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Fuijo

Fitting a Grasshopper body to a Hornet...

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..... without cutting the body.

 

 

Here's my Hornet, still in fairly good condition. It must be getting on for 18 years old now.

 

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I do prefer the look of the Grasshopper body, and wanted to get one before everything Tamiya sold out everywhere in something-to-do-during-lockdown fever. So seeking to become part of the problem, I headed to Tamico's website for some retail therapy.

 

Well, they were all sold out, except for a couple of XB ones. I don't really like XB hard-plastic bodies because they don't remove the mould lines and are a bit tight with the clear laquer, but it was pretty cheap, cheaper than buying all the seperate parts and the paint and materials, so I bought one anyway

and crossed my fingers that it would look ok. It does I guess. I must say it is quite remarkable how well they get the stickers to go over the mould lines with no air bubbles or wrinkles. I thought I was pretty good with stickers, but this is like witchcraft.

 

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I hunted around a bit online to see about how it fits, and most solutions seemed to involve cutting the body to clear the rear shock mounts. There was no way I was going to cut bits off an XB body. Aside from any aesthetic considerations, I'd have to repaint the edges of the

bits I'd cut out, and I wouldn't be able to easily sell it on if I changed my mind and didn't like it.

So I decided to fiddle about and see if there was any other way.

 

First step, remove the shock top mounts and the front body post.

 

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Then test fit the body. Wow! That sits much lower than I thought it would. In fact the entire mount is visible I think.

 

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Yep! I can even put the screw in without touching the body.

 

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Ok, so it's not only the screws for the shock mounts that are in the way, the body of the actual shock fouls the body too. However, the screws are the immediate problem, so I wanted to see if anything could be done with them first, then worry

about the shock body later. The tube BD2 seemed quite a bit longer than it needed to be. The manual states 4x6mm, but mine were 4x6.5mm for some reason. I found some 4mm tube in my spares box and cut 2 lengths of 4.3mm

which I felt was as small as I could go while still having a little bit of play at full articulation/compression so that I didn't risk bending the shock or chassis. I also changed the 3x12mm screws for countersunk ones.

 

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Close, but no cigar. They are much narrower than they were, but they are still wider than the body allows. But because the screw isn't parallel to the ground but tilted up slightly the body will clear part of the screw which gains me a couple of mm

from where I was before I started. Hmph! Big deal.

 

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If I want the Hornet rear suspension and I don't want to cut the body or change the shocks, then as far as I can see the only remaining option is to raise the body.

So after a rummage in the spare parts box I found the parts D1 that I had left over from the build.

 

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They fit neatly over the body mount on the chassis like so.

 

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And very coveniently indeed, into the body too.

 

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So everything back together again......

 

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........and that's how it fits. Am I lucky, or am I lucky? :)

 

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The body is a few mm higher than standard, but personally I'm very pleased with it. Particularly as it uses parts that already come with the kit. All that's needed to swap back to the Hornet body is to remove the spacers D1 and refit the

front body post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sweeet...

Now I know I can fit Hornet shocks to the rear of my GH.

$1 says part D1 was intended to do exactly what you did with it???  I’ll have to dig out the manual...

Terry

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5 hours ago, Frog Jumper said:

$1 says part D1 was intended to do exactly what you did with it???  I’ll have to dig out the manual...

It's the highly sophisticated damping system for the front shocks. D1 takes a single O-ring, D7 takes 2 O-rings. So you might have to swap D1 for D7 depending on which you fitted. So it might completely ruin the handling. :)

EDIT: Changed incorrect part no. D2 to D7. Sometimes I see twos where there are only sevens, which is why they wont let me be an airline pilot.

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2 minutes ago, Fuijo said:

It's the highly sophisticated damping system for the front shocks. D1 takes a single O-ring, D2 takes 2 O-rings. So you might have to swap D1 for D2 depending on which you fitted. So it might completely ruin the handling. :)

 

I just read thru the Hornet manual...

I owe you a $1!  Lol!

So sweet the stars aligned for us like they did...  High5 for figuring this out!

Terry

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