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DeBruce

My Original Astute Rebuild

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Nice build thread!

Astute is one of my fave 2wd buggies, but what were Tamiya thinking back then?

Some serious design flaws, but I suppose that's what makes it great Awesome now :)

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I'm still waiting to see yours too....... not even in your showroom, what gives ? :D

Thommo, I am hanging my head in shame.

Too. Many. Projects!!!

I forget the last time I posted anything to my showroom. :) I keep a list of NIB kits and projects on my phone that I still have to upload to my showroom and I just checked it then, it is up to 40!! And that does not include the re-re Optima that is in the mail. Holy crap!

Hoping to have my Astute on the road for at least one round of the Castle Hill Vintage meet this year. We are planning a road trip up from Melbourne. :D Very excited.

Still have a little to do though. Found a clever bloke with a CNC mill so one step closer to getting the hub out of my head. I still have your broken ones right here on my desk at work, and I pull them out all the time to consider how I might go about it.

I love threads like this one, always put a fire back under me. :)

C..

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When I dismantled the original car I found that a number of the screws were in a very poor condition. Titanium is a fantastic metal because it's very light but it's also quite soft which makes it quite easy to strip and destroy screw heads. I did try to purchase some direct titanium replacements however they are hard to come by so I decided to go in a different direction. Instead of going with titanium, since I was being pushed in the direction of steel, I've gone for 10.9 grade steel for high strength. The idea being if I have to sacrifice some weight then I might as well get a high tensile strength component out of it. The plan is to replace all the fixings with black 10.9 grade coated (for corrosion) steel where I can.

In this picture you can again see the very visible weave of the chassis plate.

More or less I've made the same choice, I swapped ALL my SA screws with stainless steel screws :)

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Okay so here's a complete top view of the assembled chassis. The electronics consist of a Dynatech 01R which is period appropriate but more importantly it's black! I've also got a Tekin 411P ESC controlled by a Acoms AR-201 receiver and a technisport handset to control the buggy. Next step is to rebuild the motor with new rotor and brushes.

IMAG1899_zpsmsy7hddr.jpg

And here is a picture on wheels. I've added a set of anodised black wheel nuts to maintain the blacked out theme.

IMAG1903_zpsa5cqmwob.jpg

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Looks good buddy B) Boy those Blue anodised servo mounts stand out :P

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Looks good buddy B) Boy those Blue anodised servo mounts stand out :P

Haha yes and so do the blue adjusters which is why I have my eye on black versions of both!

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So here's the finished article. For a colour scheme I've gone with the Tamiya Metallic Red with Black decals. Agonised over the colour choices but in the end I'm very pleased with it. For the window I used car window tinting film which works really well. Let me know what you guys think - an improvement on what I started with?

I still have a few bits and pieces to do.

Front 6mm adjusters to black.

Servo Supports to black.

Front Bumper fixings to black 10.9 grade steel (done).

IMAG1904_zps3ov3ewmm.jpg

IMAG1908_zpst0d3wedn.jpg

IMAG1909_zps8zynktge.jpg

IMAG1907_zps05gcqtg2.jpg

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Be great to see some pics in natural day light. Just need some sunshine to pick up that metallic paint. Some dirt roosting off the tyres would be good too :D

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