Thunder Shot Question

[mastino 1085]

Hi there, arrived just today a "new" model, sold me as a vintage Thunder Shot. No body, no chassis cover, no wheel. I'm not able to understand. Thunder Shot or Thunder Dragon (the only difference is the body?), vintage or re-release?

What do you think, what can I check?

and just a taste of kyosho... W5053??? maybe.

cheers... tomorrow you'll find me in Paris. Bon voyage!

[MAD RACER 566]

Yep Original Thunder Shot I say.

MSC is the biggest give away .

[mongoose1983 3335]

Yep Original Thunder Shot I say.

MSC is the biggest give away .

Original Thunder Shot alright, but the motor is not the original. That's a newer silvercan RS540 motor.

Anyway, that is a nice car to dismantle and restore!

[Saito2 6686]

I agree it's original. It could be, as you stated, made a Thundershot or Thunder Dragon. They are the same apart from the body shell.

[Mokei Kagaku 2706]

Thunder Shot or Thunder Dragon (the only difference is the body?),

Yes, and the identical front body mount is mounted the other way around (pointing forward instead of backward from the shock tower) on the Thunder Dragon.

[mastino 1085]

Many days on site keep me away from home; I brought the thunder shot to the hotel and started the controls.

Cleaning and checking of plastic, I put the new grease into differential and I replaced the bushings with bearings

The first part damaged, rear propeller shaft joint

Ordered a new one... for now I reinstalled this.

Rear hubs with bearings

Arms and TS wheels

Front joint and gear

Arms, C hubs

steering system, front swaybar and rear bumper

other damaged parts... "A parts" needed.

For the moment damaged parts reinstalled, and new A set ordered

Damper control

check of the parts, no problem found, cleaning and new oil.

I will stop here for now.

[mastino 1085]

All the new pieces arrived

and they were mounted

Vintage motor; I don' t know if "fitted in time"

Finally, the tires.

[Saito2 6686]

Looking good!

[Fruitfly01 596]

Nice rebuild. The TS chassis range are great cars and very underestimated. They handle fairly well and have a good turn of speed. Easier to assemble than their predecessors with less engineering and fewer parts. Neater gearboxes and suspension, better steering geometry, and crazy ground clearance for proper off road racing, as it was back in the day.

Unfortunately released at a time when Tamiya were losing popularity with the serious racers , and were looked upon as beginners cars. other manufacturers started to use double deck fibre chassis and belt drive transmissions with ball diffs.

Just looking back through old racing charts, plenty of people were racing Hotshots and the like, but things changed when Kyosho, Yokomo and Schumacher developed their machines. Thundershot buggies never got a sniff of top competition.

If they were released earlier, I bet these cars would have whooped some mega backside on the track.

I really like the chassis, yes, even the space age body shells that accompanied them.

[mastino 1085]

The body is the real problem... new and original I have not found, just clone or Fire Dragon (needs double CVA on front)... I imagined being able to find, since it was re-released but for now, nothing!

[Fruitfly01 596]

I've noticed that the Fire dragon Bodies come up more often than not - in my opinion, the least attractive of the Dragon bodies. I'm surprised the Thunder Shot body is not readily available. Personally, I'd like to find a Thunder Dragon. There is something about it that I really like, but they're as rare as hens teeth.

A lot of the Dragon bodies fit on the Hornet chassis, maybe a Hornet body will fit the TS chassis?

Has anyone tried?

[mastino 1085]

A small step forward

[taliesin 260]

Love Mario as the driver, LOL.

[kontemax 1725]

You have a Mk1 vintage Thunder Shot.

You can recognize it from the rear hubs and the front hub carriers. The top end of these parts go straight up, in the Mk2 release, Thunder Dragon, Fire Dragon and Terra Scorcher the top of these parts are bent innner to the upper blue arms.

The Fire Dragon body can be mounted also with the front mono shock, it has two different cuts in the front nose.

The Fire Dragon body can't mount the driver moulded in the chassis cover but has a plain flat chassis cover and the driver without the armd is screwed to the top of the canopy of the body just like in the Vanquish for example.

Anyway I suggest you to buy a Thunder Shot body.

Your model is in excellent condition.

Max

The body is the real problem... new and original I have not found, just clone or Fire Dragon (needs double CVA on front)... I imagined being able to find, since it was re-released but for now, nothing!

[mastino 1085]

probably you're right... but I'm an animal!

serious mode ON... I'd like to find an original TS body, unfortunately I bump alone in his clone.

[mastino 1085]

Still in waitinfg for a new original TS body... for the moment, I settled for a clone.

But, a clone should be shameless!

[Hibernaculum 933]

You have a Mk1 vintage Thunder Shot.

You can recognize it from the rear hubs and the front hub carriers. The top end of these parts go straight up, in the Mk2 release, Thunder Dragon, Fire Dragon and Terra Scorcher the top of these parts are bent innner to the upper blue arms.

The Fire Dragon body can be mounted also with the front mono shock, it has two different cuts in the front nose.

The Fire Dragon body can't mount the driver moulded in the chassis cover but has a plain flat chassis cover and the driver without the armd is screwed to the top of the canopy of the body just like in the Vanquish for example.

Anyway I suggest you to buy a Thunder Shot body.

Your model is in excellent condition.

Max

Upvoted for spotting that this is not just an original, but it is indeed a Thundershot Mk1 due to those parts.

This model definitely (in my opinion) deserves an original body set to finish it off. They are a bit rare, so it just requires some patience to wait for one to come along.

[taffer 948]

Not that it really matters but I see your front bumper screws that attach to the A5 are way too long and looking at your rear shock setup, the plastic spacers are the wrong way round, blue spacers should be on the blue arms with black ones at the top!

I'm surprised the dash-1 body doesn't stretch over the rear a bit better, it looks too short but I think that the clone uses a simpler rear attachment to the original bodyset?

[jojoledemago 0]

I have a body from the 1988 model, don't know if that can help and if that fits....

I'd be glad if I could fix this car but I can't find the original card receiver...

[kontemax 1725]

This is a 1/14 scale Quick Drive Thunder Shot, the Thunder Shot in this topic is a 1/10 scale.

 

Max