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My vintage Hotshot

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I located my vintage Hotshot this weekend and am excited to get it back in running condition.  I hadn’t thought about it in years, but my son got a few RC cars for Christmas and I immediately realized how inferior they were to “real” ones.  That got me wondering, so I started Googling and came across the rere kits.  I was shocked that Tamiya was releasing the stuff I loved in the 80s so I ordered a Hotshot rere.  But that got me wondering about my old one.  Turns out, it was in a box in my grandfather’s work shop.   A quick inspection revealed why I abandoned it and bought my subsequent Traxxas TRX 1.  The right front lower ball cup wore out enough that the ball won’t stay in and the hub keeps falling apart.  The exciting part about that is the rere kit has enough spares to rebuild the front suspension I think.  At any rate, after I build the new one, I’ll see what I need and order the parts to lightly restore my old one.  It will also need the original heat sinks replaced, new driving lights, and a few other things.  The prop shaft and front axles were in the parts box, so I guess I took those out when I was trying to fix the ball joints, but I don’t remember.  I think that was about 1991.  After that, I suppose I will start using it again, but maybe in a more gentle manner:-)   I am glad I found this site.  I had no idea there was such a vibrant community for restoring and maintaining vintage Tamiyas.

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Welcome, 

I too got back into RC after the kids started to want to play with some of my old stuff (Mini Z) so then had me look out my Tamiya, then restored my Thundershot after watching some uTube stuff from Glenn Barkley (Tamiya Legands) and finding this forum.

I then contacted a mate from school who I had swapped my old Boomerang for his Blackfoot and we swapped back, so my old Boomerang came back to me......

Then started restoring my own three and then adding a model here and there till I have 18 on display and 2 as part of the family fleet of bashers.

The big change is the batteries......charge in 1 hr and run for 20+min of full power....and thats just NiMh.

Then there is Lipo and brushless, OMG, the power that you can get if your hungry and able enough!

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Welcome to the site.

It was a HotShot that got me back into the RC hobby after about 20 years in the wilderness. I bought it at a local model shop for the price of a pint of beer and set about restoring it. It gave me enormous satisfaction, and so i started collecting again.

Mine too had the loose ball joint thing going on, but mine was missing the dogbone drive shaft on one side. It was extremely difficult to find one at the time, and im not sure the re release was out then either.

Good luck with the restoration. Post some pictures along the way.

J

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Welcome to the wonderful Worlds of Tami-Crack-ya :D

 

I got my Modded Fox back on the road after a haiatus of nearly 30 years.

Then I bought a 2nd hand Hotshot that was a childhood dream. Turns out it is a genuine 85 Mk1!!

Queue 2 sets of Lipo's, Brushless and ESC's

Then I bought in a bundle, a 2011 Avante, 2013 Egress and a 2017 Top Force, and associated  Absima CR3P Transmitters, Lipo's and a couple more Brushless set-ups.

 

Then the wife bought me The Bruiser for my Birthday!!!

 

 

Tamiya is worse than Crack, because we can afford Tamiya now!!!

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Thanks everyone!  It seems like a lot of folks have a similar story of getting back into the hobby after a long time off.  I am really looking forward to getting my old cars running and I'll definitely post the progress.  I can't decide if I want to do a full restoration on the Hotshot or just fix the damage and use it lightly in original condition.  Either way, it definitely needs to be cleaned up. 

I'm really looking forward to building the new Hotshot kit.  I ordered the hopup bearing set and the dirt tuned motor.  I'm still trying to figure out what batteries and electronics to use, but I've got a little time before the hopup parts come in.  I'm guessing that after I build that, I'm going to want to buy all the rere kits to fulfill the dreams I had as a kid.  I wanted an Egress so bad back in the day!!  It looks like you can still get the kits, so I'll probably end up with one of those at least.  Baddon, 18 cars!!  Do you use all of them?  That sounds like an impressive collection.  The brushless setups look incredibly fun.  I raced a Traxxas in the 90s.  The new ones don't have the character of the Tamiya cars, but they do look like good fun bashers.

Ok, well, I'll keep this thread updated as I do anything to the old Hotshot.  Thanks again for the replies!   

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Welcome! My advice would be to start siphoning off some reasonable sums of money into a paypal account, as you will definitely find yourself spending a small fortune on various cars and parts in the near future :) 

If you don't have at least 10 cars in your collection by this time next year then you aren't a real Tamiya fan and your membership to the forum will be revoked. True story.

 

 

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I have done the same with my Hotshot. Bought me a rere kit for the reason that this was cheaper than buying all the spare parts separate. Have sold all remaining parts on ebay and made a nice picture out of the front cover from the box for my office :-)

You can use pretty much all the new plastic parts  from the rere kit and keep the mechanical part& more important the old screws (the colour is totaly different) from your old Hotshot. Only a very few things to notice but you'll find every info here at TC. for example the new gear housing requires the new E-clips that are coming with the rere kit. The drive shafts and gearing are different but it all fits into the new housings.  It's a fun build and very satisfying.

 

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On 1/15/2020 at 3:18 AM, lowspot said:

I have done the same with my Hotshot. Bought me a rere kit for the reason that this was cheaper than buying all the spare parts separate. Have sold all remaining parts on ebay and made a nice picture out of the front cover from the box for my office :-)

You can use pretty much all the new plastic parts  from the rere kit and keep the mechanical part& more important the old screws (the colour is totaly different) from your old Hotshot. Only a very few things to notice but you'll find every info here at TC. for example the new gear housing requires the new E-clips that are coming with the rere kit. The drive shafts and gearing are different but it all fits into the new housings.  It's a fun build and very satisfying.

 

thanks for that Info. i have an 85 Hotshot i have Re-Tubbed, and put RC Channel Wishbones on. I was thinking of re-casing the gearboxes too, to preserve the 85 casings as I have the origanl 3 hole front arms, different shocks and smaller ball joints that came withthe 85 kits.

 

All the parts I have bought inthe past 9 months, I almost have a complete car (less gearboxes). I even bought a new body!

 

Tami-Crack :)

 

 

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The bearing kit and dirt tuned motor came in, so I really have no excuse for not getting started now.  Hopefully I’ll get some time soon.

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Man, this year has not gone like I planned.  I built a TRX4 kit and was about to get on the Hotshot when the Covid hit.  Still looking forward to building it.
 

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