Tamiya Vintages becoming brittle

[Shermanator2]

Hi guys I have a question that is pretty much worrying me. Some of you guys might have noticed that I bought a Falcon new built the other day. upon examining it I found although a new built- little cracks (that are in fact broken) in the suspension arms etc. I have sinced replaced all these parts. The car is spotless but what is worrying me is that over time does the plastic in these become brittle due to age or is it Tamiya quality control not up to standards 20 years ago? The Falcon will always remain a shelf queen, but even contemplating using it as a runner would be too fragile for me. Just wondering if others have noticed this on other vintages or is it a Falcon thing?

[theshopkeeper]

Seems to affect a lot of late 80's, early 90's cars. I had an immaculate Madcap which had been run only a couple of times before I put it away around 91 - got it out a couple of years ago and the chassis and arms basically collasped on the first run.

I suspect central heating and/or harsh loft space conditions don't help.

[Shodog]

what I heard is that the plastic used for those cars is not uV stable. I have a steering knuckle on my New built 959 that is broke. luckily I was able to get a replacement.

[RedFrits]

All plastics age, it's a common misunderstanding that they don't. Oil, moist, uV-light and other influnces cause the carbon bindings in the plastic to fall apart. Some plastics have it more than others. Take a look at this site, it tells you more.

www.plasticsmag.com

[topforcein]

lunch box is coming out of loft tonight to live in the bedroom cubard

from now on.

[Shermanator2]

Well my Falcon that I purchased was built really recently from a NIB kit according to its previous owner. So it was pretty much out of uV light up until about a month ago. So it appears to me that once these kits are built- their is a good possiblitly that the plastics have deterorated making it a risk to use it as a runner even without uV light affecting it. It looks to me it seems to age even inside the box.

[tamartin]

The next thing is, Tamiya made never a really good plastic. Every other companies made better and longer lasting cars than Tamiya.

If you build a 25 year old Marui and drive it, everything is fine. Never do this with a plastic Tamiya car.

My opinion is, that Tamiya is not a really RC car builder.

They wanted to make more money than only with the static kits. But the quality was never as good as the competitors.

[vintagejack]

Tamatin,

slight objection here, if anythiung it might be the other way round, who knows how much any of these kists, even unbilt, got of uV or of temprature variation ...in my experience for normal running tamiya kists are fine, unlike some dodgy Marui kists which were not properly tested before release and that collapsed under any racing conditions...

Tamiya never imagined people would be building kits 20 years after they were on sale!!

Jack

[Shodog]

Have to agree with Vintage Jack on this one. While I will partially agree that Tamiya doesn't necesarily use the best plastic, the Marui cars I have seen were substandard by far in comparison to tamiya. My main complaint with Tamiya is the lack of tight tolerances and the fact the the plastic will deform over time making for more slop in the entire car.

[kontemax]

Hi folk,

all thing wroten here are corrects but I remember that my Boomerang arms broken when I thighted the screws onto.

Falcon, Fox, Big Wig, Hot Shot ect had all the same problem on rear or front arms. Maybe Tamiya's engineers didn't calculated well the diameter of the hole and they cutted away too much plastic material on worse places on the arms, but this is a problem of costs.

If you compare original black plastics of earlier Manta Rays and red plastics of TA01 you can see they are similar, not equal. TA01 plastics are thickers. Same thing between TA01 front hubs and, for example, Boomerang ones. Or between Hot Shot 1 gearboxes and Hot Shot 2 ones. So, if you built a NIB kit, must calculate all these things. Mounting my shelf Boomerang, Super Sabre, Hot Shot and Falcon I drilled the holes where the pin screw tread go, changing the diameter from 3mm to 3.5mm. Only in the arm side where the tread go. This is my way to have arms not broken.

Massimo

[RedFrits]

quote:Originally posted by tamartin

The next thing is, Tamiya made never a really good plastic. Every other companies made better and longer lasting cars than Tamiya.

If you build a 25 year old Marui and drive it, everything is fine. Never do this with a plastic Tamiya car.

My opinion is, that Tamiya is not a really RC car builder.

They wanted to make more money than only with the static kits. But the quality was never as good as the competitors.

---

id="quote">id="quote">

My first car was a Marui Galaxy. Within two weeks I broke the bumper, worn out ALL gears and had a crack in the chassis. And that's for driving on a parking lot without anny curves!!!

It has to do with all mentioned above. I don't think Tamiya uses "cheaper" plastics.

[tamartin]

My new Sand Scorcher (this is 25 years ago) eat the middle gear.

Had to buy 4 sets of gears, 2 bumpers, 4 ujoints, 2 bodies, 4 tires, and to remove the totally broken radio box in 2 years. And I did not really drive very much back then.

And thats a lot of money for a 12 year old kid.

1990 I bought a 959 Porsche. And on the first run both lower front arm broke. The front gear box broke later, rear arms aso. This was the time I was really upset about Tamiya. This car was the lousiest quality I ever had and remember the price!!!!

Recently I bought a Blitzer Beetle. I found plastics very nice and thought this would be now the standard of Kyosho or Associated.

Nope, the arms do not brake, but the chassis.

And I am a good driver, I think, no crash only a very extreme rough track.

Maybe thats another reason collecting Tamiya cars is so popular today. Very few survived in a perfect condition if they were driven. Compared to RC10 or Scorpions or similar cars, they could be raced and are still driveable.

[vintagejack]

I think this conversation is going round in circles... Kyosho cars were clearly stronger but then they were designed to race.. a different market to the Tamiyas you mention...the Rough Rider and other were SCALE cars built to look as realistic as possible, this meant they had some weaknesses plus they were some of the first RC cars, amiya was still learning.. as for the 959 it is clearlty a fragile car but then it is a very special design with fantastic detail and very realistic "Scale" handling, the downside to this is that it is fragile...I think tamiya could have made it stronger but frankly it is not really ment to be as tough as other more Toy like creations or as racers, if you crash it breaks!.. and you are very wrong about why Tamiya's are so sought after today, it is not becaouse none have survived, it is because the engineering makes them special...the 959 for example is wanted because it is an unsual design, incredibly detailed and fun to drive... not because there are none of them around.... there are far more old Tamiya models around than Kyosho or Associated so your theory about rarity explaining popularity is simply wrong.

It is shame you have had a bad experince qwith Tamiya and whilst I also have had problems ( Big Wig bumper that broke every time it hit anything, went through about 12 before finally found aftermarket replacement, there was clearly a problem with the plastic used!!!!!), I would still say that on the whole Tamiya quality was on par with and often superior to others, expecially Marui that I do not rate at all..( apart from the Samurai!!)

[RETRO R/C]

I really dont understand the slamming that Marui constantly gets................

Maybe I drove my cars differently - but my Hunter SMOKED the frog that I had............then again - I was racing and not generally hitting alot of stuff....[]

Everyone has different experiences I guess - I have great emories of the Marui cars I owned.

Cheers

Darryn

[kontemax]

I really don't understand, reading all replies, why some people had problems I ever hadn't with my car. When I was 15 I hited all possible walls with an hot motor on my Boomerang. Same bumper than the Big Wig, never broke. I drove a lot Vanquish, Avante 2001 and Egress with hot hot motors (12turns, 11 turns) but I didn't broke all parts I read on this club. Sometimes (except my Dyna Blaster) something broke but this is normal. I don't think tamiya plastics are cheap and low quality. I think more times Tamiya's engineers made errors. Blitzer Beetle/Bear Hawk chassis is the same of the Falcon and it broke in the same place, where front bulkhead is screwed. Ashame on Tamiya that designed a wrong part 15 years ago and now re-release without modifications. Falcon bumper stay was always broken but have a look to the design of the part and you easy understan why it always broke. It's thin!

This is the problem I think, wrong projects, wrong designs and excessive researce for low cost.

Massimo

[Shermanator2]

Its not that Tamiya plastics are **** or lease for that matter Marui. What I see is over the period of years the cars plastics are ageing and deteoroting hence parts that once would be able to tollerate some abuse are no longer able to stand at all what the specific part was intially designed for if the car is at all run.

As far as Marui plastics are concerned although at the time of the company producing cars it was intially compared to Tamiya and at the time they were not as good in quality control compared to rival company Tamiya. It maybe safe to assume that Marui Plastics are lasting alot longer than Tamiya parts when it comes to plastic deteroration.

[billg4]

I don't believe plastics age well.

And, many early Tamiyas were scale models suitable for radio control. Not R/C's that were scale. Big difference in the wording.

[tamartin]

Do not get me wrong, I like Tamiya cars, but I think, the company was more into good looks and some new developments (although Hirobo made the first 4WD cars or Yokomo, Asso made dampers which really worked, Kyosho race improvements, Ayk really astonishing chassis designs), they should kept and keep the eye more on driveability and durability.

And of course plastics will age and loose their softeners, which evapourate, and become brittle.

But in comparsion with other manufactores it is behind in quality.

And let us be honest, Tamiya cars (except the new touring car ones) were the beginners cars, so these should really be durable.

[akemag]

I got a pair of original XR311 tires in the mail yesterday. I know that rubber and plastic isnt the same, but they felt like they came right off the "assembly line". Incredible after how many years?. The same with my RR tires, old but no cracks or so. The XR311 tires could have been stored dark and cold, but the RR tires have seen alot of action for sure, and still feel very good. Dont know about the other makes tires and how they have held up against time.

And the markings on the XR311 tires, Goodyear and other tiny letters. The new ones doesent have any if i remember correctly.

As to what breaks and not, it often comes down to how the car gets driven (accidents do occur, like this weekend for me). The only thing i ever broke on any car was my Brat shell back in -85. And yes, the pinion gear/motor axel on my SS this weekend (darn that old radio)

But then again, i take it (too?!?) easy/slow.

[DJTheo]

I think some terms are mixed up here.

Tamiya was and is the first when it comes to assembly, tolerance and detail quality, every review I have read about Tamiya and other cars of the last 25 years confirms that.

Just that Tamiya was often (especially in the 80s) using more backlash in their suspensions, maybe to leave them more beginner friendly and needing less often cleaning, but thats not because they couldn't make them tighter but part of the design, Tamiya has the smallest production tolerances, everyone who is building static kits knows that.

I agree some companies used more hi-tech and/or stiffer materials, but those were usually also race cars meant for a different category and difficult to assemble and maintain, while Tamiya RC cars were more beginner oriented. But in total reliability Tamiya RC cars were always some of the best, maybe only Kyosho could compete, but I remember several reviews of "hi-tech" cars from Ayk, Marui etc. as well many modern companies even today that have so many failures in the first hour of run that none Tamiya had.

Cheers

[RETRO R/C]

LOLOL Theo!!

I think you need to open up your "other eye" now !! LOLOL [][]

You know I am joking !! []

LOL

Cheers

[DJTheo]

By the way, surfing on http://www.fullmetalbuggy.tk/ I found this old race report http://home.no/jmcs/modell_biler/pics/picture5.JPG which proves what I wrote above, a Tamiya Grasshopper despite being slow and bad handling ended better in a 6 hour endurance race then Yokomo and almost as good as Associated and AYK [:0] because of its reliability (and the lack of the other's reliability), while a Frog was even better, despite being technically inferior.

Cheers

[theyaintcookingmyfrog]

[:0]

Nooo please noooo. I'm restoring toadella as a runner. She feels fairly robust. I can't iamgine the sorrow of seeing her shatter. She has been in her box under the stairs for the best part of 15-18 years. Fingers crossed I guess.