bavee's project thread

[Grumpy pants 4474]

18 hours ago, GeeWings said:

I’m a little late to the party but this looks fantastic! No decal issues that I can see.

I would love to own one of these at some stage and it’s one of the few kits I think I would keep box art (or very close to). Such a great design!

Lovely work on the LandCruiser too. It’s such a fun chassis and the proportions of the shell are great too. I’ve hopped my first one up heavily with just about all the Yeah racing stuff I could get my hands on:

But I’m keeping my second car more basic (for now anyway). I do wish there were more choices to replace the bumper though, I think I’m going to cut some thin sheet to add over the plastic. 

I wonder if the TL01 bumper would fit the GF01, as it does fit the GF06. 

[GeeWings 2830]

2 minutes ago, Grumpy pants said:

I wonder if the TL01 bumper would fit the GF01, as it does fit the GF06. 

I think the TL01 bumper is what I’ve used as the seat bench, you can see it now my pic above.

[GeeWings 2830]

5 minutes ago, bavee said:

Thanks! The Buggy Champ is a good looking car indeed. And it gave me a special feeling building something that has it's roots in the 70's. Haven't driven it anymore to be honest. But it just looks so good on the shelf!

Your car is a work of art!

I just ordered the first blue bits for ours. A front knuckle set because the tread on the kit supplied ones doesn't feel good and I have to unscrew one of them to change a dogbone. To be continued.

Yes, I’m not really a shelf queen person but I can absolutely see me displaying a buggy champ if I ever get one. It just looks so much like a scale model and as you said,  it’s just got so much history.

[Grumpy pants 4474]

1 minute ago, GeeWings said:

I think the TL01 bumper is what I’ve used as the seat bench, you can see it now my pic above.

Yeah you’re right.

There’s definitely a slightly better looking Tamiya bumper that fits the GF06 as an alternative.  

[GeeWings 2830]

Just now, Grumpy pants said:

Yeah you’re right.

There’s definitely a slightly better looking Tamiya bumper that fits the GF06 as an alternative.  

I reckon I will just cut some thin sheet metal to go over the existing bumper, just to add a little bling. Otherwise I will order one of these:

 

 

[bavee 1032]

@GeeWings, this one is no good for you?

- https://www.tamiya.com/english/products/54796/index.htm

[GeeWings 2830]

@bavee I’ve actually got one of those on order so will see how it looks…

[Grumpy pants 4474]

10 hours ago, GeeWings said:

I reckon I will just cut some thin sheet metal to go over the existing bumper, just to add a little bling. Otherwise I will order one of these:

 

 

This was what I was thinking of - 

[GeeWings 2830]

@Grumpy pants yes, that looks good and will fit well aesthetically I reckon. 

[bavee 1032]

On 1/4/2022 at 9:46 PM, bavee said:

Unfortunately the body proved to be pretty vulnerable and is already cracked in a few places .

Adjusted the body posts a bit today. The body is almost sitting level now:

The 5yo is really happy now the body of his first RC is getting a second life!

We have run the GF-01 four times. All in appalling weather and in the sand. While cleaning the car today I saw that it showed. Drivecups, dogbones and wheel axles are showing wear. Curious how durable it will prove to be in the coming weeks.

Also installed our first blue bling ever:

[bavee 1032]

Some weeks ago this beauty arrived:

I know the diff is flawed out of the box. But I hoped* I would be lucky and this one would be ok... There doesn't seem to be a lot of use:

Decided to strip it anyhow. And then I found out that someone had already tried to fix it. Some srews in the gearbox where missing. And this:

I have no experience with ball diffs. This is my first. So I don't have a clue how I can see if this one is good or bad:

To me it looks like the pressure disk was damaged at some point (heat?) and someone has tried to sand / polish it back to its original shape? But would it work this way?

I'm sourcing parts now. But it is... difficult 😅.

 

* Nietzsche: Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

[Grumpy pants 4474]

This might be the truck is in such condition everywhere else ⬆️

[Sgt.Speirs 1253]

2 hours ago, bavee said:

Some weeks ago this beauty arrived:

…

 

 

I love this truck and picked up one month ago a Nissan King Cab chassis to re-build it as a Hi-Lux Monster Racer.

Due to the ball diff is also defect, my current project is to integrate a modern gearbox with slipper clutch into the chassis…

[bavee 1032]

47 minutes ago, Grumpy pants said:

This might be the truck is in such condition everywhere else ⬆️

Not so optimistic 😉. Will strip the whole car in the end. But the diff is step 1.

31 minutes ago, Sgt.Speirs said:

Due to the ball diff is also defect, my current project is to integrate a modern gearbox with slipper clutch into the chassis…

I have seen that. But your work is total voodoo to me. You are playing Champions League!

If you make the end product available for the public to buy I will be first in line.

[Kol__ 3377]

Nice one @bavee, love the Monster Racer!

Not sure about the pressure plates, but those little disc springs are still available to purchase if you need replacements.

The cracks in the motor protector, diff cover and gearbox are very common. Most are due to over tightening I think, in particular the diff cover for sure. See if you can find Super Astute A parts tree, although rare will provide replacements, well for 2 of the parts - the motor protector is not part of the Super Astute kit.

[Sgt.Speirs 1253]

@bavee: I don’t want to promise too much, but may be there will be a option for the future…but for this I will only play a supporting role for the guy who will make this available

[bavee 1032]

On 1/21/2022 at 10:46 PM, Kol__ said:

See if you can find Super Astute A parts tree, although rare will provide replacements, well for 2 of the parts - the motor protector is not part of the Super Astute kit.

If the seller has got it's info right I will soon have my hands on a NOS A-parts tree for an original Astute. Hopefully that will give me the parts I need.

On 1/21/2022 at 10:50 PM, Sgt.Speirs said:

@bavee: I don’t want to promise too much, but may be there will be a option for the future…but for this I will only play a supporting role for the guy who will make this available

We will wait impatiently 😉.

And... Again, if the other seller also has got it's info right I will soon have my hands on some NOS original internals for the ball diff. Will wait and see.

[bavee 1032]

On 1/20/2022 at 9:58 PM, bavee said:

Adjusted the body posts a bit today.

And broke it last weekend. Arghhh. Heating and bending body posts probably isn't such a good idea. So I drilled some new holes in the body and fitted new posts.

On the positive side. I installed a Hobbywing Quicrun WP 1080 ESC in the GF-01 last week and when the 5yo drove it last weekend the car didn't go into limp mode for a single time. He was quite happy with it! Will see how it holds up for the next couple of weekends but I hope we have found a solution for the problem!

[bavee 1032]

Last weeks I received a bunch of parts for my Monster Racer restoration:

• Tamiya 9495110 sticker (thanks to @Cossie P100)
• Tamiya 4305263 side panel
• Tamiya X10318 A-parts
• Tamiya 5415025 / 5415026 diff housing A / B
• Tamiya 9405515 ball thrust bearing bag
• Tamiya 19804212 3x6mm round head socket screw (hex instead of JIS, argh)
• Tamiya 19805767 3x8mm countersunk hex head screw (hex instead of JIS, argh)
• Traxxas 3179 3x15mm countersunk machine srew (couldn't find the Tamiya one)

The gears looked allright and I'm going to use them again. With these new parts I have everything to rebuild the ball diff.

Found the ball thrust bearing bag online at a hobbyshop in New Zealand . Couldn't believe it was a complete set until it arrived:

Only thing is that this is my first ball diff... So I think I'm going to open a topic and ask for your top tips .

Oh, and the F3 parts have some minor cracks. So maybe I'm going to start a search for some new ones. Although I think it is no problem because they are locked up.

[bavee 1032]

On 2/2/2022 at 9:30 PM, bavee said:

The gears looked allright and I'm going to use them again. With these new parts I have everything to rebuild the ball diff.

Found some NOS gears located in France on Ebay. Ordered them. So now I am able to build a completely new gearbox including ball diff and gears. And then I decided to try something else...

Ordered some Avante parts and pieced a gear diff together as described in this topic: 

And although the Avante gear diff misses 1 tooth as compared to the Monster Racer ball diff the gearbox feeled fine and didn't make any strange noise while spinning it by hand. So now it should be able to move under its own power...

And it did! Tested the Monster Racer today and it was great. Man, this thing is miles ahead of our Grasshopper and DT-01's and a completely different car then our GF-01! It jumps great and takes corners like it is on rails 😀.

Will strip the gearbox later this week to see if there is any damage done to the internals. Hope not as it still feels and sounds good.

What a great car this is!

[bavee 1032]

On 2/27/2022 at 8:33 PM, bavee said:

Will strip the gearbox later this week to see if there is any damage done to the internals. Hope not as it still feels and sounds good.

Few weeks and some battery packs later... Did not strip the gearbox. Car corners great, straight line stability is fine, acceleration is good and it sounds nice. So why fix something that isn't broke?

Until now this looks like a good solution... Fingers crossed.

[bavee 1032]

In the mean time I bought a rere Stadium Blitzer someone started on but never finished. Today I completed the chassis:

We are having some nice weather at the moment so I hope to finish painting soon. But masking is first...

Really falling in love with the Stadium Trucks recently. And a Monster Truck is also on my wishlist. But the first thing I have to finish after the Stadium Blitzer is The Frog... Not feeling the love for buggies at the moment .

[Willy iine 18805]

@bavee Nice truck!  

You can keep the Frog NIB on a shelf until the day you find a buyer or just build it later?    

 

[bavee 1032]

My wife won't let me buy a new kit before I finish The Frog .

No. That is BS. I don't like myself when I lose interest. So I will get to it. After the Stadium Blitzer.

[Willy iine 18805]

17 minutes ago, bavee said:

My wife won't let me buy a new kit before I finish The Frog .

No. That is BS. I don't like myself when I lose interest. So I will get to it. After the Stadium Blitzer.

Frog is a big part of Tamiya history so it should be fun to build and to enjoy the nostalgic driving.    GL with the build!