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Bazyli

TL-01 Ultimate Rebuild

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This project started as my wife and I cleaning the basement.  I found my old TL-01 with whatever receiver, batteries, and spare parts I had laying around.  I decided to post the car and all related components for sale on kijiji (see pics) for $50.  Skipping some details, what happened next is I decided to keep the car and to restore it, and to get back into the hobby.

The car has some hop up parts and some components (oil shocks, adjustable upper arms, bearings) I took from a TG10 chassis I once owned.  There were a few missing parts (clips and a working ESC) and initially I was just going to buy enough parts to get the car running again...  skipping some more details, I now have 3 orders of parts on their way from rcmart and have spent enough money on this restoration that I don't want to tell my wife the total sum!  My plan is to go all out and build a super fast TL-01 for tarmac and to have oodles of fun doing it.  This thread will be a step by step record of my "ultimate TL-01 rebuild".

 

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Aside from ordering new parts, I had to clean the car up and take everything apart.  The car comes apart really easy and fast, especially with a cordless screw driver for the screws.  After spending a fair amount of time cleaning, and given the prices for parts on rcmart,and seeing the wear and tear on various components of the car, I came to the conclusion that it will almost always be more worthwhile for me to order new parts than to try to clean and restore the old ones.  Getting into specifics, a lot of the plastics are scratched, worn, covered in glue or paint; some of the gears are stripped or chipped; wheel bearings are stuck pretty hard in the hubs and look really dirty and grimey; Also, looks like I didn't have a full set of bearings to begin with and had left the original plastic bushings on the gears connected to the motor :rolleyes:.  All in all, I ordered a full set of replacement plastics for the car, as well as a full set of bearings.  I also ordered a ton of hop up parts.  I'll give more details on what parts I am using for the rebuild as I go through each build step.  For now, here's a picture of everything in pieces.  You might notice I'm doing some work on the differentials, propeller shaft, and transmission gear carriers;  I'll talk about those in my next posts.

 

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Parts from rcmart just aren't coming fast enough, and I seem to have developed an addiction to this hobby now.  I spend hours and hours on end browsing for parts, reading peoples' builds here on the forums, and researching hop ups for these cars.  To help pass the time I decided to build carbon graphite shafts for the car.

There are several solid steel shafts used in the car:

  • 1 for the propeller shaft joining the front and rear transmission
  • 2 for the gear carriers in the front transmission
  • 2 for the gear carriers in the rear transmission

I noticed that there was once upon a time a hop up option of a carbon propeller shaft.  I also noticed that in the instructions for the speed gear set for this car was the use of hollow shafts for the transmission gear carriers.  So, I decided to replace all said steel shafts with either aluminium (solid or hollow), hollow brass, or carbon graphite (solid or hollow).  At my local hobby store I found hollow 5mm shafts in brass, aluminium, and graphite so I bought all 3 figuring I'll try the graphite first, and if that's not strong enough I'll try aluminium, and if that's still not strong enough I'll try the brass.  I've read several complaints online from people who had the carbon propeller shaft that it was not strong enough and that it would bend all out of shape (under torque or high rpm I'm not sure).  Inspecting the carbon graphite shaft I produced though, I find it hard to believe it would bend out of shape; if anything I worry it will simply snap/shatter if the front wheels are suddenly stopped in an impact.  Maybe the material I have is quite different from what was used in the original hop up part?  Or perhaps I will simply be surprised to find the shaft warping under speed and load.

For construction of the shafts, I simply cut pieces to length using my rotary tool and a thin cutting disk.  I also ground the edges down a bit to bevel them.  For the propeller shaft I had to drill holes where the two pins are to be inserted; these pins are what rotationally lock the gear at each end of the shaft to the shaft itself.  To drill the holes I simply lined up the new shaft with the old steel one and used the holes in the old shaft as a guide for the drill bit.  I used a 1/16" drill bit and the holes came out a bit too small so I enlarged them using a circular file.  Finally, since the shaft is hollow, I worried that the pins would be putting too much strain on the shaft when they were only contacting the walls of the shaft.  I figured it would have been much better if the shaft were solid at the point where the pin goes through.  So I filled the shaft at the drill points with epoxy by using a toothpick to slowly force the epoxy down into the drill holes.  I did this until epoxy started to come out the end of the shaft.  Then after curing, I redrilled and filed the holes for the pins.  If you look closely in the pictures you can see that pin holes contain solid material all the way through.

The final weight reduction of this mod is amazing.  The weight of the steel shafts was 52g; the weight of the new shafts is 7g.

 

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I had the same shell in the same colour on the same chassis back in 2000 / 2001. The shell is long gone but I bought another to fit to an FF chassis that I'll build up at some point. 

I'm impressed with the graphite prop shaft, it looks good. Hopefully it'll last too. 

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Another thing I've done while waiting for parts to arrive is to build the differentials.  These are the stock gear type open differentials and I want them to have some limited slip behaviour.  My ideal solution was to get the super tacky grease from badhorsie that I've read about, but unfortunately they don't ship outside the USA (I'm in Canada) and I can't find any other retailer who sells this item.  I've ordered some Tamiya (#42170) VG Diff Plate Grease as an alternative as well as an extra set of differentials to put it in.  In the mean time, while waiting for those items to arrive, I rebuilt the old differentials by packing them full of heavy synthetic automotive grease (stuff you would normally pack into automotive wheel bearings).  The limited slip action is good with the diffs packed full, but of course the grease is free to seep out in several places.  From what I've read, the primary problem is that the centrifugal force from the diff spinning will drive the grease out through any openings on the outer side of the diff.  Therefore, I decided to seal the diffs along the outer edge using some silicone caulking.  I cleaned the surface first using some Methyl Hydrate and then applied a thin bead of caulking as you can see.  Looks like it worked well enough, and hopefully this keeps the grease locked in the diff.  Unfortunately, you can see that some of the grease is already working its way out along the centre shafts.  This I can't really do much about; hopefully its not a major problem in practice.  Other than that, we'll see how much limited slip action these diffs provide on a warm day after some good use.  If the Tamiya stuff is thicker and provides better limited slip behavior, I think I'll use a Tamiya greased diff in the front of the car and the automotive grease packed diff in the rear of the car.  From what I've read, people seem to get better handling by keeping the front diff hardly slipping and the rear diff a bit more open.

Finally, these diffs are heavy.  59g for the two of them...  Maybe I can replace these with something lighter in the future but I'm currently not sure what that would be.

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12 minutes ago, Kevin_Mc said:

I had the same shell in the same colour on the same chassis back in 2000 / 2001. The shell is long gone but I bought another to fit to an FF chassis that I'll build up at some point. 

I'm impressed with the graphite prop shaft, it looks good. Hopefully it'll last too. 

Do you know if it's a Tamiya shell?  I can't remember where I got it.  Definitely will be better suited on an FF chassis : )  For this chassis I want something that would have been AWD, so I've order the Mitsu Evo 7 shell.

I hope the shaft lasts as well!  It wasn't too hard to build so if it's good enough maybe I'll build some spares.  The worst part was packing the ends with epoxy... messy stuff.

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I really like the tl01 and I had a good one with a evo 7 shell. I loved it. I found they can be great fun as a rally car,  but don’t go mad with the power. The don’t work and it makes them tricky and frustrating to drive if you do. I went with a low kV and geared fairly tall to not have too much torque. Cheers. 

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The Evo 7 sounds like a good choice to me. 

The shell I had, and bought a replacement of, is a Proline Dodge Stratus. There's a few different types depending on how old they are. 

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Looks more like an Accord or Audi A4 than a Stratus1.0/2.0/3.0 :) but need pic of front for proper details. Could be HPI, could be Proline, there were lots of smaller body makers too especially outside USA. Europeans liked cars that raced in BTCC eg 3-series, Mondeo, A4... no idea where Stratus got raced. 

Definitely not T, they would never put bumps on bootlid like that. 

 

Have tried DIY light weight shafts, only had aluminium back then. The short shafts worked fine but the long shaft - the pin holes were point of failure, torque just ripped them apart there. To toughen them there had to insert a smaller 4mm tube inside (main tube was 5mm od 4mm id) then pot the cavity with epoxy at the ends before drilling. Survived ok then; CF rod should be stronger. 

More importantly they should stay straighter. Went to every LHS to find their K&S rack, then take all their 5mm tubes to a glass topped counter to roll on, test for bending... :P got weird looks, not that I cared. 

Oh... don't glue in the cross pin. Y'know, bearings... 

 

TA03 ball diff will fit. As should TA03 gear diff if you want something slightly less chunky than original. There's different weights of TA03 ball diff too - std potmetal, billet alloy lightweight etc if you're bothered. 

 

If if memory serves, CVDs for TL01 are same length as TA04.

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35 minutes ago, WillyChang said:

Looks more like an Accord or Audi A4 than a Stratus1.0/2.0/3.0 :) but need pic of front for proper details. Could be HPI, could be Proline, there were lots of smaller body makers too especially outside USA. Europeans liked cars that raced in BTCC eg 3-series, Mondeo, A4... no idea where Stratus got raced. 

Definitely not T, they would never put bumps on bootlid like that. 

 

Have tried DIY light weight shafts, only had aluminium back then. The short shafts worked fine but the long shaft - the pin holes were point of failure, torque just ripped them apart there. To toughen them there had to insert a smaller 4mm tube inside (main tube was 5mm od 4mm id) then pot the cavity with epoxy at the ends before drilling. Survived ok then; CF rod should be stronger. 

More importantly they should stay straighter. Went to every LHS to find their K&S rack, then take all their 5mm tubes to a glass topped counter to roll on, test for bending... :P got weird looks, not that I cared. 

Oh... don't glue in the cross pin. Y'know, bearings... 

 

TA03 ball diff will fit. As should TA03 gear diff if you want something slightly less chunky than original. There's different weights of TA03 ball diff too - std potmetal, billet alloy lightweight etc if you're bothered. 

 

If if memory serves, CVDs for TL01 are same length as TA04.

Indeed, the shell pictured is an Accord body.

Thanks for the tip on the diffs and CVDs!  I will check those out.

And yeah, I did consider gluing the cross pins on the prop shaft before realizing I have to slide bearings on there.  On the other hand, if the cross pins prove to be a point of failure for me despite my efforts to reinforce that area, I think I may just glue the end gears in place on the shaft (after sliding the bearings on first of course).  We shall see!

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You should be right with CF rod, that's heaps stronger than Alu.

 

By the looks of it you've already been doing some racing? Paradox motor & HPI X-pattern (belted?) tyres with silhouette body... shows race pedigree!

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Cool build! I played about with a TL01 last year. You can improve the front end by putting the TB01 front arms and c hubs on it. 50814 and 50817. C hubs have caster, but are shorter than the TL01 c hubs, so you need the longer TB01 front arms to even it all out for driveshaft length. 

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That Accord body is a HPI body alright :) The 98 version, not the older one.

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Great to see this thread, I am also in the process of reviving an old TL01 for a bit of car park bashing with my son.

Good to know about the TB01 Arms and C Hub Trick.

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7 hours ago, Tizer said:

That Accord body is a HPI body alright :) The 98 version, not the older one.

7047_7047_01p_800_600.jpg

the old HPI RS4s used the same bodypost locations as Tamiya TL01/TA01-3, so the dimples on HPI shells worked for T too! :) 

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On 1/13/2020 at 7:57 AM, WillyChang said:

You should be right with CF rod, that's heaps stronger than Alu.

 

By the looks of it you've already been doing some racing? Paradox motor & HPI X-pattern (belted?) tyres with silhouette body... shows race pedigree!

No racing no, just messing around on the street in front of my house.  I built the car when I was around 13 years old and bought a few hop ups for it just for fun.  I had almost no idea what I was doing.  Then I had a TG-10 later on that I threw a few hop ups onto, and those hop ups and other TG-10 parts have found their way to this car as well (the TG-10 got thrown out - I hated nitro in the end; so messy and always breaking components).

What's a silhouette body?  You mean like the fact that it has front and rear bumper lip + side skirts?

On 1/13/2020 at 8:38 AM, ThunderDragonCy said:

Cool build! I played about with a TL01 last year. You can improve the front end by putting the TB01 front arms and c hubs on it. 50814 and 50817. C hubs have caster, but are shorter than the TL01 c hubs, so you need the longer TB01 front arms to even it all out for driveshaft length. 

Thanks for the tip!  I will check it out.  I have bought a set of control arms and hubs from a totally different car... I will talk about them later and whether or not they fit hahaha.

8 hours ago, phiber_optik said:

Great to see this thread, I am also in the process of reviving an old TL01 for a bit of car park bashing with my son.

Good to know about the TB01 Arms and C Hub Trick.

Glad to see a fellow TL-01er!  : D

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2 minutes ago, Bazyli said:

Thanks for the tip!  I will check it out.  I have bought a set of control arms and hubs from a totally different car... I will talk about them later and whether or not they fit hahaha

The TB01 c hubs are TG10 parts so you may already have them. 

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I received my first parts shipment yesterday:

  • tamiya speed controller
  • plastic parts bag (A? B? C?) with the battery clip I needed
  • double sided tape
  • pin clips (what do you guys call them?  the little black metal clips)

I decided to throw the car together and give it a spin (fully knowing I'll be tearing it back apart soon).  Here's a picture of it all back in one piece:

IMG_20200114_131321847.thumb.jpg.ccfcdb97362d3cd482691f039a421ee4.jpg

Its freezing temps outside so it was real slippery.  I had a blast drifting this around and was surprised at how controllable the slides are.  I was also surprised at first how quick the car is... until I got used to it and it felt slow top speed : P  Its running a paradox 27 turn brushed motor with 21 tooth pinion and 3000 mAh 6 cell NiMH battery.  I've ordered a 23 tooth pinion and 23 turn motor and I'm thinking that might be enough for this car.  I think I might need to move up to a 7 cell NiMH battery if I want to run the speed gear set I ordered and still have good acceleration... we shall see though; all in good time.

Problems when running it:

  • The transmitter range was pretty terrible (30 - 40ft maybe?).  I had the receiver in the middle of the car though with the antenna running under the ESC which may have been producing a ton of interference.  I now moved the receiver to the back of the car (as pictured) and ran the antenna wire with some good distance away from all other wires and electronic components.  Hopefully that improves the range.  If not I'll try soldering a transistor based amp onto the receiver antenna to give it a boost.  The radio I'm using is 27MHz which does not seem to be something stores even sell anymore : \
  • There are some stripped screw holes and a cracked shock upper mount - I'm glad I ordered all new plastics.
  • I lost one of the steering hub bolts (the blue ones) while driving around - luckily I was able to find it today in the daylight.  I have since put thread lock on those bolts.
  • Oh boy this car collects debris from the road.  I could have started a rock garden with all the pebbles that fell out of the car once I brought it back inside.

Finally, the carbon driveshaft seems to have held up fine, although one of the cross pin holes has gotten a bit looser than it was before the run.  This hole was a bit too big to begin with and the pin had some free play; it looks like it got worse after running the car.  The other hole was nice and tight around the pin and has remained that way.  I think I will refill the hole that's too big with epoxy again and drill it out again leaving it nice and tight this time.

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The chassis is good at debris collection. More recent mouldings have cutouts in the bottom to let the debris escape. 

2020-01-14_10-45-34

At a guess, I'd say your originals probably have only one cutout or none at all, while your new plastics have two cutouts as above? 

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3 hours ago, TwistedxSlayer said:

Would highly recommend upgrading to 2.4ghz on your transmitter/receiver

I suppose that will be in my next order from rcmart : D

57 minutes ago, TurnipJF said:

The chassis is good at debris collection. More recent mouldings have cutouts in the bottom to let the debris escape. 

2020-01-14_10-45-34

At a guess, I'd say your originals probably have only one cutout or none at all, while your new plastics have two cutouts as above? 

Indeed the new chassis does have the cutouts pictured above!  The original had none hah.

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Parts shipment number 2 from rcmart has arrived!  More info to come...

IMG_0152.thumb.jpg.32a4330daa17397052c30ecb8563035c.jpg

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5 hours ago, Bazyli said:

 

No racing no, just messing around on the street in front of my house.  I built the car when I was around 13 years old and bought a few hop ups for it just for fun.  I had almost no idea what I was doing.  Then I had a TG-10 later on that I threw a few hop ups onto, and those hop ups and other TG-10 parts have found their way to this car as well (the TG-10 got thrown out - I hated nitro in the end; so messy and always breaking components).

What's a silhouette body?  You mean like the fact that it has front and rear bumper lip + side skirts?

Thanks for the tip!  I will check it out.  I have bought a set of control arms and hubs from a totally different car... I will talk about them later and whether or not they fit hahaha.

Glad to see a fellow TL-01er!  : D

 

4 hours ago, Bazyli said:

 

Its freezing temps outside so it was real slippery.  I had a blast drifting this around and was surprised at how controllable the slides are.  I was also surprised at first how quick the car is... until I got used to it and it felt slow top speed : P  Its running a paradox 27 turn brushed motor with 21 tooth pinion and 3000 mAh 6 cell NiMH battery.  I've ordered a 23 tooth pinion and 23 turn motor and I'm thinking that might be enough for this car.  I think I might need to move up to a 7 cell NiMH battery if I want to run the speed gear set I ordered and still have good acceleration... we shall see though; all in good time.

Problems when running it:

  • The transmitter range was pretty terrible (30 - 40ft maybe?).  I had the receiver in the middle of the car though with the antenna running under the ESC which may have been producing a ton of interference.  I now moved the receiver to the back of the car (as pictured) and ran the antenna wire with some good distance away from all other wires and electronic components.  Hopefully that improves the range.  If not I'll try soldering a transistor based amp onto the receiver antenna to give it a boost.  The radio I'm using is 27MHz which does not seem to be something stores even sell anymore : \
  • There are some stripped screw holes and a cracked shock upper mount - I'm glad I ordered all new plastics.
  • I lost one of the steering hub bolts (the blue ones) while driving around - luckily I was able to find it today in the daylight.  I have since put thread lock on those bolts.
  • Oh boy this car collects debris from the road.  I could have started a rock garden with all the pebbles that fell out of the car once I brought it back inside.

Finally, the carbon driveshaft seems to have held up fine, although one of the cross pin holes has gotten a bit looser than it was before the run.  This hole was a bit too big to begin with and the pin had some free play; it looks like it got worse after running the car.  The other hole was nice and tight around the pin and has remained that way.  I think I will refill the hole that's too big with epoxy again and drill it out again leaving it nice and tight this time.

Whenever you've cut into CF thru the fibres you must also reseal it, it's like hemming cloth so it doesn't fray. Superglue works well as sealer, harder than epoxy too.

 

Are you using brandnew AAs in your transmitter? Basic Radiogear usually expect 8x Alkalines not rechargeables. The voltage difference affects transmission signal power. 

 

Also be wary of Overgearing, makes motor work harder & overheats. Brushed motor also needs routine maintenance (service bearings, lathe comm) or else it'll overheat even faster. Paradox is the first Rebuildable stock (=27t) motor afaik.

A hotter (=lower turn) motor usually produces more power mainly by higher revs. If you gear it even higher, it won't get to rev up & will overheat even faster. Hot mods are better with lower gearing generally. 

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1 minute ago, WillyChang said:

 

Whenever you've cut into CF thru the fibres you must also reseal it, it's like hemming cloth so it doesn't fray. Superglue works well as sealer, harder than epoxy too.

 

Are you using brandnew AAs in your transmitter? Basic Radiogear usually expect 8x Alkalines not rechargeables. The voltage difference affects transmission signal power. 

 

Also be wary of Overgearing, makes motor work harder & overheats. Brushed motor also needs routine maintenance (service bearings, lathe comm) or else it'll overheat even faster. Paradox is the first Rebuildable stock (=27t) motor afaik.

A hotter (=lower turn) motor usually produces more power mainly by higher revs. If you gear it even higher, it won't get to rev up & will overheat even faster. Hot mods are better with lower gearing generally. 

Thank you for all the tips!

Sounds like I won't need to use the speed gear set unless I want to stick with a high turn # motor. Maybe one day I can find a way to measure optimal gear/motor/battery combo for my use cases.

I'll definitely try CA glue on CF for sealing.

I am indeed using 8 alkaline AAs in the transmitter.  I took the car for a run today and range was up to about 60 ft.  I think I'll live with that until I get a new modern transmitter/receiver.

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5 hours ago, Bazyli said:

 

No racing no, just messing around on the street in front of my house.  I built the car when I was around 13 years old and bought a few hop ups for it just for fun.  I had almost no idea what I was doing.  Then I had a TG-10 later on that I threw a few hop ups onto, and those hop ups and other TG-10 parts have found their way to this car as well (the TG-10 got thrown out - I hated nitro in the end; so messy and always breaking components).

What's a silhouette body?  You mean like the fact that it has front and rear bumper lip + side skirts?

All those racing blobs look the same from the side :P only differed in nose & tail.

Scale they were not. Later on they even had tuner bodies that offered "more downforce" (higher roof) or "more steering" (glasshouse moved forwards) or "lightweight" (thinner lexan) etc etc... so serious racers might need to have 3-5 bodies of same "car" of different properties painted in their trademark livery. 

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