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pirtoo

Terra Scorcher/Thunder Shot build... tyres, parts, etc

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After digging out my Rising Storm (DT-02) and Porsche Carrera GT (TB-02) for some repairs and upgrades (sadly a crash damaged the Porsche body a fair bit) and reading around on places like here I decided that I wanted my favourite childhood car again... a Thunder Shot. I started with a Hornet (that I later converted into a Midnight Pumpkin), the Thunder Shot (upgraded with bearings, dual front shocks, faster motor and pinion) and a Mini Stock (which was hilarious fun while the bigger car batteries were recharging) but they were in storage and vanished during house moves while I was living abroad. Very sad.

The DT-02 and TB-02 are mostly done bar some tweaks now the alloy drive shaft for the DT-02 has arrived (though I'd really like a spare chassis for the TB-02 but those seem to be made of unobtanium now) it was time to go a bit further back so I just acquired a Terra Scorcher via ebay that was up for collection only and was reasonably local, not a too high price and seemed fairly complete.

Got it home, stripped it down (forgot to take pictures first, oops, here's one from the seller) and it is generally a bit better than I expected. Some damage (chassis has the front top corner broken as many do, damage to the base of the rear gearbox, rear bumper broken and 36mm screw bent, looks like the front end got hit hard at some point so now has replacement parts, suspension arms going white, upper suspension adjustables a bit bent, a missing E clip, no oil in the dampers and kinda dirty) but the body is in passable shape to use for a runner, the gears look ok other than the pinion being a bit worn and it comes with new stickers and a manual (that sadly has the back page missing) and a very battered box that's had packing tape wrapped around it in the past.

Intending to build an upgraded Thunder Shot for me to run and enjoy so I've bought a new rear gearbox, chassis, arms, tyres and various other parts. Can't find the blue 6mm adjustables to replace but will replace the bent rods, might end up with generic parts there. Ordered a TBG Thunder Shot body and reverse print stickers to put on the inside... but then managed to get hold of an original set of stickers so might end up doing one body to run with stickers on the inside and one with the originals to do box art on. Will see.

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I've been reading Turnip's builds with interest:

and have ordered some shapeways parts... any other useful sources of parts beyond ebay?

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2 hours ago, pirtoo said:

I've been reading Turnip's builds with interest:

and have ordered some shapeways parts... any other useful sources of parts beyond ebay?

Fybre Lyte are good for carbon goodies. My ESC plate and wing mount came from there. TBG supplied the shell and MCI supplied the decals. Electronics came from Modelsport. 

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On 10/11/2019 at 5:47 PM, TurnipJF said:

Fybre Lyte are good for carbon goodies. My ESC plate and wing mount came from there. TBG supplied the shell and MCI supplied the decals. Electronics came from Modelsport. 

I have been using or have orders stuff from TBG, MCI and Modelsport so far. Will investigate Fybre Lyte :)

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I forget what tree it is, but it'll be easy enough for you to look. Order the spare parts tree for the super close buster, the shocks tree. It includes blue adjusters.

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8 minutes ago, GTodd said:

I forget what tree it is, but it'll be easy enough for you to look. Order the spare parts tree for the super close buster, the shocks tree. It includes blue adjusters.

These are the same 6mm adjusters? Great, thanks for the pointer.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/383105331406

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Yep!!! That's how I got blue adjusters for my Rere Egress.

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Another TS family buggy gets a rebuild. Love em. It was my own Thundershot that started my new collection. Then a total refurb on a TS and now I just need more shelf space and money and buggies, then more shelf space and more .......

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This looks like a great project. Having recently restored one and restomodded another, I can see how appealing this chassis can be. Looking forward to seeing the progess! 

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21 minutes ago, TurnipJF said:

This looks like a great project. Having recently restored one and restomodded another, I can see how appealing this chassis can be. Looking forward to seeing the progess! 

I'm enjoying it, put the gearboxes back together yesterday, with a set of DF-02 universals in the front and the original universals in the back, and also rebuilt the shocks with new O rings. I'm waiting for the brass tube to cut to protect the suspension arms before I run it even if the new chassis arrives first... also going to replace the traditional ball and rubber front anti-roll bar fixing with the rear style grub screw fixings. If I'd had them available in the '80s I would have done that too. Planning to replace at least the screw rods with bars and E clips... the model came with a metal support for the front suspension mount and I have a metal shapeways part for the rear suspension mount and to use the metal part you have to switch to clipped rods anyway. Will decide exactly when the shapeways order gets here.

B parts seem to be completely unavailable... guess people bought them up for the bumpers and the rear suspension arm supports. I've ordered a new shapeways bumper.

The TB-02 and DF-02 rebuilds are going well, those I've been able to run with new brushless motors, etc. Still deciding if I'm going to start this one with a Sport Tuned brushed and Tamiya ESC or if I go straight to brushless...

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Now that the replacement chassis has arrived I'm getting a little further and discovering that the BT1 black 5mm adjusters (Tamiya 0445005) are really worn and sloppy and I'm missing preload adjusters for the front mini CVAs (V parts) so two more thing to order replacements for. The front suspension arm mount is actually cracked behind the metal protector so I'll swap that out. The E clip rods to replace the screw in rods have arrived and those look good, so I'll be using them.

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More things arrived. I made brass sleeves for the front and rear long swing arm pins (was going to push washers on both ends but doing the far end was too annoying so they only ended up with them at one end). Looks like I can use the E clip versions on the back but not on the front since the metal A5 protection bracket makes it too long for them to fit. Replaced both F1 and F2 since when trying to get the steering arms to go on/off the brass balls they broke, had obviously already been damaged earlier. Put the bumpers on (partly broken rear bumper that came with it for now, shapeways order has arrived but might as well use this one for the moment). Shocks are done and on (increased the viscosity of the oil in the front as well as adding the now arrived preload adjusters). Replaced the balls and rubber tube with real ball ends. Put the rest of the electronics in as well some some random Carson desert wheels I had kicking around to road test it outside my house (since tarmac wears those pinspikes down in no time and the 4WD oval block rears hadn't arrived yet - Boomerang tyres were what I used on my Thunder Shot mostly).

It ran pretty well with the sport tuned motor and 15T (steel) pinion. The steering and the suspension need some more tweaks... can't remember exactly what I did to stop the steering oscillating a bit when driving straight with all the play in the front. Shimmed where I can but there isn't a huge amount you can do there.

Cleaned up the body/wing that came with it and added some re-enforcement tape on the inside. Going to put the reproduction decals on this one... what's good for a clear coat for spraying over the top to protect decals on polycarb?

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Brass sleeves over the screw pins on the lower arms? I always thought that was to prevent screw pins or shafts from bending? (I have never experienced that on this chassis, although I have never done any big jumps). What I have found is the blue arm ends get slightly bent on each end, requiring a spacer to be placed on the inside ends to prevent lateral movement (replacements are still available fairly easily)

With a brass sleeve installed, after an impact i would expect to see the force transferred to the gearbox tabs, breaking them? (Because the blue arms will have been prevented from flexing) it took over 50 hours approx of driving before they started to bend on mine!

On my new build tshot i documented the shafts required to replace the screw pins

 

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51 minutes ago, Baddon said:

For the ultimate in mods to this chassis see @ThunderDragonCy as he has taken the evolution of this to the extreme.

Did somebody call?! 😉

That looks cool. If you do eventually want some e clip pins for the front i have a long, reinforced Super A5 on my CTE RC Shapeways store which uses the 58mm long shafts from the M05 shaft set. 

If you have any handling issues, give me a shout. I have tried a LOT of options. 

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The brass sleeves are to prevent the arms bending... I've got plenty of spare gearbox parts if they do end up failing in that direction but with metal supports I think it will be ok.

I picked up an almost rolling chassis to use as spares tat just arrived but realised that with it and the parts I have I could build another full car. After an ebay spree to get the parts to build new shocks and some other odds and ends all I'm missing that I can't find anywhere are a bumper (which seem hard to find, I'll keep an eye on ebay) and the infamous 3x36mm screw (2000053). Any way to get one of those?

Is this the right one? B&W picture, no end on so hard to tell if it is posi or not.
https://www.tamiyausa.com/shop/7-digit-spare-parts/rc-3x36mm-screw-58492/none/

Oh and someone has Thunder Shot B parts on ebay right now:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tamiya-0005301-10005301-ORIGINAL-Thunder-Shot-Thunder-Dragon-B-Parts-NEW-NIP/223715249651?hash=item341677cdf3:g:ddEAAOSwDG1dpcdj
 

@ThunderDragonCy I'm sure I'll be pinging you when I've had a bit more time to Look at the suspension/handling, thanks!

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Ahh those 36mm screws, I ended up buying 40mm and cutting it down!

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I've got a real 3x36mm screw on my not exactly true to the original Terra Scorcher runner, might transfer that over and use a cut down there... I'm getting tempted to build this Thunder Shot as actually original as it would have come (plus ball bearings, one piece thrust washer and the A7 brace... I had ball bearings in my Thunder Shot in the '80s). Bad influence, you lot :)

I now have another bowl of bits... passable condition original Japan marked chassis (though someone has been heavy handed on one of the servo mount screws), gearbox contents look ok though have been used with plastic bearings. No shocks, motor (or any electronics), motor mount, one brass motor mount tube, rear body mounts, bumpers at either end, front suspension e-clip rods missing, no servo saver or steering servo mounts... not sure this was really worth the money as it turns out but hey ho. The front sway bar is there, just missing some rubber, and those are a pain to find.

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it'll be satisfying to see how that bag of bits gets transformed into something that moves under its own power.

also very pleased to see that there are several terra scorchers currently being worked on by various members here.

 

 

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Bearings, servo saver and A parts arrived today so heat-set all the screws into the plastic and assembled gearboxes. Discovered that the prop shafts I have are worn (plastic bearings again) so ordered a new pair. Also discovered that the bowl of bits only had one set of 3x14mm link pins and the Terra Scorcher screw bags I have only have the longer link pins (which I'm going to use instead of screwing into the blue arms). Searching around came up with a couple of options for the whole screw pin bag, cheapest I found was this French store (which doesn't have a location for "London" or "Greater London" in its address region stuff, irritatingly, so hopefully something addressed to "London, London, Essex" will get here) - (EDIT: scam website :( https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.signal-arnaques.com%2Fen%2Fscam%2Fview%2F183756 I have a bag coming from the US hopefully instead but that may slow things down).

I may have some spares of those when I'm done. The Avante (2011) bags have 3x15mm link pins which are shiny rather than black which could be shimmed and is cheaper.

I'm going a little bit Terra Scorcher on this build: full bearings, one piece thrust bearings, universal joints (when another set of df-02 universals arrives I'll pull the original set from my Terra Scorcher, it has one original and one df-02 set, and go full universal) and I can't bring myself to cut the body down and put a mechanical speed controller in it. I hate those things. I've got a TEU-101BK that can go in, although that is a real anachronism. I did poke around to try and find the Tamiya all in one receiver and ESC C.P.R. thing, but they are hen's teeth.

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Been a while but I finally had some more time to get back to this.

The Terra Scorcher has gone more not-original-but-a-lot-of-fun-to-drive. I found a short servo and trimmed one of the internal bulkheads out of a chassis so I could fit a brushless ESC with fan in with a receiver... tried on 17 turn motor but it was a little slower than it could be so have shifted to a 13.5T/3650. Full DF-02 universals. New bearings. Metal A5 support still, full metal 3D printed B8 part with E-clip rods. All new blue plastic parts. Front anti-roll bar adapted with the same ends as the rears to get rid of the stupid bits of rubber tubing. I just need to decide if I'm putting real/repro stickers on the original (already painted) body.

The Thunder Shot is staying mostly upgraded-original. This is what I would have wanted to do to mine in the '80s. Full Terra Scorcher universals, full bearings including thrust bearings, as many new parts as I could manage (almost all of it), steel A5 support, etc. I haven't put the twin front shocks on yet, which I did do to mine, but might yet do. The Avante link pins did for a while, with an extra washer, but I did manage to get a screw pin bag at some expense from the US for brand new link pins.

While trolling around ebay for parts I had some good findings. A couple of original bodyshells with a set of stickers and I had already bought an original set of stickers... so now I have two. A few days ago I cut one of the original body shells using the score with a scalpel and then flex/break along the scorings to get good edges method... it needs masking and painting, though. Just got a brand new bumper that came back from Italy (if only these were still £4.75) so the underside has no marks at all. This thing has cost me a mint to put together, I don't want to add it up, but it is basically new. I think the only non-Tamiya part at the moment is the chassis cover... I have an original one for the Terra Scorcher but it isn't painted correctly for the Thunder Shot.

It just needs painting and stickers then it's done. This looks like it will stay a shelf queen at least for now, it's too pretty.

I have some extra parts I now don't need for sale:

  • Boxed thundershot original body, uncut and unpainted, with original sticker set (slight box wear on the top of the driver dome, box has a tear)
  • New TBG thundershot body
  • Set of black thundershot runner wheels (a bit used up but perfectly usable)
  • Tamiya 08 module steel pinion gear, 19T x2
  • Used good condition dogbones
  • Various screwpins, some brand new
  • Avante link pins
  • Most of a set of used plastic gears (everything that was salvageable from the bucket'o'bits)

So if you're doing a thunder shot type chassis restoration ping me. The bodies are probably the only things worth putting time into advertising.

 

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@pirtoo What was it that was originally sold by Model Junction? That was my LHS when I was growing up in Bury St Edmunds and they are happily still going strong now. Must have been a long time ago, as the Bury area code doesn't even have the extra '1' at the start. The next time I'm back to see my parents I'll pop in to tell Dave his shop is now famous!

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17 hours ago, Yalson said:

@pirtoo What was it that was originally sold by Model Junction? That was my LHS when I was growing up in Bury St Edmunds and they are happily still going strong now. Must have been a long time ago, as the Bury area code doesn't even have the extra '1' at the start. The next time I'm back to see my parents I'll pop in to tell Dave his shop is now famous!

Heh. @Yalson it was the bumper, still had the part number on the other side. The plastic was disintegrating, it was so old.

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