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ewant81

Rebuilding my Tamiya Escort Cosworth

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Hello, I'm new here and this is my first post!

Back in the early 90's I managed to save up all my pocket money, birthday money, and christmas money to buy my first RC car. I was drawn to Tamiya models because of their realism, and the model I really wanted was the Escort Cosworth. At the time, the only model available was the tiger stripes model (from memory the pilot model came out the following year) but I still think it looks great.

I have great memories of building the model, and I got help with the painting and decals. It got used on tarmac and ash pitches, and I loved playing with. I was largely stuck with one battery pack (a 1400mAh) and the trickle charger, which probably helped to reduce the wear and tear on the car.

I always wanted to buy lots of upgrade parts, but I never really had the money and there wasn't any model shops near me to buy things. Over the years I managed to buy a full ballrace set, a second-hand Trinity Monster Horsepower motor, a MTroniks RT500V ESC, and a second-hand french quick charger.

It went away into the loft in the late 90s when I had grown onto other things, but in 2005 I thought I would retrieve it and give it a quick refresh. I bought some new wheels with rally blocks (these need to be replaced with original wheels), and a new battery. Surprisingly, other than a quick re-grease it actually worked really well. I must've used it once and then put it back in it's box for the last 15 years over multiple house moves.

I decided after seeing a thread on another forum about Tamiya cars that I should really retrieve it from the loft again and give it a proper rebuild to get it working again. Well, when I picked it out of the box I could've kicked myself from 2005 as I didn't bother to clean it before putting it away. However, the coating of oil and grease form first glance appears to have kept the worst of damage at bay.

It has been well used and the layer of filth is how I left it (stupidly) in 1995:

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Classic retro stick controller still in box and seemingly working

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Still have one of the coveted guides, and the covers to two others. God knows what happened to the contents of the other two

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The mechanical SC and my Trinity Monster Horsepower motor. I ended up taking out this motor and reverting to the standard motor, as I couldn't get it to run back in 2005.spacer.png

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So, the rebuild! If anyone has any suggestions for how to do this, or tips for replacement parts then let me know.

I had some grease and damper oil in the box that I bought to rebuild the last time, hoping this is the right stuff to use

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I also think that I bought another servo to replace the steering servo, this is the old servo I used with the mechanical SC against what appears to be a 'new' servo:

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And, my original wheels and tyres that are well used. The tyres have gone completely brittle, but were well goosed anyway! From memory trying to get the original tyres is near on impossible?

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Any tips on how to fix this corrosion on the battery terminals? I'm not sure how this has happened, but I suspect this is the reason why the car isn't receiving any power.

I'm hoping that the Tamiya (molex) connector pins can be released so I can clean them up with some electrical cleaner. The male side looks like it can be popped free with a fine tool, but how is the female side dismantled?

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So I managed to disassemble the male tamiya connector and clean up the corrosion. However there still appeared to be nothing getting to the receiver. 

Checked the battery and there is enough voltage to get the receiver working, and move the steering servo.

So, there must be another problem!

After checking the ESC, it seemed to be getting power at the battery terminals on the PCB, but nothing at the receiver? 

Then I checked the switch, and I saw a flicker of life! After a bit of cleaning it seems to have come back to life! No surprise really, the switch gets hit with all the mud and moisture. If it’s still playing up I will get a replacement and fire up the soldering iron.

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Welcome to the club 👍 

Nice to see another escort Cosworth 🙂 maybe you could be invited into the cossie club!? 

I'm no expert on electrics so can't help much there. 

The original tyres and wheels are possible to get just not often and usually expensive, if your going to run it I definitely would use the original type😅

 

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4 minutes ago, svenb said:

Welcome to the club 👍 

Nice to see another escort Cosworth 🙂 maybe you could be invited into the cossie club!? 

I'm no expert on electrics so can't help much there. 

The original tyres and wheels are possible to get just not often and usually expensive, if your going to run it I definitely would use the original type😅

 

Thanks! Is there a cossie club? Do you get extra points for having a whale tail? 😂

What colour scheme is your cossie?

I will probably pick up a set of matching wheels and rally blocks for it. The current wheels work, and the rally blocks are near new and include foams so this will be used for now. 

Thankfully, electrical stuff is probably what I’m most comfortable with! Just glad the ESC isn’t goosed. It was a fair bit of pocket money in ‘95 and I like the period nature of it. It’s pretty decent and will take motors down to 16T apparently. 

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Bit of a unofficial club for tamiya cossie owners/fan. I'll search it out 

I've got a tiger striped body sat in a box waiting for a rainy day👍

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That is a good looking paint job! The repsol scheme is nice.

Can you still get Tamiya tiger stripe shells and decals? Or is this another case of finding someone who has one hidden away?

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18 hours ago, ewant81 said:

Thanks! Is there a cossie club? Do you get extra points for having a whale tail? 😂

FAO @TwistedxSlayer

😅

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11 minutes ago, TwistedxSlayer said:

The bigger spoiler the better. @svenb

Your not biting are you? 

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The strip down and clean continues...

I started with the wheels which need a good clean, and then a check of the hexes and bearings.

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Well, that's not good! I have one split hex and another that's a bit chewed up. On the plus side, the bearings seems to have survived storage and with a good clean and re-oil should be fine. 😀

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Then off with the front and rear gearboxes..

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At this point I noticed another problem..

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Both front uprights are cracked at exactly the same location!

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The steering servo seems to have a lot of play in it, so glad I have a new one to replace it with. Also the red plastic motor mount has a small crack on one of the locating dowels so it will need to be replaced.

The shopping list so far then:

Any advice on replacement parts or hop-ups to go for, and which to avoid?

 

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More progress in the dismantling, now have the chassis stripped down.

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On taking out the steering servo, it seems that the servo saver was the main cause for all the slop in the steering. The plastic part that meshes with the servo seems to be quite worn, and the screw to secure the servo saver didn’t really have any bite. Have ordered the Tamiya high-torque servo saver and will fit that to the replacement vintage servo I have. 

Next I need to tackle the gearboxes 😟 No doubt they’ll be full of manky grease that I’ll get everywhere. 

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I'd avoid aluminium uprights and stick with tamiya plastic as aluminium can transmit any damage further inboard thus potentially causing more expense. 

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The 51000 servo saver is a wise idea as is a aluminium motor mount 👍

Hop up wise! Dozens of options and some very expensive 

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8 hours ago, svenb said:

I'd avoid aluminium uprights and stick with tamiya plastic as aluminium can transmit any damage further inboard thus potentially causing more expense. 

Thanks, I’ve put an order in for some Tamiya originals. These should turn up soon depending on when the importer receives a container I’m told!

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8 hours ago, svenb said:

The 51000 servo saver is a wise idea as is a aluminium motor mount 👍

Hop up wise! Dozens of options and some very expensive 

I am going to avoid going too far with this kit in terms of hop ups, it’s more just getting it running. It’s a bit old and fragile and I want to keep it as period original as I can. Plan is to source an XV01 chassis from somewhere to really play with 😀

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Got some more time and started on the front and rear gearboxes, well started on getting started.

Stripped the suspension off and checked the dampers. All four still are full with damper oil, so the seals are good. They are a bit gritty so will be fully dissassembled, cleaned and rebuilt in good time.

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But found another problem! Let see if anyone can spot the issue here:

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and repeated on the other side

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Yup, hairline cracks on the rear shock tower!

Seems the weak spots on the TA01 chassis are front uprights at the steering balljoint, and rear shock towers. Thankfully Tamiya 50478 (Skyline rear gear case) is readily available and is a direct replacement, so that's been added to the shopping list.

Beginning to wonder if there are even more problems yet to be found ☹️

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Nice !

I wouldn't worry about finding more problems, you seem to have all of the usual TA02 rebuild problems covered !  :)

I see your thread and totally regret selling my last TA02 Rally (Celica), they really are such a cool chassis....

The original 4 slot Johnson motor is a strong motor too.   

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New parts have been arriving for me yesterday and today, slowly arriving. The key parts are of course waiting on parts arriving from importer!

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I'm not really into bits of blue bling, but at the relative cost of getting a solid prop-shaft and an alloy motor mount I couldn't overlook the Yeah Racing parts. The equivalent Tamiya Hop up pack is nearly double the price, and this is meant to be a sympathetic refresh rather than an all out rebuild for use.

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The pink thing is a ball-joing separator as I don't like following the Tamiya manual method of twisting the links to separate ball joints. Am hoping that it actually works and helps to take some of the stress off the plastic components.

Next step is to tackle the gearboxes which will involve degreasing. Will need to do this in the garage as it will stink my office out! I had a quick look at the rear gearbox, and the gears look in good condition superficially. Both end seem smooth(-ish) so hoping that a good clean and gentle rebuild will freshen them up.

I reckon a combo of bio-degreaser, maybe a splosh of Green Gunk, and GT85 (WD40 equivalent) should help to strip off the initial grease. Then follow up with a washing-up liquid scrub!

Planning to tackle that this weekend!

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