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mongoose1983

Kyosho Honda ATC 250R [1982]

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Well, it's been a not-so-nice time here, and come to think a little work done to some classic might get me in a better mood. So I turned to this fantastic vintage 3wheeler for a little distraction. And I can say that it's REALLY been fun.

The bike itself isn't in bad conditions, it just needs some electronics and a little work to get it running. I planned to have it ready today, but my soldering iron is broken. Have to buy another one. Sucks!

Here's what I am starting with. A forward-only LRP ESC, and a fantastic classic Futaba radio to go with it. Yay!

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This is how the Honda looks before starting the work:

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Music today for sure did not help this here fire I can't put out... Oh, well...

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The Honda was missing the aluminum bits to attach the steering servo to the chassis. Had to grab some alu bits and do them myself based on pictures and a photocopy of the original manual. Fortunately they turned out pretty good. The transmission was missing a small spacer in the gears, but other than that it was alright. The pinion seemed to be shot, but I did some magic trick to it and now it's back to work again. Pictures will follow right away.

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Here it is. The 1984 Kyosho Honda ATC 250R naked in all it's glory.

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This is the differential. The white gears as they look seem to be fragile. I haven't heard anything about how the trike performs, other than seeing it running in some internet videos, but I know I am not going to abuse it when test-running it.

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Have a look at the chassis. The whole thing seems to be so Flinstone-like. For a vehicle made in 1984 it might as well have been as advanced as some 1964 RC vehicle! :o

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The electronics installed.

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Here's the aluminum bits I had to make to get the steering servo in its place:

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The coils that work as servo saver are very much like nothing I have ever seen. Come to think I used to be a Tamiya-only kind of RCer myself!

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With the vintage brand-new AM72 Futaba receiver & the Forward-only ESC in place. :)

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Buttview. Can you see the small wheel that helps the thing do the wheelies?

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With the driver on. The guy has his right hand broken. The plastic is somewhere between soft and hard, and that doesn't make it easy to find a solution to fix the hand.

I would like to repaint the driver from waist up to his helmet. The manual mentions polycarb paint, but I haven't got any of those. I wonder if regular paint would work on it, and if the paint would go away with brake fluid, too? I really want the helmet to be white or yellow.

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Anyway, the only reason why I could not make it run today is the fact that I need to replace the plug of the steering servo. It was impossible with my broken Iron today, but hopefully I'll be able to get another one next week.

So the test-run photos will have to wait a bit.

You all have a good week! :)

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I must admit your ATV is interesting, but your outdoor work shop is more interesting. You must have great weather in your part of the world substantially all the time.

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polycarb paint is PS ? might be hard to get hold of in your location . try some nitro fuel on a rag to strip the old paint - brake fluid will make it brittle .

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polycarb paint is PS ? might be hard to get hold of in your location . try some nitro fuel on a rag to strip the old paint - brake fluid will make it brittle .

I am actually assuming that the paint is for polycarb. It is because of the bottle shown in the manual (see below), but I am not sure. If it actually was polycarb paint then that is not hard to find here. The thing is I am not sold that it would work on the type of plastic. And also, other than the picture in the manual, there's the recommendation of Robbe "Rolac" paint at the end of the manual. Now, I have asked about that kind of paint here in the club before, but I've come up with not even one response. Seemingly nobody ever used that kind of paint. :(

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I must admit your ATV is interesting, but your outdoor work shop is more interesting. You must have great weather in your part of the world substantially all the time.

Haha, well, I can use the place with a smile on my face from late September to Early April. The rest of the time it's too cold, and when rain hits I have to cover it all with plastic. As a matter of fact I had to have it covered for literally months this year. We don't have a very nice weather down here, actually the cold months are pretty miserable (late May-August), but fortunately we don't have snow. I don't have a heater, so I have to drink coffee and wear heavy clothes all the time. Man, how I HATE winters!

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Well, for months I've been meaning to do this with the Honda ATC. The trike shown in the manual and in the promotional pictures as the one below show the black aluminum underplate. I wanted to have the same in my Honda (originally it is just natural aluminum color), so today I dismantled it, and got to paint it and also I installed a toggle switch for the Forward-only LRP ESC that I installed in it. Everything worked out just fine :)

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I drilled a hole so I could get the toggle switch in place. The original switch was one of those that you just stick to some RC chassis, so it became a hassle to use as it just won't stick properly. Now everything works better than good :)

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Then I prepared the underplate to be painted black and look like the promotional item ;)

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As you can see here with a stick and a rubber band I did everything alright to get it painted properly. I used regular enamel, the non-hobby type.

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Results:

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I'm happy with how the Honda looks now.

I'm curious as to why my trike has only one wheelie wheel. The promotional pictures above show two instead of just one, but the original manual shows only one.

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That's the toggle switch.

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Here's the Honda. I've dismantled the driver today too, but time did not allow to work on it, so until next time ;)

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You all have a good Wednesday! :)

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From distant memory these are a lot of fun and actually run quite well . Not very fast but realistic and they certainly wheelie . Great job of the restoration .

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Your work area is great. Nothing like fresh air and nature sun light condition.

It's a place that I actually enjoy very much, a space I never thought that would be of use. I just can stay there for hours, feeling the warm breeze but no direct sunlight, and listening to great songs, too. In a perfect world I'd have a Corona beer or just a can of Dr. Pepper with me there, but sadly that doesn't happen that often. One of these days I'll take a couple of pictures to show you a general sight of the place.

From distant memory these are a lot of fun and actually run quite well . Not very fast but realistic and they certainly wheelie . Great job of the restoration .

Well, it takes a little to get used to these things. They can wheelie alright, but the thing that is a bit of a turn off is how noisy they are with the stock RS380 motor. Other than that, these things are so nice and go so easy on the eye. Everybody that seen it has made some happy and very positive remarks about it. It can pull smiles as much as it can pull wheelies. Plus, an ATC just screams 70's-early 80's. It captures a part of the offroading culture that is long gone, and that makes it special to me.

Thank you guys! :)

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Looking great Erich, I sure wish I could send you some Dr Pepper or even better, some Shiner Beer. I don't have any answers to your questions, but I bet that PC paint was recomended to be able to FLEX with that wierd soft/hard plastic driver. Modern paints that I can find for painting things like outdoor furniture seem like they could do the trick that the paints we had on the shelves back in the 80's couldn't dream of.

Now as far as screaming 70's and 80's, you need to find you a remote control old school Jet Ski. :lol:

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Well, a few days ago I got the driver's jersey repainted. I had two colors to choose, orange and shiny black. Since parts of the engine are orange, I decided to paint it black, and later I'll paint the helmet with the orange spray. I'm not particularly excited about this. I'm only doing things with what I have around. It doesn't look bad, but another color might have worked better. I'm only happy I'll finish this soon. In the end, this 1984 Kyosho Honda ATC 250R runs very good, and looks reasonably good for my money. :)

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Let's see if later on this week I can get to work on that Bell helmet.

You all have a good week! :)

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That looks good from these angles Erich, but that second shot sure makes his rear end look FAT, good thing he isn't a woman.

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On 5/10/2015 at 7:31 PM, Crash Cramer said:

That looks good from these angles Erich, but that second shot sure makes his rear end look FAT, good thing he isn't a woman.

Well, with your comment this other trike comes to mind... :lol:

 

Anyway, I'll comeback with the finished Honda 3wheeler hopefully next Friday ;)

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Last Tuesday I finally got into painting the driver's Bell helmet. Results: EPIC fail! Can't express the frustration. I left the driver forgotten over the bench, not even wanting to go back and look at it until today. I will have to do something about it now and get it both, fixed and looking good. HOPEFULLY! :rolleyes:

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I hope to return with a properly finished driver to show you guys sometime next week. So until then, fellow TCers! ;)

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My "next week" turned out to be three years, LOL.

Anyway, here's a look at the completely restored 1984 Kyosho Honda 250R ATC, or motorbike & rider that is.

Love the stance of this thing :wub:

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Somewhere along the restoration process I installed a toggle switch for the receiver. Looks and works great. Oh, and that's a round piece of a shiny red decal there so I know what's the "on", haha :D

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The rider's helmet was not easy to finish, but I think I did a pretty decent job. I love how it looks now.

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The whole vehicle is so outdated for having been released in 1984... There is a differential, alright. By manual, if you tighten the nuts you can make it go fixed! It's amazing, haha. It does pop wheelies if you make it go fast, a nice thing to run, but nothing like any car or buggy, a whole different feeling!

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Finally, how accurate is this model? You know Kyosho was not known to scale down vehicles too well but still the Honda 250R is not too bad.

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You all have a good Sunday! :)

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Great work! I can't wait to see it running. I can get you the dimensions of missing front plate from my ATC if you want and you can cut it from styrene sheet. 

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9 hours ago, Blissard said:

Great work! I can't wait to see it running. I can get you the dimensions of missing front plate from my ATC if you want and you can cut it from styrene sheet. 

Thanks, Blissard. The dimensions will sure be of help. :)

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Nice work here ;)

This model is actually from 1982 by the way. Also, do you have the tyre pump for it?

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5 minutes ago, Hibernaculum said:

Nice work here ;)

This model is actually from 1982 by the way. Also, do you have the tyre pump for it?

Thanks, mate.

May I ask where you got the date? If my memory is still good, I've seen the prototype for this one in a 1984 catalog.

I just got the Kyosho Hilux and thanks to that I finally got the pump for these tires. :)

Have a good Thursday!

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The pump is extremely rare, so you’ve done well. 

The Kyosho Honda ATC 250R first appeared in Kyosho catalogues in 1982 - here is an example - http://www.retromodelisme.com/scan_pages/14458/1982-kyosho-mini-catalog-japanese-page-13.html

Incidentally, only shortly before the little Shinsei model, which was also made in Japan. It too is very collectible now, and was also simply known as the Shinsei Honda ATC 250R in Japan, and with the added name “Dust Runner” outside Japan.

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(My lengthy drivel here - https://rctoymemories.com/2015/01/02/shinsei-dust-runner-1982/ )

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24 minutes ago, Hibernaculum said:

The pump is extremely rare, so you’ve done well. 

The Kyosho Honda ATC 250R first appeared in Kyosho catalogues in 1982 - here is an example - http://www.retromodelisme.com/scan_pages/14458/1982-kyosho-mini-catalog-japanese-page-13.html

Incidentally, only shortly before the little Shinsei model, which was also made in Japan.

As usual, you're coming up with great information, thanks mate! :)

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Absolutely adore this model! Great job on the resto mate! :D

This is my NIB! (Just took a quick snap - low light - apologies for the quality)!

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Cheers

Darryn

 

 

 

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Hello,
I just got one of these beauties, that i'll try to restore at best and run.

Anyone of you have or can give me a link to a Spare parts numbers (codes) sheet for this model? Online i found the manual but there are no parts numbers inside and can't find anyting more.

What i miss are:

- Front number plate and fender
- Gear set

The reason for gears is because the previous owner modified it to 540 motor and to do so changed a little the gears logic simplyfing it and since i'd like to have it back to 380 motor size i've the gears set in my wish list.

Any suggestion will be appreciated.

Bye
WWD
:)

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Does this mean you are not missing the tyre pump? As that is maybe the rarest vintage R/C item on earth ^_^  I am unsure of spare parts codes as I don't have this kit, but hopefully @RETRO R/C can help one day.

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Oh, finding a new pack of gears sounds very difficult. I wish you good luck on that one. This particular Kyosho model is absolutely fantastic and one of a kind!

1 hour ago, Hibernaculum said:

Does this mean you are not missing the tyre pump? As that is maybe the rarest vintage R/C item on earth ^_^

Is it really THAT rare!?  I have it, and I did not have an idea how rare it is. Or if it is actually rarer than the Trike itself! :D

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