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Pteppic

Fox Dampers

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Just rebuilding a Fox and am curious about the dampers.

All the manuals I can find to download have dampers with a diaphragm, but my Fox has the dampers with the upper floating piston. Fortunately the car came with it's manual and it has the older dampers shown (helpful as one is missing it's internal spring).

I'm assuming this means it's a fairly early example of the Fox as I understand from here:

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/car_comment.asp?cid=51

That they were later changed for the more usual type of dampers.

So can anyone out there throw anymore light on this - like how long was the kit in this form before it was updated? Also would love to know what years the orignal Fox was produced.

Thanks.

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Probably you have the Mk1 Fox like mine.

There where some minor differences between Mk1 and Mk2 and the first release of yellow dampers is one of them.

In fact the Fox was the first Tamiya model with yellow CVA dampers. If I remember well the Fox took the dampers system from the Hot Shot that had the upper floating pistons into the damper cylinders.

I suppose that Tamiya replaced the floating pistons dampers with diaphragm seal ones after some months of production.

Max

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There exist three version of the Fox, not counting the re-release Novafox.

As you correctly assume, you've got an early Fox because it has the upper floating pistons, but how early depends on a few other things.

When the Fox was first released, it came with driveshafts that weren't pre-greased, and the rear upper suspension arms and gearbox housing didn't have integrated "stoppers" to prevent the downward throw. The dampers came with floating pistons and circular collars to press the floating piston into position, before removing. Many customers didn't remove the collar and unfortunately it fitted inside the damper top, but the top couldn't be threaded properly down on the damper cylinder, resulting in a longer damper (from upper to lower eye). This and the lack of stoppers, caused premature wear of the driveshafts. Even more so when the customers also missed the step in the manual where the greasing of the driveshafts was described.

So, after a relatively short time (don't remember how long anymore), the Fox was updated with pregreased driveshafts, the mentioned suspension throw stoppers and most important, with oval collars for positioning the floating pistons, the oval shape making it impossible to (incorrectly) leave the collar in the damper as it was impossible to thread the damper top onto the cylinder with the oval collar inside.

Later again, the Fox got the revised dampers with diaphragms instead of floating pistons.

So:

Version 1: No suspension stoppers, floating pistons and circular piston positioning collar.

Version 2: Suspension stoppers, floating pistons and oval piston positioning collar.

Version 3: As version 2, but with diaphragms instead of floating pistons.

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Thanks for your time and the info guys.

It looks like I have a version 1. As I have the dampers with the floating piston and also round collars for positioning the piston. I'll try to remember not to leave them in when I clean and refurbish!

So far only appear to need about 4 or 5 parts to return it to a runner (not bad for it's age). And once that's sorted I might consider a new shell for it.

Will be updating the electronics to an ESC and 2.4Ghz for ease of maintainence (and also due to loads of interferance on 27Mhz when I usually run)

If anyone has any other historical nuggets about the Fox I'd love to hear them and if anyone wants a Fox Version 1 manual in PDF form drop me a PM - I'll get around to scanning it soon. (although it is quite battered) I(t also has a few sheets stapled to the back which I'll include in the PDF one talked about making sure you grease the half shafts and also remove the X2 parts when building the dampers.

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... if anyone wants a Fox Version 1 manual in PDF form drop me a PM - I'll get around to scanning it soon. (although it is quite battered) I(t also has a few sheets stapled to the back which I'll include in the PDF one talked about making sure you grease the half shafts and also remove the X2 parts when building the dampers.

Pteppic, thanks for the PDF manual

I really appreciate it

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