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catman79

vintage racer yokomo yz10 restoration

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after a couple of vintage events over the past few years i decided to sell my trusty lazer zxr and get something different. i was planning on doing the iconic revival this year , but work commitments meant i had to miss the event sadly. so ive got a whole year to get a new car up and running!

i saw a yokomo yz10 a few months back on ebay which looked ok, so i snapped it up. when it arrived it became clear that this was going to be a money pit of a project, pretty much everything on the car was faulty in some way, stripped threads, home made parts, the list went on.. top marks to the seller of it though, his photography skills were exquisite! so i decided to sell it on, and managed to get my money back. i was a bit gutted as these cars rarely come up for sale, but as luck would have it the very next day another appeared on ebay, i put in a last minute bid and won it, for what in my eyes as i see as an absolute steal. well a few days passed any it arrived.. and it was a great relief, it was a very nice unmolestered example, that's been well cared for. it has some interesting markings, a numbered sticker on the chassis near the spur, which has paint dobs on it to prevent tampering, and the same on the wheels,  we used to have these on touring cars back in the early 2000's when racing at the nationals so im guessing its possibly done some bigger events in its life

here she is..

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so a few non yokomo standard parts fitted, mainly the battery mounts, top deck and what appear to be losi 

xx or xxx shocks, but never the less a nice example. anyhow i have made a start on the old girl, mainly replacing the screws with a new stainless set, some of the old phillips heads were starting to round off, so i thought it was a must.

i managed to get hold of a set of rc10 b4 shocks, i wanted to keep the vintage look, and these look very similar to the ae shocks people used to fit to these back in the day, with the added bonus of the threaded bodies, so had to have them!,

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one thing i dont particulaly like about vintage 4wd's is most seem to have some sort of one way roller fitted, which were great back in the day when brushed motors were used, as they had a certain ammount of drag to them. but with modern brushless motors, i find them almost un driveable with that set up.  after a bit of help from a good yokomo friend, i had managed to source a fixed centre pulley, so set about installing it, it wasn't designed for the tcs style slipper system, but fitted straight on, i just had to flatten off a small section of the lay shaft to lock the grub screw against and hey presto!

before

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and after

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so last ive managed is to do is to replace the under tray, with a pengin reproduction item, which i have to say are a fantastic copy of the original. and also a new bumper for good measure.. i have a reproduction body, which ill get pro painted when funds allow. 

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so far that's it. i need to get the electrics installed, and work out a suitable lipo saddle pack mounting system next. i was tempted to rebuild the diffs but they are super smooth, so will see how they go i guess. ill add more as i go, hopefully with the finale being a video of it in action at next years  iconic revival event! i have a year so fingers crossed!!

apologies some of my pictures are on the wonk, i cant seem to get them to play ball !

 

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So managed to get the electrics in today, and a quick test run in the garden. Will take it out later at the nearby school, so far so good! 
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another small update.. managed to complete a first proper test run at the weekend, which quite frankly was a disaster!

the 90's glue on the tyres is obviously past its best, she was flinging tyres off all over the place, the slipper was slipping way too much, and an e clip came off one of the top arms, resulting in the driveshaft and arm coming off! more worryingly the thing would stop after around 30 seconds and had next to no range on it. appears the speed controller was knackered.. new one will hopefully be here this weekend, so ill fit that, rebuild a few bits and try again! oh the joys of vintage racing!

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That is odd, I've been running new schumcher 2.2 inch mini pin spikes (which looks identical to your tyres) on some Tamiya DF03 2.2 inch wheels without gluing them and not suffered any tyres coming off even with a dyna run super touring motor and 8.4v. They are a pretty tight fit on the rims and I use foam inserts which I think help the tyre keep in the beads? in addition to keeping the tyres shape. 

Is it possible the tyres beads are slightly too large a diameter for the rims? I found that problem with some of my older supposedly 2.2 inch wheels, they were actually 2.1 inch not 2.2, the tyres look like they fit at first but kept coming off too easily.

Either that or your motor is putting out one heck of a lot of torque ;-)

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The YZ10 doesnt have 2" wheels does it? I think some older Yoks used to perhaps. Worth measuring / comparing i think.

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they are 2.2" wheels, i think the rubber has just gone bad after all these years, i switched to an old set of the pavidis style rims with equally old tyres but they stayed on no bother! ive ordered a few sets from jc racing and will get some fresh new tyres. still in the testing stages at the mo, hoping to get it spot on in time for the iconic revival later in the year if it happens!

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