-Clip' which 10 secs later was fired across the table to be lost forever

Gearbox internals laid out

And two rear gear cases totally stripped

On to the front gearbox

Blimey this is even dryer than the rear! but the gear components are mint

A bit of surface rust on the trust washer behind the drive joint cup

Front gearbox internals laid out

And again two empty gearcases

Now on to the dampers

All the dampers where full with not major leaks so thats great, also as you can see from the colour of the old oil it was nice and clean too. I know this should be the case with dampers with the majority of components made of plastic but in the past I have found some real stinkers

Only found one of the two 'O Rings' that are supposed to be there

An there you have it a Boomerang into it's component parts bagged and tagged ready for full inspection and then decisions will be made as to ordering new components or re-using the original. I want to keep as much of the original as possible though

Stay tooned folks

[wood5tock]

I like your work and attention to detail here. Must have been the previous owner changed the rear driveshafts first, leaving the front ones "for another occasion". I know many of us had that way to do things back in the late 80's-early 90's

Cheers buddy yeah I know what you mean. The thing that is still a bit of a mystery is the front two, one worn badly and the other fine. The only explanation I can think is maybe one of the front drive shafts popped out and got damaged hence why only one is in good nick

[mongoose1983]

Cheers buddy yeah I know what you mean. The thing that is still a bit of a mystery is the front two, one worn badly and the other fine. The only explanation I can think is maybe one of the front drive shafts popped out and got damaged hence why only one is in good nick

Perhaps the one that was where the best one is broke first and the previous owners only had one replacement to keep the car going? The possibilities to figure out such things are literally countless

[wood5tock]

Perhaps the one that was where the best one is broke first and the previous owners only had one replacement to keep the car going? The possibilities to figure out such things are literally countless

Very true in any case I can feel another Tamico order coming on

[matman]

Very true in any case I can feel another Tamico order coming on

Like i have said Before , New out drives & dog bones etc ON re re are different size ,

Old Vintage out drives & dog bones are bigger as you can see .

[wood5tock]

Like i have said Before , New out drives & dog bones etc ON re re are different size ,

Old Vintage out drives & dog bones are bigger as you can see .

Thanks for the info bud, yes I have noticed the re-re parts a generally different than the originals. Once I have gone through and inspected the parts and got a shopping list together I shall double check the part nos so k know I am getting vintage where necessary

[Fruitfly01]

I'm surprised the previous owner didn't lose any of the motor setting plates as I'm sure there is supposed to be a plastic washer/ring that sits over them, on the outside of the gearbox, before you thread the screw through and bolt the motor into position. I'll never like that (genius) design.

I can only imagine that the front dogbones are in a worse shape than the rears due to them being worked harder during steering. A UJ driveshaft was never designed by Tamiya for the Shots/Boomers. I know the front and rear are different lengths so are not interchangeable.

And I hope you find a C clip. Modern E clips don't fit, unless you use a whole lot of re re parts, including gearbox halves, drive cups, etc...

And the shock tower mount (blue piece of plastic on top of rear gearbox)... Remember to put it back in place before you reassemble the gearbox and tighten all the screws. I'm just speaking from experience Most frustrating, but entirely my fault.

This forum needs a blush smiley.

[kontemax]

I'm a Boomerang super expert so ask me if you want to know something about.

About the drive shafts wearing: the previous owner probably moved the worn rear shafts on front ends. You can repair the worn shafts. I did it when I was a child. Search for some steel nails. Extract the original worn pin from the axles with an hammer and a punch (they are simply pressed in) and replace them with the nails. Fit the steel nails into the shafts heads and then cut them with a cutting wheel or a grinding disc to the right length.

This job works great, I did it on my original Boomerang. Be sure to find the right steel nails (they are blue/black) with the right diameter (2,something millimeters. If you find only 2 millimeters they enter but move inside. Ovalize them in the middle with the hummer and will resolve).

The 8 mm ball connectors was a weak point. I suggest steel CRP vintage ones or modern Hot Shot re release ones.

ALWAYS use steel pinion gears, original are butter made. The gearboxes are bullet proof but if the pinion gear is worn it will destroy your spur gear.

Replace all bushing with ball bearings, the most important are wheel axles, gearbox joints and propeller shafts.

Here is a mostly unknown tip for the gearbox joints:

place for each gearbox joint a 1150 ball bearing inside and then a 850 ball bearing outside. Place the gearbox joint and the C-clip. Your gearbox joint will be more firm, the car will have less friction, less wearing and less noise.

Max

[matman]

I'm a Boomerang super expert so ask me if you want to know something about.

About the drive shafts wearing: the previous owner probably moved the worn rear shafts on front ends. You can repair the worn shafts. I did it when I was a child. Search for some steel nails. Extract the original worn pin from the axles with an hammer and a punch (they are simply pressed in) and replace them with the nails. Fit the steel nails into the shafts heads and then cut them with a cutting wheel or a grinding disc to the right length.

This job works great, I did it on my original Boomerang. Be sure to find the right steel nails (they are blue/black) with the right diameter (2,something millimeters. If you find only 2 millimeters they enter but move inside. Ovalize them in the middle with the hummer and will resolve).

The 8 mm ball connectors was a weak point. I suggest steel CRP vintage ones or modern Hot Shot re release ones.

ALWAYS use steel pinion gears, original are butter made. The gearboxes are bullet proof but if the pinion gear is worn it will destroy your spur gear.

Replace all bushing with ball bearings, the most important are wheel axles, gearbox joints and propeller shafts.

Here is a mostly unknown tip for the gearbox joints:

place for each gearbox joint a 1150 ball bearing inside and then a 850 ball bearing outside. Place the gearbox joint and the C-clip. Your gearbox joint will be more firm, the car will have less friction, less wearing and less noise.

Max

Been there & done all that , I used the wheel axle pin in the 80's .

Would be great if they released the pin's for the dog bones ..

I'm a boomerang NUT & just like kontemax .

[wood5tock]

A ha the experts are circling awesome thanks guy all the tips are very welcome for the re-build

[WillyChang]

don't throw away, the pins can be pressed out easy

(easier still with vice, press into a doublestack of Tamiya's famous 3mm flanged nuts)

you should replace them with 2mm x 12mm axle pins

(i saw them sold somewhere recently, i think it was Xray that used them)

although nails/wire/coathanger etc will work in a pinch, proper drivepins

will be hardened with a nice smooth finish & bevelled edge easier to push back in

front dogbones will bend if you crash with steering cranked over.

You can bend back carefully at least a few times before the metal fatigues totally