DT-02 Desert Gator Item #58344

[Effigy3 1267]

Step 26: Attaching steering rods. Naturally we can't stick with stock. So while he's clipping adjuster ends from their sprue I was getting the adjustable steering rods from the DT-02 Turnbuckle Set (ITEM# 53828) hop-up parts bag. All the bits laid out:

All the bits built up:

Finding an actual purpose for the HobbiCo soft pliers that scored my shock shafts. They are useful after-all!

Et voilà!

[Effigy3 1267]

Step 27: Installing the electronics. I'm holding the chassis for him while he screws in the steering servo. It wasn't until we got the 2nd screw halfway in that I realized we'd forgotten the washer. It was easy enough to fix.

Checking out where everything goes and how best it'll fit. IMHO if Mr. T had placed the antenna mast on the other side of the bathtub we would have a much neater electronics installation. That would place the ESC on the same side as the power switch mount point. The only wire that would have to cross the midline of the chassis would be the ESC to Rx line. One line instead of three.

Regardless, this is what we have when everything is taped down:

[Effigy3 1267]

This one is a biggie. Step 28: Attaching front suspension. Again, I'm holding the chassis while he does the hard labor.

Putting those accursed soft nose pliers to work again. You know, they work pretty dandy on snapping arms down onto ball connectors.

Removing the upper retention plate from its sprue. Sorry, looks like the stupid camera focused past him and onto the plastic parts tub behind him. Doh!

Screwing it in place:

[Effigy3 1267]

We're closing in on it now! Step 29: Attaching gearbox. Just the chassis, the gearbox and some screws:

Making sure everything lines up before screwing it in place:

Top screws first while dads holds the chassis steady.

Bottom screws go in next. I had him go in an "X" pattern tightening them down. I kept checking his work and he was like, "You don't need to check, they're perfect." He wasn't wrong. That's my boy! (Proud poppa.)

The chassis is done!

Step 30: Steering adjustment. Before:

After:

[Effigy3 1267]

Step 32: Attaching the front wheels. Gathering up the bits. Rubber sealed ball bearings, natch. I also brought out the Anodized Flange Lock Nuts - 4mm[blue 5pcs] (ITEM# 53159). These weren't planned but with all the other blue anodized bits how could I not?

Putting the front body mount peg on the chassis:

Placing the ball bearings into the rims. I fit AKA Handlebar clay compound tires with AKA soft foam inserts onto the stock rims. Personally I prefer the black dish rims but he likes the stars and its his car so...

Front wheels on?

Yep!

[Effigy3 1267]

Step 33: Attaching rear wheels. As you can probably guess, we're not going to use the stock plastic hex adapter. We're going metal with Pin Type Wheel Adapter Set - U53056 (ITEM# 53056) as well as more rubber sealed ball bearings.

The bearings were a little snug going in so he used the Tamiya tool to get a better grip and push them down in. Worked like a charm.

Hex adapter going on:

Rear wheels on?

Yeppers! The rear tires are also clay compound, AKA Handlebar with soft red foam inserts.

Step 34: Installing running battery. Which as you can see, has been done for a while but I did have to install the antenna. I went with a fancy yellow one from Fluorescent Ant Pipe Set (ITEM# 53132) to match with the windows and dragon outiline details.

Threading the antenna into the pipe:

And, done:

[Effigy3 1267]

I already did steps 35-37 at the start so we're up to Step 38: Attaching wing. Removing the M2 mounting bracket from it's sprue:

Got all the bits together:

Mating wing to M2 bracket. Again with a little holding helper hand from dad.

Houston, we have another problem! The wing doesn't clear the rear dampers! Why? I carefully cut them along the trim lines. Then it hit me. We used the carbon fiber rear damper mount hop-up which pushed the read dampers out. Doh!

No worries Hoss, I still have my lexan body scissors. So I just did a little "custom" trimming on the rear wing. The results:

It clears the dampers nicely now and he was able to install the wing.

All set.

That concludes step 38.

[Effigy3 1267]

Step 39: Attaching the body. Here we have our happy builder holding his masterpiece.

And a few of the completed car:

I hope you guys enjoyed my and my sons build thread. Not too many pictures I trust. I'll try to add in some racing pics once the weather clears up enough to let us onto the track that is. It's supposed to rain like all next week so I'm guessing racing is out for next weekend.

La fin.

[Nobbi1977 1793]

It looks fantastic finished. He will remember that for the rest of his life.

What happened to the servo mount hop-up? I thought for sure we would see blue anodised parts there :-p

[XV Pilot 1936]

That looks mighty fine! I am sure father and son are going to thoroughly enjoy running it. Thanks for sharing your build with us!

[GregM 1109]

Thank you so much for sharing your build thread with us! I bet you and your son had a great time building the Desert Gator, and even more so when he will be running the car that he finished with his own hands.

You've done well with your choice of hop-ups which reflects that you put emphasis on reliability. Time will tell what you can do with the damper spring tuning and the rear wheel adaptors. From my experience, I recommend using Super Fighter G friction damper springs on the rear oil dampers when using heavy NiMH batteries, as well as metal hex adaptors with screw trapped pins since they can be left on the axle when changing wheels and won't loosen themselves.

Please let us know how the carbon damper tower extensions hold up in the long run.

[Kevin_Mc 411]

It looks really good all complete, the hop ups finish it nicely.

I still have my first RC that i built with my Grandad, we didn't have a digital camera back then so just the memories to go by

[Effigy3 1267]

Thank you so much for sharing your build thread with us! I bet you and your son had a great time building the Desert Gator, and even more so when he will be running the car that he finished with his own hands.

You've done well with your choice of hop-ups which reflects that you put emphasis on reliability. Time will tell what you can do with the damper spring tuning and the rear wheel adaptors. From my experience, I recommend using Super Fighter G friction damper springs on the rear oil dampers when using heavy NiMH batteries, as well as metal hex adaptors with screw trapped pins since they can be left on the axle when changing wheels and won't loosen themselves.

Please let us know how the carbon damper tower extensions hold up in the long run.

I have the spring hop-up already. I plan on waiting to run it at the track with stock damper configuration but I can already tell the rear springs are too soft. IMHO there's excessive droop in the rear end just sitting the car down on the table. I can't imagine how much chassis slap it'll have if it jumps hard. I just might swap out the springs to the hard hop-ups before we hit the track. What change does harder oil have? I've only ever used the yellow.

[Effigy3 1267]

It looks fantastic finished. He will remember that for the rest of his life.

What happened to the servo mount hop-up? I thought for sure we would see blue anodised parts there :-p

You know, I almost did that one too but I was already getting carried away wth the hop-ups. The deciding factor was I saw on someone else's build that used them, they had to modify the servo because there was some interference. I really didn't want to start shaving portions of the car away so I nixed the blue servo mount hop-up.

[Silver-Can 402]

Just to echo other people's sentiments - a job very well done, especially by the young 'un. I've an 8 yr old too and over the summer also plan to build and race a DT-02 at our nearest club, so will be using this thread as inspiration!

Look forward to hearing about how you get on at the track

Excellent stuff and thanks for sharing!

[Nobbi1977 1793]

You know, I almost did that one too but I was already getting carried away wth the hop-ups. The deciding factor was I saw on someone else's build that used them, they had to modify the servo because there was some interference. I really didn't want to start shaving portions of the car away so I nixed the blue servo mount hop-up.

I think that was me :-p I had to mount the servo on the back of the posts if I remember....

[Effigy3 1267]

It was you Nobbi1977! I referenced your build a lot when specing out this build. Thanks for the inspiration buddy. I hope you do a thread when you and your 8 yr old buld.

This is the image that made my mind up about the hop-up servo mount:

[Nobbi1977 1793]

It was you Nobbi1977! I referenced your build a lot when specing out this build. Thanks for the inspiration buddy. I hope you do a thread when you and your 8 yr old buld.

This is the image that made my mind up about the hop-up servo mount:

Good bit of bodging that. I had forgotten about needing to take that much off.

Noah is desperate to do a build with me but he is only 5 at the moment. Will see if he can help with a few bits on the next build

[kaylon 235]

Stunning build thread... loved it. I have 3 DT-02's in different stages of completeness, it's my fav chassis. Love what you have done with this one.

K

[drcarlos 57]

Nice build, I hope my soon to be 9 year old will have the same attention span as your boy when it comes to building his Team C TR02 V2 race buggy (local spares availability won the day here over a DT-03).

[Effigy3 1267]

Nice build, I hope my soon to be 9 year old will have the same attention span as your boy when it comes to building his Team C TR02 V2 race buggy (local spares availability won the day here over a DT-03).

I never heard of Team C before but that TR02v2 looks like quite the buggy for that price! I hope you do a build thread on it.

[drcarlos 57]

I never heard of Team C before but that TR02v2 looks like quite the buggy for that price! I hope you do a build thread on it.

Team C are quite popular here in the UK, the TM02 and TC02 being the favoured cars on our astro tracks, I couldn't stretch to those buggies so went for the TR. The TR02 is I believe an evolution of the older Ansmann Madrat. Everyone say buy used for racing, but for a birthday present it's not the same presenting a used car as one in the box to build. I hope that putting together the car from scratch will mean that he will be able to fix and adjust his own car rather than just leaving it to me to do like his older brother.

A build thread may be a possibility if no one complains about it being non-Tamiya . As you say it's got a good spec for the price and looking at the kit we are only going to need 2 hop-ups out of the box. These are bearings (cost about $20 US) and a set of alloy rear arm mounts (about $30 US) as everything else looks ready to race. He is learning to race on my Father in laws RB6 Ultima (lucky boy) so hopefully it won't be too much of a downgrade for him.

[Effigy3 1267]

A build thread may be a possibility if no one complains about it being non-Tamiya .

If it breaks the rules to put a Team C build thread here, there's always the Other Makes area.

[kaylon 235]

Nice build, I hope my soon to be 9 year old will have the same attention span as your boy when it comes to building his Team C TR02 V2 race buggy (local spares availability won the day here over a DT-03).

I have a few Team C cars, 2 buggies and 2 Truggies, used them as club cars for guests. They are pretty good. One thing to take not of though is how hard some of the fittings are to screw in.. my god I got blisters, ALWAYS grease the screws, that will help.. but some are still really tough going. Also the ball diffs are a little frigile .. I'd suggest getting the gear diff option upgrade if you are not going pro pro racing ...

Great cars though.

K

[Effigy3 1267]

Good bit of bodging that. I had forgotten about needing to take that much off.

Noah is desperate to do a build with me but he is only 5 at the moment. Will see if he can help with a few bits on the next build

My bad, it was Silver-can who has an 8 year old. Wouldn't it be fun to get these little guys together at the track?