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casethejoint

Blazing Blazer Resto Build

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I love the three speeds, but the Blazer is special for me - no idea why. A bit like the Scorcher I guess, it's just a classic look.

This has been on my to-do list for ages and I bought the project from TC member Kokuzu. Original pics:-

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On of the things I really liked about this one was that it came with a hand made alloy roof (I believe it's a J-Man work of art):-

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This makes it a bit special :)

Unfortunately, it was packed terribly (wrapped in one piece of newspaper and then chucked into a box) so suffered not inconsiderable damage in transit from Germany to the UK. Radio box was smashed, front body mount bent beyond repair and a few other things. Annoying, but not a crisis as I have an immaculate condition radio box and picked up a body mount on eBay.

If you look at the body pic above you'll also see that someone at some point has cut a slot in the bonnet - no idea why. Anyway, that's first repair.

I have a few extra goodies too - like a NIB set of tires (I have 2 of these, so got all 4):-

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... amongst other goodies :). More info to follow as I go....

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I soaked the body in brake fluid for about...... 2 years :). This wasn't particularly deliberate but I was all excited about starting the project, shoved it in the bucket of fluid and left it at the back of the garage whereby life promptly took over and did what life does. Anyway, the good news was it came out pretty clean and didn't require any scraping :).

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So, first up, the hole in the bonnet is bugging me.

I backed this with some 1mm styrene so that I can start to layer up the front.

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Build up with P38 filler:-

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... and this is where I've got to:-

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Needs a little more work. I've devised a system of gluing 800 grit paper to a toothpick which makes it relatively easy to shape this as I go. Another hour or two of fiddling and all should be good.

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Taking a break from that, I decided to strip the chassis down - sorry but some of the pics got bajanxed thanks to some grease on the lens, so there's a bit gap in the middle, but you can at least see the condition from these. It's in fair order - nothing major broken, just needs a little TLC.

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... and now all ready for a clean tomorrow:-

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Gearbox disassembly - I'm following the fantastic guide by Zepplin here : http://tamiya101.com/bruiser_transmission_manual.pdf

Motor off:

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Stage 1:

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Stage 2:

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Stage 3:

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Stage 4:

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Case parts following a good dose of silicon remover:

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... and into the barrel polisher they go while I go and degrease all the internals:-

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My experience with Tamiya "pot metal" parts is they need a good 3-4 days of tumbling in the polisher with green cone media. They won't come out polished, but they should come out looking factory fresh. So I'll be back in a week to let you know how that went and with some pics.

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Excellent :) I love these rebuilds, I'll look forward to your updates :D

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Looking forward to seeing how your build will come out. You're lucky to get those tires. I have a worse condition blazer that I've had well over 10 years and it's the tires that have me postponing the restore 

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I'm not gonna lie............. I'm jealous! These things are next to impossible to get a hold of. Cant wait to see the progress!!

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Hi guys,

I was lucky to find an unrestored one, and the hole in the bonnet is the only molestation (and fairly easily fixed). The J-man roof is probably now impossible to get hold of I'm sure.

For me this project is a selection of parts I've been collecting over several years, so the largest ingredient is probably patience. I managed to get the original mechanical speed control, some repro rear lenses etc. Not expensive, but I had to wait.

Tires though do pop up from time to time on eBay. They're not cheap though - I paid about £140 in the end for 5 (a single new one popped up on eBay before I got the second NIP pair). They're the same tires as on the Wild Willy 1, so worth widening search criteria to include that. Prices on them are rising - last sets I saw were heading up to around £100/pair.

There were actually some repro tires on eBay a while back (first time I'd ever seen pattern part Tamiya tires!) but unfortunately they didn't have the Sand Tires Unlimited lettering on them so impossible to paint (not going to freehand that!).

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What was damaged on your Jman wing?

 The tires are pricey as I bought a nib set for my WW1 years ago. Just wish there was an alternative.  

The best part about hard bodies is that they are easy to patch up so the hole in your hood should be no problem. I have a huge crack the length of the hood on mine. I plan to modify so it's a non issue for me. 

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If it's the same Jman that's on TC , As you will see funnily enough it's his B'day today , Looking at the B'day list below :lol: .

Nice build & great fix on the body , looking forward to see how this comes out ! . No pressure at all for ya :lol: . 

Yer them tyres are NOT cheap , Let alone the BB body or even the hole BB kit .

Would love to get one my self , but just can't justify the cost over all :( .. 

You were lucky you didn't lose the body in the brake fluid , Just think about that , you looking in the bucket & it's mush :( .

Shouldn't as it didn't , but OMG!! moment if it did .  

 

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Three of these parts are done and out of the polisher after a few days.

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I couldn't fit all 5 in at once so have had to do in two tranches :). This means I can't rebuild the gearbox for another week.

I'll give these a quick clean but they've come out really well. What's great about the barrel polisher is pot-metal parts come out clean and smooth but not shiny. It's a kind of matt or satin finish that looks factory fresh and not "restored". It takes ages as you have to leave it for a few days, but at least it's zero physical effort...

I have some time this weekend to carry on with the rest of the chassis and the body, and crack open a NIB Acoms 4 channel radio I have for this... so more pics and progress to follow!

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Axles today!

I had originally hoped to replace the bushes with bearings but after an hour or so of fiddling with with a makeshift tool to remove UJ pins (which was basically a bench vice and a bit of wood with a hole in it) I gave up. Not sure why this is proving so hard - I definitely did this with my Tamiya Hilux 3spd and I don't remember having such a problem. Were some of these factory glued, or maybe it's a temperature thing?

Anyway, I'm only going to ever run this very lightly, so I figured it wasn't a major problem leaving the 3 brass bushes in place. They're very low on wear, and I was able to put 2 bearings in where the secondary gear sits. Better than nothing - at least I feel I have upgraded it :)

Parts were all degreased and cleaned but no tumbler polishing or anything else needed I thought - they look great natural!

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All screws have been replaced with Stainless Steel too....

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Axle #2....

So the rear has a slightly different bushing in place - it's a flanged affair, a larger one than in the gearbox. I didn't measure it and look at replacements, as with the front their low on wear and I'll just run it lightly. Again I've just replaced two bearings where the second gear mounts and otherwise really just degreased, cleaned and re-greased.

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Knuckles and uprights....

Sorry, I ended up re-building these and forgetting to take photos along the way (I get enthusiastically carried away :) ), so these are now done:-

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However, I remembered that I had a pack of special alu hubs from Chris (Rogue Elements) from ages ago that were for my Hilux and never made it on, so I dug those out:-

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These are a beautiful work of art. BUT, big but, they're Toyota. So don't really fit on a Chevy. Totally wrong in all respects right? Or can I get away with it?

Thinking on it.... the plastic originals I have are not too bad, but have been painted at some point and will need a delicate clean up. Pargu also has some black alu ones on eBay that are tempting...

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Bolted together it all looks a bit like this:-

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I have measured the tie rod and it's the correct length, but has quite a significant toe-in - is that to be expected? I may tweak that out a little.

 

 

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So all built other than the hub caps that need a decision...

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Next stage is to mount these onto the chassis, which is done with some U-bolts and a pressed metal plate. Again, stainless steel replacement nuts used here, rest of the parts are just cleaned - U-bolts were barrel polished.

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Mounted:-

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Bumper...

So, I have some nice cool funky bits for this for Pargu:-

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These are black alloy, and replace the black plastic ones. Heavy metal are us :)

This all goes together quite easily.

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... and with both sides done, on it goes to the chassis

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The original alloy tubes were a bit dented and smashed up so I replaced those with some new alloy tubing cut to length

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That's it I think for another week - I have the remainder of the gearbox in the barrel polisher for another couple of days and with a bit of luck I might start putting that together next weekend... :)

 

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Oh, what a beautiful model truck to work on :wub: Also, what you're doing to that Blazing Blazer in terms of restoration is absolutely BRILLIANT, mate!

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Thanks for the positive comments guys :)

Good news - success from the barrel polisher - remaining gearbox parts came out pretty well. There are a few spots where the media was too big to get in there and polish but I can finish those up by hand (actually, more likely I'll end up leaving them). I really can't recommend barrel polishers highly enough for Tamiya Pot Metal parts (second only to bead blasting in my opinion).

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I have flatted the facing edges where these guys all attach to each other using 400 grit on piece of scrap granite someone gave me a while ago (very useful if you need a very flat surface). My original plan was to try and make some gaskets, but I found that too fiddly, got frustrated and gave up. Having re-faced these though when I mate them up they do feel *really* good in terms of matching up smoothly. I may use some clear silicone to help sealing, or just leave them to drip - there's something appealing about this sitting on a shelf with an oil drop tray underneath it :)

Re-assembly of the gearbox is pretty straightforward - I used the excellent guide that Zepplin put together (link in earlier post above).

Step 1

I have re-assembled gear case C part already (hammer, vice + Tamiya tool makes this really really easy to do - only needs a light tap with the hammer).

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You see that nice needle ballrace in the pic that was my intended replacement for the brass bushes?

Turns out it's too ******* small, by a fraction of a fraction of a mm. I'm really frustrated and  annoyed that I messed that up.... and having got to this point and quite enjoying myself putting it all back together I decided to push forward and just re-use the original brass bushings for the flanged ones, ballraces for the stock 1150's.

Luckily the originals were in good order, so didn't need anything other than a light clean to degrease and I won't be bashing this machine anyway - the tires are too **** expensive to do that. Light running only! So I soon got over myself and carried on...

Stage 1 Completed

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Stage 2

This is just a case of putting the lid (case part B ) onto the previous step. 

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Stage 3

Now we can drop all the main gear parts back into place. This is trickier than it looks - took me a couple of minutes to get it all aligned.

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Stage 4

Idler gear attaches to case part E.

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UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_6433.jpgAnd that mates up with the rest of the box:-

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And that's it!

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I replaced all the screws with stainless steel while I was here (same with rest of the buggy).

Not sure how much more I'll get done tonight but might be back later with some more progress (looking forward to getting this on the chassis and the driveshafts hooked up). Otherwise will be tomorrow :)

 

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Nice work buddy B) I like these barrel polishers, I was watching a Treasure hunter Documentary the other day & noticed them using one to clean recovered silver coins :o:D

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Where would you buy one from ? What is the Name for them . 

Nice build , Looking great .

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@matman it's called a "lapidary polisher" - if you search that it should show some options in your country. I think they're mostly used by people who collect stones/gems and use these to polish them.

They come in different sizes - a 3lb barrel is long enough to take SRB gearcases. 2lb's is a little small for my liking, but if you only do small bits (SRB suspension arms, UJ's etc) then you can get by.

I use the green cone shaped media for Tamiya pot metal and it comes out a nice "flat" polish. Not shiny, just new looking. It's important to get the smallest cones you can - it comes in different sizes. I didn't know that and ended up buying a batch of the larger cones, which is what I used on the Blazer gearbox above, and as a result it didn't quite get into the sharp corners. It looks like this:-

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You can get different shapes and grades too. There's some angled pointy stuff that I've been meaning to try which I suspect gets into all the nooks even better.

It's a slow process - minimum I've found is a couple of days running to clean up a part. But it's low effort - put it in, switch it on, forget about it for a few days. The media lasts for ages. When I first got it I used to clean it each time, now I just leave it in there and re-use. It gets dusty and dirty but works just as well and you need to rinse parts when you take them out anyway to remove the swarf so it doesn't really make any difference.

I have tried most of the other media you can get also - carbide grit, used both wet and dry, etc. Keep coming back to the ceramic green cones. The time I ran it wet made a total mess (it eventually dries and cakes all the parts with stuff that sets and takes forever to get off again).

The different grades of media are coloured - you can get more course and also finer. I've found green to be about the right touch for vintage Tamiya bits. Going courser might make it faster and take less than a few days, but the green is really safe and not going to do any harm which is partly why I've stuck with it.

Here's a pic of the Blazers driveshafts after 2 days in the polisher (I hadn't taken before pics, but they were in the usual condition - brass dark and dull and the shafts dirty and with nicks):-

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Thanks for that casethejoint , i will look into it . Will help a lot getting one of these . 

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