1981 Sand Rover RC project

[mongoose1983]

Here's one of those cars you don't expect to own (although you just love them!). Here's the story. Back in February 2014 I happened to buy a cheap chassis. It was cheap because of the -try and guess!- broken front suspension tabs. I saw it and thought EASY FIX!

Well, I kept the chassis in a box for years now. In the meantime I got lucky and found a set of new wheels and tires, and got a new/unused black endbell RS380 Mabuchi motor for it. I also spent a couple of years watching those super expensive Tamiya Sand Rover bodies coming and going on eBay... It was a huge bet buying the chassis while crossing my fingers to come across a broken bodyshell that I could afford and fix later.

Of course it crossed my mind getting the re-released body. I even sent a message to some TCer who was able to cover the holes and get the body right, but he did not reply (thank you!).

Anyway, I happened to find my way to a good Sand Rover body now, thanks to another TCer. I'm going to let you guys know more about it later, when the body set and bits arrive. In the meantime, I fixed the tabs, rebuilt the whole chassis, and now it sits waiting for a month and a half to pass to meet the body that I am going to finish it with.

Here's what I am starting my original Sand Rover with:

More pictures to follow.

You all have a good Wednesday!

 

 

[mongoose1983]

Fixing the broken tabs was nice and very interesting. Like I did many times before I walked the fantastic aluminum road with a saw, file and a drill to come up with a solution

Here's the alu bits:

First test, I was marking the diameter of the holes I needed to make:

The right size for the job. I thought it was ready but I was not expecting the rubber tube not fitting with the plastic border now taller.

I've painted the "new" tabs properly and masked the inner bit so I could put a tiny drop of Tamiya liquid thread for it stick properly to the plastic of the chassis.

And so here's how it looks. I only had one original coilspring, so I had to use a pair of others. I think my good friend beefmuffin is going to send me the missing coilspring so I could get the front suspension completely right.

I wish I had those small screws I used with my tabs in black but other than that, I'm happy with the results and excited to finally see this project coming along

 

 

[Cooltoys]

Nice to see this new project.. Another restoration project in the making Erich style... 

[mongoose1983]

Thanks Coolstoys for the positive comment!

Well, the chassis is pretty much complete. The only non-original bit is the steering linkage (too hard and expensive to find the correct one!). Couple more things to mention would be the bumper (taken from a re-re Sand Scorcher kit), the hard-to-find MSC, and the pinion for the motor. The one you can see in the picture below is the only one I could use with the motor as I don't have adapter.

Now another problem is what do I do with this bronze pinion? It doesn't go with any type of grub screw, and I can only wonder how do fit it on the 380 motor...?

By the way, can you spot and see the hole in the middle section of the FRP suspension "piece". If so, what is that for?

And here's the body. Thanks to Dean in England, who was kind enough to let me have the ever elusive Sand Rover body!!!

And finally the body parts to complete it just like it was back in 1981!

Do I have a reason to be excited. Oh, wow. I'm still weeks away from this stuff!

More updates later

 

[MadInventor]

From memory (And we're going back a long time here) the sand rover 380 pinion is a press fit / glued onto the motor shaft, there is no grub screw for them. The easiest solution is to fit a 540 and use a standard pinion 

 

[richb77]

You could drill and tap the pinion to suit the 380. I assume its a loose fit? If its super tight heat it (high!) and drop it on and let metal shrinkage take over

[mongoose1983]

20 hours ago, MadInventor said:

From memory (And we're going back a long time here) the sand rover 380 pinion is a press fit / glued onto the motor shaft, there is no grub screw for them. The easiest solution is to fit a 540 and use a standard pinion 

Yes, no grub screw chance with this brass 380 pinion I got. It's the fact that pressing the pinion against the shaft is something I haven't done before, so I have little or no idea about how such thing is done. Since the pinion is not original to the kit, it doesn't appear in the manual, and although I've checked Google I haven't been able to find any info on the subject.

Fitting a 540 motor would probably seem super easy for someone in the UK. See in my place I first have to check internet sales and find the special 540 bracket which is very hard to locate, and then find the standard pinion which is also complicated to find, not to mention letting go how much, 10 or 20 UK pounds just to get them my way. Think I better try and learn how to use this brass pinion instead

20 hours ago, richb77 said:

You could drill and tap the pinion to suit the 380. I assume its a loose fit? If its super tight heat it (high!) and drop it on and let metal shrinkage take over

Will see how can I try that probably next week. I don't think I've heard about such procedure before, but maybe that works. I'll go back to this subject hopefully within a few days.

ANYWAY...

Great news! The body arrived this morning! I'm so excited, this is a Tamiya car that I wanted to have so badly, haha.

BIG FAT THANKS to TCer @casethejointin the UK for helping me with this, and letting me have this fantastic Sand Rover body. I appreciate your generosity Dean and would like you to know this means a lot to me. I thank you for helping me, it's been a happy moment. Oh, and by the way it has taken me like forever to get my living room all clean after I opened the box! Hahahaha. There was those small white thingies all over the place, but well I was a like a kid on Chritsmas' morning!

Here's the box and the contents I received this morning:

I'll be testing the body on the chassis SOON.

So excited!

 

[mongoose1983]

Oh, as Paul Stanley would sing it does Fit like a glove!

While this 1981 RC model is not really technically complex it certainly looks brilliant, and stands out between many if not most of the ugly-high tech buggies Tamiya released afterwards. Gotta love the original Sand Rover!!

More updates in a few days.

You all have a fantastic Thursday!

 

[MadInventor]

22 hours ago, richb77 said:

You could drill and tap the pinion to suit the 380. I assume its a loose fit? If its super tight heat it (high!) and drop it on and let metal shrinkage take over

Drilling and tapping is going  to be difficult if you don't have access to a pillar drill, and/or a stubby centre drill bit. I do quite a lot of putting grub screw threads into shafts, and  drilling holes through round bar to make axle pin holes, and it is very difficult to do this by hand with a hand held drill and not get it off centre.

If you are going to press the pinion on, don't forget to support the other end of the motor shaft, or you might end up damaging or popping out the end bell (Maybe put it in the centre of  a vice and squeeze.

[casethejoint]

Awesome!

I'm glad it all arrived OK and in one piece. I did warn you about the polystyrene explosion that was bound to follow opening the box

Good job on those front suspension mounts!

As mentioned above the pinions are press fitted to the motor. I did this once before with a 3-speed, years ago. I used a vice and basically squeezed it on making sure the motor shaft was taking the strain by being in contact with the opposite vice jaw to the gear.

I found this video if it helps:-

... which is basically what I did but I didn't remove the stator, I was just careful to ensure the rear of it was in contact with the vice face.

Quote

 

By the way, can you spot and see the hole in the middle section of the FRP suspension "piece". If so, what is that for?

 

 

 

 

It's not an original hole. It looks to me like someone at some point maybe had the antenna mounted there?

Two critical questions for this thread 1. have you named the driver yet? and 2. have you picked a colour?

[Darat76]

ooo I got a suggestion for the driver name.... Kate... short for Bob....

[mongoose1983]

Not much time to work the Sand Rover the last couple of days, as I resumed other RC projects as well. I thought the idea of using a vice to get the pinion there is excellent, too bad my vice is not the right size for the job, so I'll have to visit a friend I think. Thank you guys for sharing your experiences! that's very useful for people working some Tamiya model for the very first time, which is the case for me now with the Sand Rover.

Haha, I already feel tempted to name the driver, but I better wait until I get it ready so the name will fit the looks

As for color... Ermmmm... there is not much to choose from here in my country, by now I'm envisioning the car in copper. I've been collecting pictures of 1:1 sand buggies to try and make it good. Normally, I don't go for funky colors, actually more interested in scale realism. Still, there is some interesting examples of the real vehicle.

Some pictures:

This color is something I can do, and I think I like it a lot:

I think these are all of the original colors available for the 1:1 Sand Rover buggy:

With Tamiya Striker wheels? I don't like the rollcage so low, but it's a very nice paint job.

Another nice color combination like the German flag:

More colors:

When things don't go right, haha.

Anyway, I yet have to do some sanding and preparation, and of course go buy the paint to work it. I guess I'll first start with the driver and accessories. What a brilliant RC model to work on! I'm so happy to just have the chance to work one of these!

You all have a fantastic weekend!

 

 

 

[mongoose1983]

Last night I spent a couple of hours preparing the driver.

From the things I always look for before painting I know I love to work the molding lines, no good model show them! so you have to do your best to make them disappear. That's one of the things I like the most when working plastic models

See these? I love to get those lines off my model!

I also spent some time doing some plastic surgery to this guy, haha, Spot the difference?

So I spent another couple of hours today working a bit on the painting process. The driver now has face, hands, and a hat. Don't shoot me for not having matt colors!

More updates later.

You all have a good week!

 

[casethejoint]

Nice work - love the copper idea!

Quote

Don't shoot me for not having matt colors!

Can you get matt lacquer in Chile? That can be used to good effect.

[mongoose1983]

On 3/10/2016 at 4:04 AM, casethejoint said:

Nice work - love the copper idea!

Can you get matt lacquer in Chile? That can be used to good effect.

I did not know there were products to fix this. Next month I have to go buy some spray can, let's see if we have that type of lacquer in here.

Little update on the driver:

I only have to sand down the putty on his shoulders, and I also need to paint the belt, and of course the shirt.

I should be finishing the Manx body by now but I was asked to write some article that has to be ready for the 1st week of November. Once I'm done with that, I'll resume my work with this fantastic buggy.

You all have a great Wednesday!

[mongoose1983]

Going on baby steps here. First enamel coat, and I sort of think I'm too old for this shirt

[kontemax]

You absolutely need a matt coat.

This is mandatory to avoid this china doll effect.

 

 

Max

[chevelle]

Nice work on this  I've seen some great examples of driver figures & for me I think Plaid shirts look the best considering the Cowboy hat  Also maybe a white undershirt for more contrast 

 

[mongoose1983]

Sure, both Dean and Max are right on this one. I just went ahead with what I had at hand. I'm certainly going to pay a visit to the LHS sometime and will be fixing most of it, no problem.

And Chevelle, yeah I know what you mean. I love the looks of the white cotton tee the guy's using (even though I hate using those myself...), but the driver's plastic was stained and I feared my white color would end up showing up the original blue color which that area was first painted with (see pics up in the thread). So I tried a mixture with black for that and I am definitely not liking it. I happen to have a fantastic matt red bottle, but I'm trying to avoid red color for the driver's clothes bearing in mind the color I am going to paint the Manx bodyshell.

I think I'm going for baby blue there because I like that look, it's very 70's, you know the light-soft denim type. Those are shirts I love to use, they look great with Jeans and boots. Other than that, when working on the Sand Rover driver I think I had in mind the clothes that Tom Wopat used for the picture of the cover of his great 1983 album:

You all have a fantastic weekend!

 

[casethejoint]

Heh, nice album cover. Your man needs a cigar now though . Has anyone done a General Lee Tamiya ?

On the matt lacquer, you know what - you have to use what you can get your hands on. If you can't get it in Chile, don't worry about it. It's worth looking out for it (Tamiya do it in both aerosol and bottle if you can get those there) but I honestly wouldn't fret too much  

[mongoose1983]

Time passed by so quickly!

Anyway, last Christmas I started sanding the Manx bodyshell. This is how it looked when I started sanding:

And yesterday I finally got to airbrush it. I'm smiling now, will post more photos asap.

 

[mongoose1983]

I am absolutely LOVING the copper color I chose for it. I don't ever remember seeing one of these painted this way and I think it looks great. Here's some photos. I'll have to work the interior now, and I'm still in need of the front bit to complete one of the front lamps. I'm off to restore the rollbar. I think I'd like to paint it orange or white, or would you say it's okay in black?

 

I used airbrush with Testors 1151. Here's the overall results:

The silky finish is oh, so nice! 

Look at the nose. What a fantastic job done there done by TCer @casethejoint !! THANK YOU SO MUCH !!

Hope to have some time to work the interior soon. You probably notice the line on the floors near the passenger seat. I am surprised I did not see that with the primer on. Fortunately I'll be able to work on that one before painting the floors with matt black!

Butt view. I'm absolutely LOVING this buggy!  

I'm going to have LOTS of fun doing the detail now. You can expect a picture or two coming... hopefully soon.

You all have a fantastic Friday!

 

[casethejoint]

Looks fantastic Erich - love that colour!! Really suits the Manx well.

I think I might have found a couple of those front headlight bits as I noticed one in my spares box a few weeks ago. Thought of you but wasn't sure if you had one yet. Will have a look in there later and let you know...

[ddaenen1]

Great work! The Sand Rover was the first Tamiya car i ever bought 2nd hand off a friend. I regret that i don't have it anymore.

[Biz73]

Nice work so far, can't wait to see the finished product.

Those 1:1 pics are great! The red one with the guys throwing sand looks like the Sand Rover