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speed27

Boomerang rebuild

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Well the time has come to find out what works on my nearly 30 year old boomerang. I will be adding photos along the way and acknowledging other builders who have given invaluable advice.

so how does one go about checking what works and what doesn't on something old? Well you get something new (in my case it was a re release super shot ) so you can test all the old bits.

first up the battery and charger are toast but they were on there way out in 1990. Surprisingly the motor still works, sort of. It has a nasty rattle and puts out a small cloud of burning electric smoke. On the plus side the mechanical speed controller still works. The next step is to see if my futaba remote still works.

i have stripped down the gearboxes and bagged up everything. I plan to give everything a good scrub and clean out before installing the shinny new metal bearings thanks to nitro master in the USA (ebay). It was a one stop shop really. New front wishbones, wheels, tyres, gears and a full set of super shot shocks! (Metal parts included). I also got the dogbone shaft that connects the gearboxes.

A local oz seller (the twokeytwokeybird) had the df03 cvd shafts as well as hex drives and blue aluminium wheel nuts.

kontemax (who answered all my questions, legend) pointed me in the right direction on the mechanical side. I don't think I am at the ball diff stage yet but maybe one day.

so the plan for the boomer is simple. Rip out the old stuff and put in the new stuff. Depending on how the radio gear goes, the esc and gt motor from the super shot  will end up in the boomer. The super shot is going to be brushless eventually. The body on the boomer will get a strip and re spray but I am thinking either red bull stickers or martini. The martini look would be closer to the original and would look cool. The lucky stipe hotshot has made me think of going down a non original road. 

I have two ideas for the body. One is to use the original shell to create a mould and do a carbon body shell. The other is to do an aluminium shell from thin sheet. I think I can pull the aluminium one off but the carbon one may take some learning.

one thing I did realise is the the boomer chassis has a bit of twist in it (if you grab the front and rear boxes the chassis twists). I think if I put a strut brace between the front shocks ( mad inventor did one for someone) it might stiffen up the chassis. If not I have a crazy idea of building a tubular frame with a thin aluminium sheet wrapping it. Weight will be the issue. I do have an old boomer chassis that I might experiment on. 

To everyone that has answered my queries on electrics, mechanics and body fixing thank you. It has made my jumping back into this hobby a lot easier.  

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sounds like you have a lot of things still to think about. you mention weight being an issue with fabbing up a tube frame wrapped in sheet metal, one thing you can do to help resolve that is by jumping straight to a brushless system and using a 540 long can motor. a 540 long can brushless is used in 4wd short course truck racing, as the 4wd sct is based on a 1/8th buggy it's quite a heavy chassis and it needs the extra torque provided by the 540L motor. the catch with it is the length of the can, it has the same diameter of the good old silver can motors, but is about 10 mm longer iirc, so you'll want to check and make sure it won't foul up on anything before dropping the cash on it

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the first part is ready to go. I just have to pick up some batteries for the old futaba controller and see if it still works. If it doesn't then I will use the new controller to make sure the old servos still work. hopefully the old controller and servos are ok and I just need to get a new motor and battery.

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so the old controller appears to not be working. when I plugged the battery to the car I heard the servos twitch so that was a good sign. brand new batteries in the controller and there was no life in it.

 

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They will be coming, photos that is. Been working long hours at work so I don't have a lot of spare time. Hoping to get a bit done this weekend.

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So here is the old girl stripped down ready for cleaning. The old radio gear isnt working but the servos are ok. I don't think it's worth trying to fix the radio gear.

DSC_0899.JPG

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And here are the new bits. New front wishbones, tyres and wheels, metal bearings, supershot shocks, front bumper, cv shafts, updated centre drive shaft. Also 12mm hex drives to run different wheels.

DSC_0900.JPG

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I got a boomerang last year about this time.  I had a hard time putting the rear end back together.  Make sure to fully seat the inner bearings or you will not be able to get the c clips back onto the shafts.  

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