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40 minutes ago, nowinaminute said:

Well I finally finished stripping the whole thing and cleaning it and started putting it back together.

The instruction manual was eye opening! I didn't find it particularly easy to follow, some hardware was mislabeled, there were parts where it asked you to fit screws after the screw holes had been obstructed by previous steps or asked you to attach parts using screws that had already been installed several steps back etc! Definitely not the best Kyosho manual I've ever seen!

Kyosho manuals were terrible back then. My cousin used to build them all the time and always complained how horrible they were in the 80s

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I built a Double Dare for a customer and hated every second of it. I didn't like Kyosho manuals.  A buddy of mine loved his Double Dare though.

I had a Nitro Brute for a few months during a really humid summer. I think I was able to get that thing started and running less than 6 times. Nothing worse than 90% humidity, 95 degrees and the frustration of a nitro engine. 

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I got my one all back together. I have wheels and tyres ready to go on.

f9ONAKo.jpg

I might have accidentally brought some more stuff from this truck family though so watch this space lol.

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Well as per usual, my attention pinged off like a pinball or a fly in a shop window But I hope to have some updates soon.

I've fallen into that trap of acquiring a model and then noticing similar models that I never would have noticed before. 

As the result of a few bargains, I have made the following additions besides the Brute for less than £100

Corvette Hi Rider = pretty much complete but in need of work.

Double Dare = complete chassis but no body.

USA-1 = mostly complete, body missing bumpers and mirrors, spotlights broken off but not too bad for it's age.

And a set of proper wheels and tyres for the Big Brute.

I've somehow managed to go from owning none of these trucks to 4!

None are perfect but I think all have potential. I think I can get them all to a fair standard without much outlay. I just need to decide which ones to keep because 4 is ridiculous. The USA-1 and Corvette seem the obvious choices because they both have bodies and I would have an example each of the 2wd and 4wd but we'll see, maybe I'll be tempted to turn the double dare into a 4wd corvette.

I used to think if I was strict with budgets I would never end up acquiring too much gear but I've accepted now that it just makes me more efficient at finding loads of gear for small amounts of money. The way I scour eBay and Facebook ads is like the way the Terminator scans for Sarah Connor.

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One thing I can tell you for sure is that all 6 of the gearboxes I've acquired have the same tight spot! I'm starting to think it's something in the original moulds and the more I listen to then running on YouTube the more it makes sense lol.

It's the diff carrier gear that seems to be the problem, even just rolling it along a desk you can hear there's a lumpy part. Are they all like it to varying degrees? Or does the plastic warp with age? I even rebuilt two without ultrasonic cleaning the gears just in case it was that but it made no difference.

I'm not sure it would have much of a negative effect when it's up and running but it's a little annoying even by my standards and I'm usually about as anti OCD as you can get!

I'm still tempted to try and carefully sand down the gear a tiny bit just in the area where it's effected, it only seems to happen over the course of 2 or 3 teeth so if you could pinpoint it accurately it would probably have no negative effects, you'd only be turning an over tight mesh into a normal mesh.

I think I'll actually run them and see how they go before I take such measures though!

I'm going to start my own thread now so I'm not cluttering up Saito2s thread!

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I finally took the Brute out for a spin around the block!

It ran really well, the gearbox was a little noisy but nowhere near as rough as I was expecting. It seemed to handle fairly well too considering the archaic design, friction shocks and Haribo shock towers. And of course, it made easy work of short grass etc.

The only cause for concern was that these metal parts have worn out just like it happens on vehicles like the Boomerang...

20190713_183808.thumb.jpg.49bc2603e25557a849f30b01cedc37eb.jpg

I once saw someone use o rings to improve the slop in parts like this. I wonder if adding some between the ball joint and arm might work here? As it stands I have crazy camber going on.

Even if I can't fix that, It still drives ok from what I have seen so far, certainly well enough to have some fun in the rough stuff.

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On 7/13/2019 at 1:40 PM, nowinaminute said:

I wonder if adding some between the ball joint and arm might work here?

I wound up using a thick plastic from a bag, cut and fit between the ball and the socket in the arm. It wasn't perfect, but it got rid of some of the slack. If you get a chance, add some oil shocks. My Big Boss was quite bouncy in stock form. I added some Traxxas shocks. I limited the travel with tubing inside the shock. It worked fine since the Traxxas shock bodies were the same length as the stock Kyosho ones. Combined with some Proline Masher 2000s, the shocks really made the Boss sweet to drive.

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5 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

I added some Traxxas shocks.

X-maxx/t-maxx style ones? I have loads of them, someone was selling them cheap in america so i got some for my x-maxx clone, some for my clod and even my Lunchbox has some at the front with the DT03 arms lol.

For about £14 for 8 I couldn't resist a few sets, you can't get 4 Chinese no name ones for that!

 

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Yep, T/E-Maxx shocks. I did the same thing you did, grabbing up some for my Clods. Their stock length is more akin to a CVA "long" shock and at first glance, the Kyosho trucks seem more in line with a "short" Tamiya shock. The shock bodies turned out to be about the same length. I limited the piston rod length to match that of the original Kyosho ones and away I went. I will add, the travel has to be limited on the outside of the shock a good bit if I were to use the tall, stock Big Boss tires to keep them from hitting the body. I wound up using shorter, Masher 2k tires (probably closer to the Big Brute's diameter) which allowed for much more wheel travel. The truck is fairly close to a Blackfoot (with decent oil shocks) handling now (albeit with a bit sloppier steering).

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@Saito2 what an interesting thread!

Like you and @mongoose1983 I'm a huge fun of the Big Boss (it truly is embedded in my own "RC dna") and I wish I found it before! Still, it was so much fun to read through it and to find out I was exactly in your same situation when stripping it down and restoring it. Almost all the issues you guys had, I had! Including the tight spot in the gear mesh, obviously. By the way, thanks @nowinaminute for the insight!

After a couple years straight of heavy duty in all sorts of weather condition and temperature, I decided to give some proper TLC to my Big Boss next days, whenever I find the time. Tje gearbox will be the main target, so this thread will sure come handy!

I too might have some useful ghetto mods to share, I'll take a closer look when I start. I recall doing a very effective one to strengthen the front end, as it is a very weak spot indeed,especially when you like jumps...

Great, refreshing thread, again. Glad to find out there's others that love this monster truck! Despite the undeniable flaws, the Big Boss rules and with a few adjustments it's tough as nails! I run mine most everyday and it won't retire anytime soon.

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Thank you @Ferruz! Your action shots inspired me to get mine out and running more. I found the whole tear down and examination of the design fascinating. I admit, I was a bit shocked at the amount of plastic in the drivetrain and probably was a bit too critical initially. Oh, how I wish the Thorp stuff was still available/affordable. My interest hasn't waned either. I have another Big Boss chassis heading my way. The plan is to build a shelf queen so I can run my current one more often. I honestly like driving the Big Boss more than my USA-1. I'd like to track down an affordable Big Brute at some point too.

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Haha glad to see this thread still going.

I havent forgotten either but I tend to drift between projects like a fart in the wind unfortunately.

I actually managed to acquire a few trucks in the past year or so. I don't earn much so my disposable income is low but I've learned that only makes me better at finding bargains on ebay/boot sales/facebook market etc.

I still have that original Big Brute. I subsequently managed to find a corvette, double dare and usa-1 in various states or repair, spent less than 100 on those 3. I intend to keep the USA-1 and either the Brute or Corvette. Progress is low though because of my poor attention span lol. 

The biggest issue I find with these older vehicles is it's easy to acquire the bulk of them for quite cheap but then you struggle to find things like tyres and body shells without spending a fortune.

The USA-1 and corvette have body shells, the Brute and Double Dare don't. The wheels for the USA-1 are present and intact, the tyres are a little firm. Wheels and tyres for the Corvette and Dare are present and the rubber is good with no cracks.

I managed to get all the body accessories for the Brute but the cost of a repro shell would be as much as I paid for the whole truck. And the wheels and tyres are like gold dust in good condition but that's not so bad as I can chuck on some generic white rims and some of those large chinese Chevron tyres. I think I prefer the Brute to the Corvette but the Corvette is more complete so I really don't know what to do.

Between my tendency to switch between projects and the fact that I try to just wait until the right parts come up at a reasonable price, progress is indeed slow although I've had the Brute running a few times.

Oh and PS: I can confirm all 6 gearboxes are noisy, I'm sure there must just be a wave in the moulding of one of the gears. Even with brand new gears inside they make a racket so between that and what I see on youtube, I think that's just how they are. I'm less bothered by it now.

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Oh and one other observation.

There must be a deep dark pit somewhere that's full of car crusher chassis covers because 99% of them aren't present!

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6 hours ago, Saito2 said:

Oh, how I wish the Thorp stuff was still available/affordable

I know! That would be great, sometimes it shows up on out favourite auction site for an arm and a leg, just like all the chrome parts. Way too much money for what it is. But last year I found a good alternative when my dogbones finally got brittle and needed replacement. There is a guy in the States (bless him) that 3D prints the infamous dogbones in a material the he guarantees is better than the original plastic. I got a set, they were not cheap but worked perfectly on my Big Boss and they look just like the originals. It got me out of trouble without affecting my enthusiasm about running the car, as they can be reprinted. If anybody is interested let me know and I'll research that seller, pretty sure he still has them available.

I agree on the fact that the Boss' Bridgestone tires are like the holy grail: absolutely gorgeous, and close to impossible to find. Again, some seller from Spain has had one or two pairs for sale forever for a ridiculous price: I'll keep passing on this (but still drool in front of the ad from time to time).

Good thing about those tires though is that you can swap them around: if you consider that most of the wear happens to the inward part of the rears, swapping them around periodically will ensure they last a lot longer and wear evenly at the same time.

My personal impression about these tires, quality wise, is very good. Mine have been sitting in a garage up in the mountain for 22 years straight, and when I finally dug the Boss out they were as good as new. What a fluke huh, I know, I still can't believe how much abuse they got since then and still look great. Hopefully that'll last:ph34r:

5 hours ago, nowinaminute said:

The biggest issue I find with these older vehicles is it's easy to acquire the bulk of them for quite cheap but then you struggle to find things like tyres and body shells without spending a fortune

Wow, how do you find it easy to acquire the bulk of them for quite cheap? I'd love to get my hands on another chassis at least, anything Big Boss oriented, so I could finally cut my Big Boss some slack!

About the chassis cover, mine was no exception. I crafted one out od an old lid, worked just fine.

Maybe later on today or tomorrow I'll set out to service the gearbox properly. This thread gave me the itch!!

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32 minutes ago, Ferruz said:

I know! That would be great, sometimes it shows up on out favourite auction site for an arm and a leg, just like all the chrome parts. Way too much money for what it is. But last year I found a good alternative when my dogbones finally got brittle and needed replacement. There is a guy in the States (bless him) that 3D prints the infamous dogbones in a material the he guarantees is better than the original plastic. I got a set, they were not cheap but worked perfectly on my Big Boss and they look just like the originals. It got me out of trouble without affecting my enthusiasm about running the car, as they can be reprinted. If anybody is interested let me know and I'll research that seller, pretty sure he still has them available.

I agree on the fact that the Boss' Bridgestone tires are like the holy grail: absolutely gorgeous, and close to impossible to find. Again, some seller from Spain has had one or two pairs for sale forever for a ridiculous price: I'll keep passing on this (but still drool in front of the ad from time to time).

Wow, how do you find it easy to acquire the bulk of them for quite cheap? I'd love to get my hands on another chassis at least, anything Big Boss oriented, so I could finally cut my Big Boss some slack!

About the chassis cover, mine was no exception. I crafted one out od an old lid, worked just fine.

Maybe later on today or tomorrow I'll set out to service the gearbox properly. This thread gave me the itch!!

Mostly comes down to watching ebay and facebook market like a Hawk. I tend to browse the RC car listings without putting in any specific search term then look out for stuff that has very generic descriptions like "rc truck" "rc car" etc, sometimes stuff just slips through without raising much attention because you can only really ID it from the item picture. I got the Corvette and Double Dare with a spare set of tyres and a few packs of brand new parts for about £50 but the Double Dare had no body shell and getting another shell would cost more than £50 alone so that's what I meant about sometimes it's easy to get the main vehicle but the accessories can end up costing many times more

Sometimes you get a completish one sell for an ok price too, sometimes they just don't seem to sell for as much as you'd expect for some reason, ebay is weird like that.

Another one to watch out for is buy it now listings where they either don't really know what they have or they know but it has breakages or missing parts and they overestimate how much that effects the value. If you go to a site like Item alert you can set up searches and it will notify you within 15 minutes of the listing going live so it can help you get a chance to see it before anyone else snaps it up.

Something else I do (although it can be long winded) is to buy another vehicle listed at spares or repairs with parts I need, take off the parts and then just sell it on usually for the same price. I find with spares or repairs stuff, it doesn't really effect the value much if you remove 1 or 2 parts. Or if you have spares, you can always take off parts you want but add other parts that you have spares off so it ends up about the same level of completeness. 

Another thing I often do is remove the old school receiver if there is one present, you can usually sell an old acoms receiver for £15-20 and and makes zero difference to the value of the car it's sitting in when you come to re-sell it so for example I might win something for £50 on auction, take a few parts off and the receiver, sell it again for £40-50 buy it now then sell the receiver for £15-20 so I can make my money back or maybe a little more. It works for hopups sometimes too, sometimes I buy a car and run it for months or years and then when I go to sell, take off the hopups and put standard parts on and it sells for the same price then you can keep the hopups or sell them separately. 

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Its funny we all have the same problem with missing chassis covers. The Boss on the way to me will be my first with a complete cover. I think its tough for me to spend crazy me one these for a couple reasons. First, despite being cool as heck, the Car Crusher series is firmly in Kyosho's lower end "plastic" line of models with vehicles like the Icarus and Pegasus and not the Ultima and Optima. Second, I remember when these things went for dirt cheap. They weren't Tamiya or top tier Kyosho, so nobody cared. Now decent examples bring real money. Such is increasing rarity I suppose. I know it was just Kyosho's ad slogan about being built from the ground up as a truck, but there's something cool about that. These things just seem like trucks unlike the Blackfoot (which I love too) in which I'll always see "Frog". They had an impressive presence about them aided by the fact they were a bit bigger than the average truck outside the mighty Clod Buster. Finding proper size tires seems important to maintaining that impressive look in my mind. Everyone went 2.2 after the Blackfoot's popularity took off so the Car Crushers were left with this oddball size. Duratrax actually made aftermarket tires for them though. I'm going to try some Jconcepts Ranger tires on mine as they seem to be about the biggest 2.2 tire I can find. If I get my hand on a Brute, Wheely King or CEN  tires will probably do the trick. 

 

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@nowinaminute thanks mate for all the tips about researching. There are times when I watch the bay attentively for a few weeks, usually when in need of more than one specific part so I end up being interested in all sort of things, but unfortunately I miss out big time on facebook. I've heard that it can sometimes be a real gold mine for RC deals, but by choice I don't have an account so I keep missing out on all sort of stuff. I love the tip about the "generic" research like "rc truck" though, good idea! Better still if it doesn't involve the word "vintage" I guess, as nowadays it's become a synonym for "fancy" and "expensive" regardless of the item.

@Saito2 please post pics of your new, chassis cover equipped Boss once it reaches your hands!

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20200622_124858

And there it is, a chassis cover, complete with inspection window and a mint Kyosho MSC. The tires are quite decent and the shock chrome is perfect. This Boss saw very little use evidently as the bottom is mostly scratch free too. 

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@Saito2 loving your find, congrats. I dream of finding such donor myself someday. Although, on second thought, it looks so complete that it deserves its own restoration. Is this one going to be a runner?

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7 hours ago, Ferruz said:

Is this one going to be a runner?

Thanks! No, I think the one I tore down in the beginning of this thread will be. It had more wear and a crack in the front bulkhead I braced and repaired. It did have perfect tires however (though covered with something slippery/slick) which will go on this chassis along with a repro body. The chrome on the plastics is shot, so I'll probably end up painting them the best I can. I'm waffling on whether to run these tires too. They are in pretty decent shape. I guess I'll see what the Jconcepts Rangers look like on there when they come before making up my mind. Then, I really should get to work on that USA-1 too...^_^

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I need some opinions on aesthetics (particularly from the Car Crusher aficionados, @mongoose1983, @Ferruz and @nowinaminute ;)).

  

20200626_121718

Here's some Jconcepts Ranger tires mounted up. They turn out to be roughly the same diameter and width as the original Kyosho Bridgestones. I have two sets of fairly nice Kyosho tires. The Rangers look awesome but somehow take away a little of the Big Boss's "looks" in my mind. On the other hand original Kyosho tires in good shape are rare. Should I save all the Kyosho tires for shelf duty and use the Rangers or admit life is short and keep one set of the Kyosho tires for shelf use and run the other set?

The truck pictured is my runner in progress BTW. I had to remove all the "hard" detail parts which will go on my other shelf queen with a new repro body. I made a front bumper and a grill out of perforated aluminum. Hope it doesn't look too bad for a runner. I still need to make and rollbar (or fit a Tamiya piece) and come up with some kind of engine to fill the big hole in the hood. Any affordable suggestions?

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I think the terra tires as you fitted them on your truck look very very good. Actually, anybody who'd have the chance to look at that BIG BOSS is going to say it looks nice.

The one thing I'll never be able to understand is how these guys at Jconcepts didn't do their homework properly. There is no 66inch tall version that I am aware of. I believe the biggest ones were 48 inchers, which is what Bigfoot and later Ms.Bigfoot/Bigfoot Shuttle/Bigfoot Ranger used. If they really meant them to be used for 1:10 scale vehicles then they got them all wrong. I would have loved a correct set for the Bruiser in example.

But other than that detail, the BOSS with those tires and wheel combination look very good.

 

PS. A BIG "BY THE WAY" here with the 1980 Bigfoot tires.

48" Goodyear Terra tires | Monster trucks, Goodyear, 4x4

FM131-001.jpg

Monster 48" Goodyear Terra tires.......

These particular ones are mounted on these interesting wheels. They look nice.

Monster 48" Goodyear Terra tires.......

Bob Chandler and Bigfoot shuttle vers.2:

Pin by joseph opahle on Bigfoot shuttle/fast track | Monster trucks

And nowadays what Bigfoot 4x4 inc presents the original truck with Firestone 48 inch tires, since they're obviously endorsed. No way to see the truck with the orig tires anymore :pena:

Bigfoot 1 Monster Truck Restoration Complete! | Carros y ...

GOTTA LOVE THE ORIG BIGFOOT GOODYEAR TERRA TIRES!  :zippychile:de4e99eac929792eb57985d82b3065fa.jpg

BTW, the Toyota Bruiser tires are Firestone. I see RC guys everywhere naming them as BF Goodrich or Goodyear, but they're really Firestone. That never cease to amaze me, pretty much like rust on Sand Scorchers, when the obvious fiberglass parts never rust. I guess that isn't so obvious in the end.

I'd say keep the tires on your BIG BOSS. It looks beautiful. You might want to check eBay to find some mock engine. And I?m sure there must be some chrome rollbars to fit. It's a very nice project what you have there. Don't destroy it :ok:

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@Saito2 those tires look alright, good to know there are some alternatives to the original tires available!

I think that if you happen to have two sets of original Kyosho Bridgestones, you should definitely run them! :D One set will be enough for the shelf, you could pick the best 4 looking tires out of the 8 and enjoy the others without guilt (bear in mind though, this comes from a guy that runs them daily and has no spares :ph34r:).

I find the "life is short" philosophy, when finally applied to RC, does often turn into a lot of fun and fulfilment.

The truck looks great! As for filling the engine hole, you could go a few ways. If you have any spare lexan left from trimmings that is big enough, you could try and cut it to fit, using putty or resin but not sure how sturdy it would prove to be, I guess it depends on the use. Personally, for the sake of functionality I went the ghetto way and stuck tape inside and out. Seeing that it didn't sink much, I applied a sticker on top of it and found that it blended  enough with the roughness of my Big Boss for it not to bother me. It's a runner so it's far from perfect aesthetically speaking, it's got scratches here and there and the chrome parts are faded, I like it like that but if you want to keep a more pristine look for your runner you should probably go for something more refined than tape :lol:  it sure works, though! I never had to touch it up since.

I don't have better pictures handy at the moment, but this will give you an idea of how it looks

20190105-161926.jpg

The front grill you made looks pretty cool!

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3 hours ago, Ferruz said:

I find the "life is short" philosophy

I appreciate that, and it definitely makes sense. When I look at your action pictures I can see lots of fun. I don't know what happened to me, or when did I started to sort of trying to keep the cars immaculate. I cringe at the thought of scuffing them, when back in 1992 I remember bashing the midnight pumpkin as if it was indestructible. Jumps, stones, the thing would just go ahead like crazy. Sometimes I think I lost so much in life I'd like to keep these things forever like new, they were just a dream three decades ago. It's a crazy thought, maybe it's related to getting old. It took me two years to raise the money for my first truck. And by the way just yesterday the guy from the hobby store who sold it to me passed away.

Hey, the spare lexan piece to cover the bonnet hole it's a good idea, too. :thumbsup:

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