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TurnipJF

Turnip restores a pair of Thunder Shots

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As some of you already know, I was planning to restomod a Thunder Shot in time for the Tamiya Junkies meet at Robin Hood Raceway in September. 

I have been excitedly sharing details of the project with anyone who will listen, including my colleagues, one of whom told me of his own Thunder Shot experiences.

He received the car as a childhood birthday present, fully assembled and in box art trim, thanks to his father having had the hobby shop put it together. The two of them spent many hours running and wrenching on it, and it sparked his interest in engineering - the career he follows to this day. 

The model was one of his most treasured childhood possessions, carrying with it many happy memories of his time with his late father, and he kept it safe and secure until a year or so ago when it was destroyed in a house fire along with many other family mementos.

One thing led to another, and before long we found ourselves searching eBay for another Thunder Shot restoration project, this one to be a replica of the one destroyed in the fire. 

This thread will detail the restoration process of the two models, which will hopefully both be ready in time for the September meet.

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This is great, love this chassis! Standard spec or a super stock bz with 13t pinion (a great combo!)?

Edited by taffer
Forgot question mark
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The cars will be slightly different in character, as my colleague's one is to be a replica of the car he received as a child, while mine will be the car I would have liked to build as a child. As such, his will be box stock apart from bearings, while mine will feature a few upgrades, some alloy and carbon, and a non-boxart colour scheme.

However we will be keeping them brushed, as we would have as kids since we didn't have them newfangled brushless things back then. I have a GT Tuned ready to go into mine, and my colleague's one will keep its stock silver can. 

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So let's see what we have to start with...

My colleague's eBay find:

2019-08-13_08-19-22

 

And the usable remains of the carcass I bought at the Unit 21 clear out, along with some of the other parts I have acquired for my car:

2019-08-13_10-00-43

 

Mine was mostly trashed so will need a lot of new plastic, but my colleague's chassis is mostly reusable once it has had a good cleaning. 

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Great reason to start this project. Thanks for posting! Is the carbon part on the body posts the mount for a dash 1 emperor shell?

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7 hours ago, mman2005 said:

Great reason to start this project. Thanks for posting! Is the carbon part on the body posts the mount for a dash 1 emperor shell?

 Possibly - I don't know. The chassis was sold as a Thunder Shot and didn't come with a shell. 

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If you will be using a TBG repo shell, the front nose section doesn't fit with the standard body mount properly, on shapeways there is a TC member that has created an extended one which fits perfect, I have documented it in my showroom, I could put a link here if you have trouble finding it!

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That carbon body mount looks 99% like the original dash 1 bodyshell mount! I think the repo dash body uses the original body posts (at the rear)

If you need any parts I can see what I have left (spares have dwindled after doing so many resto's!)

 

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15 hours ago, taffer said:

If you will be using a TBG repo shell, the front nose section doesn't fit with the standard body mount properly.

Thanks for the heads up. Shapeways replacements ordered. 

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22 hours ago, taffer said:

If you need any parts I can see what I have left (spares have dwindled after doing so many resto's!)

That is very kind of you. I see that CC is missing the rear bumper pieces. I don't suppose you have any of those spare?

No worries if you don't, I see that Shapeways offer 3D printed replacements, which is probably the route we will go if we can't find used parts, as a new sprue is both rare and rather expensive.

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1 hour ago, TurnipJF said:

That is very kind of you. I see that CC is missing the rear bumper pieces. I don't suppose you have any of those spare?

No worries if you don't, I see that Shapeways offer 3D printed replacements, which is probably the route we will go if we can't find used parts, as a new sprue is both rare and rather expensive.

The rear bumper on my Thunder Dragon kept getting broken so i just stopped using it. The gearbox still goes together fine without it installed. 

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5 hours ago, TurnipJF said:

That is very kind of you. I see that CC is missing the rear bumper pieces. I don't suppose you have any of those spare?

No worries if you don't, I see that Shapeways offer 3D printed replacements, which is probably the route we will go if we can't find used parts, as a new sprue is both rare and rather expensive.

@TurnipJF

I have a scuffed rear bumper you could have.....let me know your final list and we can sort something out

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14 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

The rear bumper on my Thunder Dragon kept getting broken so i just stopped using it. The gearbox still goes together fine without it installed. 

I checked with my colleague today whether his original car still had a rear bumper installed, and it did, so in an attempt to make this as close a replica as possible, it will need a bumper, for aesthetic reasons if not practical ones. 

10 hours ago, taffer said:

 

I have a scuffed rear bumper you could have.....let me know your final list and we can sort something out

Thanks, that would be perfect, as the car we are replicating was no shelf queen, but a much loved and regularly used runner. The scuffs would be in keeping with this. 

I should compete the teardown over the next day or two. Unless there are any nasty surprises in the gearbox, I think the rear bumper is all we'll need for CC. Everything else I either have in my stash or will be spare once I order the sprues I need for my own car (MC).

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Pm when your ready with your address etc

@TurnipJF 

What is tricky is obtaining the 36mm long screw for the rear bumper, I may have a 40mm which you can cut down or I can supply a spacer to fit

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5 hours ago, taffer said:

Pm when your ready with your address etc

@TurnipJF 

What is tricky is obtaining the 36mm long screw for the rear bumper, I may have a 40mm which you can cut down or I can supply a spacer to fit

Thanks, will do. 

Fortunately the screw is still present, it is just the plastic parts that are missing. 

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And it's still straight!? Not bent!? Your doing well!😁

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Went on a bit of a shopping spree this evening, ordering some more parts for the builds. 

For CC I ordered:

2 X servos (he wants to stick with the MSC)

1 X receiver

1 X steel pinion

2 X tins of PS paint (blue and white)

4 X tyres

bearing set

 

For MC I ordered:

Pin type wheel adaptors

Shock bushings

Stabiliser ball ends

 

 

 

 

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Today I finished tearing down the gearboxes on CC, which were the last pieces left to disassemble. The chassis is now in its component parts, and all looks quite promising. There is cosmetic wear to many of the plastics and A5 is cracked (no surprise there), but once it has a metal brace on it the plastic shouldn't be carrying any significant load, so we'll reuse the piece and see how it lasts.

The plastic parts are soaking in a sink of soapy water and the metal ones in a pot of GT85, so soon the two cars will be at the same point in their restos. 

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@TurnipJF

I'm curious if the ball type shock mounts actually fit in the yellow CVA shocks, they always looked too stiff and slightly too thick, have you done this before?

(Stock ones are fine though! 😁)

It's not that important but I always do this and it has been fine, which is you need 3x extra 1150 ball bearings that don't come in bearing kits, to replace the three thrust washers bw2 (and plastic e1 part), steps 16&17 in the thundershot manual. Thrust bearings are the proper upgrade but ball bearings have been just fine for my 100+ hours of running

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11 hours ago, taffer said:

@TurnipJF

I'm curious if the ball type shock mounts actually fit in the yellow CVA shocks, they always looked too stiff and slightly too thick, have you done this before?

(Stock ones are fine though! 😁)

It's not that important but I always do this and it has been fine, which is you need 3x extra 1150 ball bearings that don't come in bearing kits, to replace the three thrust washers bw2 (and plastic e1 part), steps 16&17 in the thundershot manual. Thrust bearings are the proper upgrade but ball bearings have been just fine for my 100+ hours of running

I'm not sure if the ball type mounts fit the stock yellow CVAs, but I am going for modern black ones on my car, and I know they fit those.

I am going for thrust bearings on my car - I have a few in my stash as they are the same ones that go in the diff on my F103. My colleague is going for the stock option, simply because that is what his original car had back in the day..

 

 

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Another quality thread Turnip, in fact two Restos for the price of one 👍

Both models with a different angle as well, 1 modern and 1 vintage.

Quality! 

 

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