M group M chassis build

[Crash Cramer]

So, I have been fascinated to say the least with the M chassis group. I have amassed at least ONE of each type, even the shared platform M01/02 with the only difference really being which end of the car is driven and steered.

Where I owe a HUGE debt to OCD Steve for a beautiful paintjob on an original Mini complete with layering and just plain perfection in its Union Jack flying on the roof, I haven't posted it up on TC as I have never felt it quite "DONE" yet, that is coming very near dear friends and neighbors, so just hold with me a little longer and you will get the showcase that gem deserves.

Now, onto the rest of my M garage, I am currently going for The Italian Job triple threat Mini build, using the easier and cheaper to source Racing body with the lackluster lack of chrome, but I hope they don't disappoint as I have a twist going for that  build too. I got sidelined when I was building 3 at once with a lack of all the bits and bobs and I wanted to ensure there were some newer parts and some Hop Ups and some uniqueness and such, so that is still on the back burner, but because the overseas postman has dropped off the majority of the goods, I can get back that direction, especially since I think I have wrapped up my dual M04 build. I built 2 at one time since I had promised my brother an RC car about 3 and a half years ago, it has been a while, but I dug up receipts from late 2013 where I was buying bits and bodies, so I have the proof in front of me.

Because he has moved a few times, perhaps it is a good thing I haven't gotten it done as now he is in a better spot to enjoy it and perhaps even get it onto a road track since I didn't build an offroad M04, but with M sized rally tires, that thought could happen now, just kidding.

He is also older than I, but a bit of a novice in things RC, so I built his with a little less magical stuff and made it where he could upgrade it as he saw fit. Tamiyamandan donned some paint on the twin bodies over a year ago and I have to admit they are still not done, but I won't reveal them until I can call them done with details and such, let's just say MAGNETIC BODY MOUNTS are a necessity.

ON WITH THE BUILD AND NO MORE TYPING, PHOTOS

Starting point

That was some eye candy and WALLET emptying right there, thankfully I spread that out over a number of years since I don't seem to get all my ducks in a row, but while thinking it over, I scour ebay some days endlessly and other times I just get plain lucky. Now that you have seen SOME of the goodies, lets get to building.

GEARBOX internals

Those carbon shafts sure grip the bearings tightly

This had been put together and run a looooong time ago, so I did get some of the excess grease out of there upon the rebuild

Front and rear sections, perhaps the coolest part about building an M04, the compartments you build BEFORE you attach them to the main "fuselage" of a chassis

Note the hop ups, there is stainless steel suspension pins, metal motor mount, sport tuned motor running a 17T gear(I think) and you can't see it but the sway bar kit is installed on this gem too. Ball joints for upcoming upgraded shocks.

In case you caught them in the previous photo, put the M03 universal assembly joints in there too(notice they are black, not the standard silver/chrome)

Here we have the front suspension assembly, again, hopped up a tad with REINFORCED Axle shafts in black again vs the standard or lightweight silver stock. They come with shims that I think are a NECESSITY for getting some of that little slop out of the front axles, I ended up using 2 shims per axle nearest the bearing mating surface.

Lightweight kingpin screws or whatever Tamiya calls them, you can see the sway bar here as well as the simple metal hexes I went with, perhaps some clamp on style later, REAL Alu Tamiya uprights, came to me used, but since this is a "used/worn/ex racecar" build, slight scuffs here and there only add character, but there are new parts in there too.The bearings on this build are Teflon shielded that I had laying around and had enough of them, so in they went after I was sure they were in good, smooth operating order.

Home made/ hand cut foam front bumper, had to trim it up a tad to clear the shocks when I went to install them, I will hope it fills the gap with the end use body when I get to that stage.

and BOOM, we have those shiny shockers, a little worn, but I couldn't pass up the offer made by a seller on eBay to unload them on me, they have some nicks and scars both on the plastic bits and a little on the bodies too, but again, CHARACTER as I had to rebuild a pair to the spec that is vague at best for what goes on an M chassis as these are the 53155 set with instructions for Touring cars vs the smaller M chassis, they of course now have a specific set of M Chassis low friction shocks with a piston that is some 2mm shorter and body that is matched to that short throw, but THESE were listed on the HOP UPS sheet, so these went on, I do like to go period at times with the proper additions to a build.

ANNNND their mates, out back same again, different piston for a tighter action, single hole piston plunger or whatever it is called. and YES, they are a deeper pink, it is one of the reasons they were so cheap as they didn't perfectly match each other in color as a set of 4, but I considered putting them on an M01 or M02 and still might later, I don't know, but in going with the made up Theme I have going on here, budget character racer, weekend warrior type runner/race car, so it is fitting I think.

This is where things got dicey, wanted to use the Hi Torque Servo saver, had some bits in black, but not enough of them sadly and was missing a spring on that "loose" kit, so opened up the white set and when I went to build it, realized I had to make a choice of the Q parts with the SS tree, or use THIS piece of kit, so in this went, I had intended it to go on say an M05 or M06 later, but realized that those are a single horn type and not of this more direct connection type, so then it came here naturally so it could get into the MM04. The only problem I am having with it is that it is BLUE and there isn't all that much blue on this car, so I will see what happens later, oh and I have an M03 that I want to build out HOPPED UP and BLUE would work perfectly with that, so conundrum, buy another one or what???? I don't know, but will cross that bridge when I get to it. I also dug around and found that I owned the 3x32 turnbuckles apparently. I couldn't find my turnbuckle wrench to save my life, but luckily, the standard Tamiya wrench worked on getting the toe in set well enough till I find the blasted turnbuckle wrench I spent good money on. According to Tamiya, these are Titanium, but since I don't have a metallurgy lab, I am just going to guess that is what they are made of and pray I don't snap them or bend them up as I have heard nightmare stories about Ti in the past.

LOTS of fiddly bits in this build, but thankfully, I did find my little pot of AG threadlocker

Installed and getting ready to button up the "fuselage" chassis, have put the quick release battery latch on this one too.

Well, that does it for the photos I took, I had to get it out and drive it dark or not, so I did last night and it tracks REALLY straight and smooth acceleration and if you dial the steering throw way down, you can just drive with the rear end flinging out all the time, so I dialed more in and gave it less throttle to actually steer through the turns. I didn't hear an inordinate amount of dragging, but it is hard to tell since this chassis came to me really beat up, but still very useful and intact. I think I might have threadlocked 2 or 4 screw holes, so all in all, really tight. Now to get the magnetic body mounts to get rid of the goal posts.

[VagabondStarJXF]

Looking good! I really like the M04 chassis.

[svenb]

Nice build😊

nothing wrong with a blue hopped up m04👍

[firefoxussr]

M04s interest me. I have one to rebuild.  It will be a first of its kind as I will be running a different body than ever supplied by with the kit. 

[Crash Cramer]

6 hours ago, firefoxussr said:

M04s interest me. I have one to rebuild.  It will be a first of its kind as I will be running a different body than ever supplied by with the kit. 

stock out of the box, the 4's go together quicker than their predecessors and perhaps easiest of all as I haven't gotten to build a 5 or 6. I think the only finicky step I can recall on the 4 is the steering servo tweak. If you are fortunate enough to get the servo in neutral perfectly on the bench test, then you don't have to do much other than install it normally, if you have to go back to reset neutral, well, it is fun wrestling it out of the ladder frame for fixing it. I have to caution you, if you break something while driving, well, parts seem to be falling off the planet as they are not showing up all that often. I can say ditch the servo saver from the kit and spend the $20 or so for the combo of Hi Torque SSaver plus the special M chassis aluminum servo horn(the long one) like I installed. This car suffers from the shelf servo saver snapping in half syndrome that a few others from the same time frame experience. Manta Ray and Super Blackfoot are the others I have had to deal with that issue on.

[firefoxussr]

2 hours ago, Crash Cramer said:

stock out of the box, the 4's go together quicker than their predecessors and perhaps easiest of all as I haven't gotten to build a 5 or 6. I think the only finicky step I can recall on the 4 is the steering servo tweak. If you are fortunate enough to get the servo in neutral perfectly on the bench test, then you don't have to do much other than install it normally, if you have to go back to reset neutral, well, it is fun wrestling it out of the ladder frame for fixing it. I have to caution you, if you break something while driving, well, parts seem to be falling off the planet as they are not showing up all that often. I can say ditch the servo saver from the kit and spend the $20 or so for the combo of Hi Torque SSaver plus the special M chassis aluminum servo horn(the long one) like I installed. This car suffers from the shelf servo saver snapping in half syndrome that a few others from the same time frame experience. Manta Ray and Super Blackfoot are the others I have had to deal with that issue on.

Thanks for the insight.  I don't plan on running servo savers.  I did that with my M06 and destroyed the servo saver after one bodyless roll.   I think I'll just risk the 7 dollar HobbyKing drift servo, which i've become very fond of.

[Crash Cramer]

It is not for saving the servo, it is for saving that blasted "spring C" part from the B tree, Tamiya plastic on that tree just plain snaps in static mode, have had it happen twice on me now, once when picking up my Super Blackfoot shelf queen and now with an M04 project chassis in moving it around looking for parts. That was what I was moaning about and warning about. On the M04, it is part B-4.... You sank my Battleship. LOL

[WillyChang]

Tie a small ziptie around it.

[Crash Cramer]

Could work, that is if I ever find where the other HALF of the part fell off. not fun.

[Pintopower]

Looking good Chris. Can we see more?

[Crash Cramer]

Settle down Alberto, I have some more posts coming, waiting on parts from I don't know where right now to complete ANOTHER Blue Bruiser as I am calling it, don't get excited folks, it is a nick name, not a real Bruiser pickup.

[jonboy1]

I've got to stop reading builds like this because it just makes me want to go on eBay and buy more cars and parts!!! 

[Crash Cramer]

7 hours ago, jonboy1 said:

I've got to stop reading builds like this because it just makes me want to go on eBay and buy more cars and parts!!! 

Don't go blamin just my posts, there are plenty out there that got me hooked on more cars and more parts. It is the reason for the hobby, but then some folks do settle down and then focus on just ONE era or even one type of buggy, vehicle, we all have a common thread here in Tamiya, but we are varied in our builds and collections. I still have to get my collection thinned down a bit.

[Crash Cramer]

How do you spend a lot of money on a small car, well here is one way to start. I DON'T RECOMMEND this for all, but I thought it was fun to bring an idea to life.

All that went onto an M03 chassis build that has a recycled body from Mincemeat(sure miss his posts) Stefan. He did a great job and I think I mislead you all a tad and also forgot the actual name I wanted to give this project, it is NOT Blue Bruiser, more like BLACK AND BLUE. I had BB in my head, but when I typed it out yesterday, it came out wrong, I hope you will forgive me and after some errands today, I will be posting some more photos into the TC Front page. For now, enjoy the OCD and madness.

[jonboy1]

15 hours ago, Crash Cramer said:

Don't go blamin just my posts, there are plenty out there that got me hooked on more cars and more parts. It is the reason for the hobby, but then some folks do settle down and then focus on just ONE era or even one type of buggy, vehicle, we all have a common thread here in Tamiya, but we are varied in our builds and collections. I still have to get my collection thinned down a bit.

Too late, blamed you!! 

i love that bodyshell - and all your ocd coolness underneath - brilliant my friend

[Crash Cramer]

28 minutes ago, jonboy1 said:

Too late, blamed you!! 

i love that bodyshell - and all your ocd coolness underneath - brilliant my friend

Thanks,, there is only MORE to follow. Now that I am home from errands the front page post is going up along with my "typical" long winded, drink some tea length reading of said post.

[Badcrumble]

More?! 

Looking forward to it! 

[jeekelemental]

Good stuff here!

[Crash Cramer]

Okay, now is the time to detail the build(s), Yes I have done more than one M03 this last month. It is more a test of my patience and unfortunately, some of my budget and will power to not spend stupidly and freely as I am not made of money. I had quite some luck in some mini lots and items that I could lump into a single shipping transaction and some pretty darn good eBay sellers(not an easy thing to find these days) that were helpful and easy going with combined shipping and some things just got here so fast my head was spinning. On a side note, don't know who else might have ordered or bought anything from seller 6godwater, please get with me and tell me if you were successful in getting your winnings. I have waited nearly a month for my actual item to come in to finish off the M04s that you saw in the first post. My patience is running thinner every passing day as I am only getting "scripted responses" from the seller's many folks telling me to wait another 10-15 days for the item and they are unable/unwilling to supply the customs label number for me to track it down, so I don't know anything about my packet to finish up two chassis.

My INTERNATIONAL M03 build details as follows.

Now, onto more ramblings about M chassis and the craziness they ensue in both pocket book and how far will you go with it.

The elephant in the room is the BLUE Chassis, TC member Sibbet had the packet and a few other bits and bobs, so that started this idea in October of 2016.

Starting with step one, building the diff, well, throw that step out the window as a Manta Ray diff came over from Japan to go into this build. Then we put bearings from my stash into the rest of the gearbox along with the carbon shafts(Japan again)and since I was lucky enough to snap up a new C tree set NIP( Malaysia ,second gen version, with two holes in the battery strap part), well, let's get to shearing those bits off the tree with my trusty plastic side cutters(as seen in main parts photo, light blue handles)

I have some "racer's box" contents from a lot I bought nearly 8 years ago I think, or perhaps 6 years ago, suffice it to say, if it was touring car oriented, it was in these boxes. Damper tree parts, short springs, black self tapping screws, a bunch of MISC, but when I bought it, was working on some TA series and FF01 chassis builds/restores, so I thought I would eventually either sell the rest off or use them. Little did I know I was going to be able to use some stuff on M chassis, so that was a happy discovery as I was beginning to formulate a theme on this Blue chassis build, BLACK AND BLUE, so I dug up some black 3x10 self tappers and began to build this car. Screw pins were not an option to use, since the TL01 steel suspension pins can be had really cheap and easy, so that was the next Hop Up to go on. This is where I was trying to figure out what to call this chassis as I was really leaning towards the M03R that Tamiya had made(TWICE), one in chrome and one in blue chrome like this(undoubtedly where this special edition parts tree came from), but when I looked into the build specs and I saw they wanted to use fewer hop ups than I had already, well, I just charged on my way and let the M03R instruction manual help me put the shocks together and I moved on my own way. I haven't found a suitable way or note to make the C7, front upper arms out of 5mm adjusters and screws and such, so it was left in plastic, but the rear upper arms were built per spec with 2 small 5mm adjusters and the threaded screw and the .5 mm washer as that came courtesy of the spacer kit I bought, the rest were used to put the shocks on the chassis.
Jumping to step 6 in the standard manual, I had the lightweight kingpin screws to replace the MA1s with and I used the M03 universal shaft set(Japan) to replace the stock units. A "lazy" Dyna run motor(Georgia) that has done not much more than sit around here looking pretty since last year, was installed with the M03 alu heat sink using an 18T pinion as stated in the build manual for this motor. Built up the Transparant Blue CVA bodies(bought in 2014) with some black piston rods I had here from ??? and then attached them with M chassis bushing set(Canada) and black self tapping screws vs the Machine thread stipulated in the M03R manual. After that hurdle(actually one of the final steps for me to complete) was done, tacked the servo saver conundrum. I don't know how many of you have had a shelf queen from the mid 90's era using those harder plastics, but I have had now a Super Blackfoot shelfer and a M04 shelfer snap that C ring servo saver part supplied with the kit. Quite frustrating really, but now that the B parts are going to be in endless supply(seemingly, mine came courtesy of the Heavy Dump Truck kit tree, bought from California) it won't be as frustrating, but I went into the deep end and used the Hi Torque servo saver in black(Illinois) followed up with the M chassis aluminum servo horn(Massachusetts) in order to not worry at all about it. Used a Futaba S3003 with a gold label, probably near the correct year for this chassis, it even has a black servo output gear on it, but I didn't take a photo of that, normally I am accustomed to seeing white gears on servos, but a few over the years have had black, this one is a very clean, lightly used example. Honorable mention goes to the M03 stabilizer set, used the black rods supplied in the kit, leftovers are silver and thicker.
It's all downhill from here. I didn't go with a full set of electrics, should I find the time and RX, will put one in, but only with easily removed servo tape so as to not leave residue on this chassis. Wheels were a guess. Had some Chrome Swift wheels here and some blue locknuts courtesy Tamiya. Finished with the mounting of said wheels onto one side

and then my ULTIMATE wheel purchase(been with me since 2015) of the 8 spoke alu M wheels, I think those win this battle to stay on the car. Used the final steps to add black colored Reinforced rear wheel axles as well as the silver 6mm Clamp style wheel hexes and finally the Quick Release Battery holder is there under that beautifully painted Racing Mini body by Stefan, aka MinceMeat here on TC. He painted that up for me what seems 4 years ago now. I sure miss talking with him, don't really know what has become of him and since he lives(ed) in Oklahoma, sometimes I could see him on my way through to my mom's house, but not been in contact for some time now.

Okay, you have endured this much typeing, if you want to see the full set of photos, they will be going up on TC showroom as shortly as I can go over there and type up a quick review.

ANOTHER M03 has been started and another is to be started so I can complete my "Italian Job" trio and then I think I have to step backward to the M01/02 issues I was struggling with and with some hope, the M04 bits will arrive to finally call them a done deal too. Then, after I do my taxes, I can hope to start on Tamiya's "latest" M offerings, the M05 and M06. I have bought some used bits and such, don't know how crazy the hop ups might be on those, so time will tell.

Chris

[Crash Cramer]

Well, ain't that a PEACH, I can't upload to TamiyaClub front page right now. Two separate attempts have given me a 404 error, file not found. I did all my typeing and such and now I can't do anything with it. I don't know what is going on, but I surely hope I can post it soon.