Barn find rescue beginnings

[Kayak 50]

While searching for the transmitter to rebuild an original Wild Willy for a friend, the barn attic spewed forth a couple more 80's classics.  After blowing off the dust, copious mouse turds and nesting, I removed the remaining rotten electronics (obviously run hard and put away wet), hosed, scrubbed with soap and water and hosed again.  The Clod is in pretty good shape with only a couple of body and tub cracks evident.  The three wheeled Beetle (really two... one remaining wheel is cracked horribly at the hub) is trashed!  The story is that it was run over by a 1:1 car, but every plastic bearing is shot and the body speaks for itself.  The good news is the 'glass resin isn't bonded to the body and is coming off nicely with some work.

  The Beetle body might make a nice post apocalyptic build some day.  I have the new (55 turns, adj mounts, 9T pinions, bearings and ESC) bits for 'restoring' the Clod, so it should be back up and running soon enough.

[Busdriver 6209]

Beetle looks good to me. Just like my favbug!!!!

[mongoose1983 3335]

That's the kind of sugar papa likes!

[Kayak 50]

 Isolation is helping.  Haven't done more than clean my friends Clod, but the Beetle is getting cobbled back together while working on his wife's Willy.  As an 'essential' worker, my shop is working 6 hour overtimes, 5 days a week and 8 hour tours on weekends, there's been little time for the models these last few months.

  I stalled on the repairs... I hate waiting for glue to dry, and need to sit down with the intent of working... so having more than one body to fool with works splendidly.  I hate the modern Willy grille, so fabbed one from scratch, thankfully the new driver figure included headlamps and winch (markers are Lego 'singles'? and will get epoxy lenses).

[Frog Jumper 3662]

I need a barn like this...

Terry

[Kayak 50]

"I need a barn like this... "  Even urbanites have barns.  Just ask someone over 50... they probably have a few gathering mouse turds or spider eggs in an attic, garage or basement.  Like these, they'll have been put away, wet, broken and have had the batteries left in them :)  None of the three have a working radio among them.  The  Beetle's HiTek is rotten at both the transmitter and receiver, the Clod transmitter is gone missing completely ( I looked for 30 minutes, through dozens of boxes and bins) and the Willy's transmitter has had the battery terminals rot away.  Going to try salvaged Hitek terminals in a Futaba...

  Tired of dealing with the layers of gooey black paint (yes, whatever the last coat of paint was, never hardened) and epoxy repairs, I stripped it using the safe but time consuming brake fluid method (can't find my gallon of aircraft stripper?).  The original paint layer was a nice shiny black under all the 'whatever' that was on top.  It'll never be straight, but it'll be a body again.  Massive amounts of styrene reinforcing the underside, it'll also get some Mad Max inspired reinforcements over the top, for added visual 'appeal'.

[Kayak 50]

Willy lives!  Been six months of other things to do, but I finally got to the finish line.  It's still going to be bashed, so I forgave sourcing another windscreen and brackets, flipped the badly cracking tires around when I repainted the rims and gave the body a few coats of clear lacquer to restore some shine (Yes, she painted it blue 35 years ago).  Bronze bushing all replaced with nice ball bearings and a HW1060 for speed control.  The HiTek was the only 'barn attic' radio that still functioned, every other one was put away wet with AA's installed (receivers and transmitters all rotten inside).  Assuming the Samurai I pulled it from, blew out the dogbones and that saved it... batteries scavenged for the other vehicles.  Runs and drives just as badly as I remember them  but it wheelies wonderfully.

Question:  What do you do for a battery in these things?  The setup is only sized for the old plastic cased Tamiya batteries.  I built a Li-Ion 4 cell pack and that works, but I hate them and don't want her house to catch on fire.  Is there a 'modern'  NiMh (3000ma +) hump pack available... or do I need to make my own from cells (Been a longggg time since I built packs)?  I do have an original Tamiya hump pack in fabulous external condition, will slice open if NiMh's will fit inside.

[Tudorp 239]

I just bought a battery pack, took it apart and rebuilt it as a hump back. I have a couple of the old plastic cases from the old vintage hump backs I had planned to use, but apparently the newer NiMh battery cells are very slightly thicker than the old NiCad cells, so it doesn't fit back together as I had hoped. So, I just soldered together the cells in a hump configuration and taped it up good and snug. Works just fine in Wild Willy, and also in my Sand Scorcher. 

[Biz73 603]

Not 3000+ mah, but I bought 2 of these for my Sand Scorcher

https://www.wonderlandmodels.com/products/carson-72-volt-2700mah-ni-mh-hump-pack-battery/

[Kayak 50]

Tudorp, thanks... that's what I understood to be the problem with NiMh cells.   That's why I threw together the four cell Li-Ion, but I don't trust them as 'safe' for non hobby people... want something 'safer'.  Although I might get out the Dremel and slice open the original hump pack to see what can be done

Biz, thanks, that's perfect!  That's what I'm going to have to go for as soon as I know she'll play with it, she desperately needs some fun.... Or I'll just go crazy,  buy cells and build another spot welder (spot shorter?) and of course get all the 'stuff' again.  I haven't built a 'matched cell' pack since the '80's, when buying bulk Sanyo cells, and all that 'matching' entailed was a yearly ritual at the start of the race season.  I don't miss the process, not one bit... but having a pack that went the full 4 or 5 minutes was important.  I'm still amazed at the run times I get with the current 'cheap' NiMh packs.

[Biz73 603]

I had planned to put those batteries into old Tamiya hump pack cases but sold my Scorcher before I got the chance. You would have to slice the clear wrap that covers the top cell on each side so it would fit. And you would either have to put a new hole for the wire to come out of, or just run it through the stock hole, making the wire shorter.

[Kayak 50]

Believe it or not... I was thinking of razor sawing the case open and adding some ABS or styrene to make the case the tiny bit taller.  That, or 'machine' wells into the case halves, using a 3/4" Dremel type circular saw blade.  Pretty sure the Tamiya cases can be glued with ABS plumbing cement... a long time ago, I built a new cell set into the giant grey Bruiser battery pack using much better 'D' cells, and am pretty sure I glued it back closed using plumbing stuff or just my regular Plastruct.

Bonus note:  While searching the garage bins for the thick sheets of styrene I'd stashed, I found a set of original Bruiser axles and wheels.  They're beat up, but intact... which surprised me!  I had quite a few Bruisers, some ruined ones were cannibalized for spares... as I'd built a 3 to 1 chain and sprocket gear reduction to run 8" rim, air filled tires (think hand truck) like a 'real' monster truck... and broke a bunch of axles as a result.  Reverted back to regular sized wheels and it was much more realistic (guess I was crawling... long before there were crawlers) off roader.  Sadly, all those 'toys' were sold off to pay for the 1:1 cars and motorcycles, now, I wish I'd kept them all...