Marui Hunter(s) and a Galaxy RS too

[mongoose1983 3335]

Incredible work designing some pieces to replace in such rare car. The resto work on these ones isn't easy. I love these cars, and I like what you're doing

[silvertriple 3560]

7 hours ago, mongoose1983 said:

Incredible work designing some pieces to replace in such rare car. The resto work on these ones isn't easy. I love these cars, and I like what you're doing

Thanks! It's good to see the appreciation of the work

[silvertriple 3560]

Cleaning work status:

Got a full bin of parts cleaned. I have enough spares for the parts which are actually damaged (there are some, and cracks or defaults are easier to spot once they are clean).

On the Galaxy RS, the main remaining work is about cleaning the Chassis, superstructure and roll cage. I still have to clean the metal parts of the two first Hunters I dismantled. I'll get them in WD40 bath while cleaning the chassis or the roll cage...

[silvertriple 3560]

The printed box of part arrived today...

I just had to open the box to retrieve the parts

My strategy to reduce the cost of my printed parts succeed, and the impression are perfect...

And it goes perfectly with the other printed parts I received from "The Optima House"

[KEV THE REV 2319]

Awesome , enjoy the builds !!

[silvertriple 3560]

42 minutes ago, KEV THE REV said:

Awesome , enjoy the builds !!

Not yet, I'm not yet there :-). It's a long journey, and I still require a few parts:

- bearings (I have for 2 machines, never envisioned when I ordered them I would finish with 4)

- Electronics (servo, rx, esc (even if there is a fake servo/msc, there will be behind the scene an esc), wires)

- some toric joints for the dampers : I will need to change the one mounted, as otherwise, it doesn't make sense to add oil in the damper)

- few screws (the least of my issues, at this stage)

- 2 drivers (yes, I want drivers - I located a 3D scanner accessible, I need to find some time a day when not working during a week to get there to scan one)

- body shells (TBG has not repaired the mould yet, I'm checking everyday to be able to order)

In the meantime, I still have some cleaning activities on going... And once this is ok, I may consider building one or two cars (still need to check the servo that was included in the Galaxy).

 

[silvertriple 3560]

Cleaning operations status:  Galaxy RS  Chassis, superstructure and roll cage cleaned

Still left to do:
- Galaxy RS shocks cleaning
- wheels (all of them, almost, considering that when I'll need wheels, it is because i'll have progressed a lot
- Motors (again, same reason as for the wheels)

That's very encouraging as I can see the end of cleaning ops soon!

I need to find proper joints for the shocks. I'm considering all of them dead. I need to identify the proper size (maybe Tamiya ones would fit) for inside the shocks and for the Marui Hunter shock closing joint... I will take some measurement later today for this...

[silvertriple 3560]

This morning, I started operations with an almost empty table...

And then I started to put the chassis to organize my sorting activities

And here is the table at the end of the sorting operations...

The whole set of parts which will be mounted on each chassis has been put in the area of the associated chassis. Two of the black chassis will be built with Hunter specs. With each chassis, there is a bin with the specific parts. Screws, spacers, washers and bushings have not been sorted by chassis (one bin for all screws, one bin for the rest)...

At the end of the sorting, the conclusion is that I have almost whatever is needed to build a third chassis : missing a body mount and damper, pivot and links (or two dampers if I mount it on Galaxy specs). I was having the doubt, but I can confirm now...

Few things remain to find :
- a wing for the Galaxy RS and to be perfect another one for the Hunter (I will order thru TBG for this)
- A radio box eventually, although my son would say it's not needed
- 2 drivers and a heard (if I do not succeed to repair the facial trauma of the driver head I got with the Galaxy RS)
- 2 complete bodies (or 3) for Hunter. I will wait TBG to repair the mould for this. 
- one set of tires for the third Hunter (I can rely on Tamiya as the Hornet tires seems to correspond. worst case scenario, I'll use rims and drivers as well).

Only thing left is to finish the clean up (still some part requires it) and start the first kit build :-)

[silvertriple 3560]

Rome never built in one day

Extracted the small parts for one build from the small parts bins...
And started to lay out all the parts on the operation table...


Before starting to build anything, I wanted to check a few things, and already encountered an issue: the idle shaft diameter is 3.05 millimeter, and I can't pass it in the 3 mm diameter bearings. Need to find a proper way to reduce the idle shaft diameter to 3.00 millimeters... Time to think again!
In the meantime, I mounted the rear shocks and the front springs.

[silvertriple 3560]

Build One - some steps and pics...

First it start by the battery retainer under the chassis

Then assemble the front dampers and knucles

Followed by the front suspension assembly

Back to the chassis and lower arms assembly

Front suspension is done...

And bumper mounted

Differential is built and inserted in the chassis. I replaced the oil-less bearings by ball bearings

Rear arms and under gearbox cover put in place...

Installing motor mount and idle gear (put an used idle shaft while the new one needs to be reworked and will be used for another build - the idle gear is mounted on ball bearings)

Motor and pinion in place, gear mesh set with a paper

Had to rework the sequence of operations to get to the next pictures
Gearbox closed and rear bumper mounted

Pivot and links of the rear suspension added

The next step was to add the rear shock and the roll bar. I apparently forgot to take the picture (it was late).
Next was to mount the tires. If you consider mounting a Hornet or Grasshopper rear tire is difficult, it is even more difficult with the Hunter as there is no way to lock the internal sleeve when you try to move it inside. The only solution which ease the mount is to put the tire in hot water before mounting it.

I still need to add rx, servo, esc in the car, but at least it looks like a Hunter now

[mongoose1983 3335]

I love it!!

[silvertriple 3560]

As my son is pushing a bit to be able to build his own Hunter, after having sorted the small parts, I came to the conclusion that the only car I could complete was the Galaxy RS. For the two remaining Hunters, I'll need to order screws (metric and tappingf screws in 3mm) and recut some spacers...

On Sunday evening, as teased, I decided to start the build of the Galaxy RS...


The manual was printed before starting the sorting, and I used it to start the operations, and as teased in another thread, I had the intention to sense the difference between the builds...
I then followed the manual page by page, going from front unfinished to back and then... Back to front, as I noticed the scan I had was having some inverted page sequence... 

At the end, I did not finished, as I was missing servo and esc to finish it.... I stopped at the time to mount the servo.

Some pics of the differences between the chassis...




The blue part are not as clean as I would like (the multiple attempts I did were not succesful). I still need to find a solution for this. I'll take care of this later with another try (or an alternative solution I have in mind)...
For the rear part and the gear cover with shock bridge, they are not possible to mount due to the Galaxy specs. The roll cage stay and the shocks stay extensions are in the path. I decided to use the first part I designed to reinforce the shock towers and help the force partitions...

And at the end, I decided to go to sleep with the chassis set on the mobile work desk...


Since a few days, I'm asking myself if a brushless could do it for my Hunter runner... I started by looking at the options for the pinion... And it will require some work!



Modern pinions are shorter than the original ones. This needs to be managed. From what I saw from the unbuilt kits (but I was already aware of this state from the eighties, as I depleted 2 of the three pinions included in the kit), the original pinion are wearing fast. On the other hand, modern should be more resistant and should offer more possibilities, the fact they are shorter doesn't really help in this specific case: the idle gear needs to be reworked in order to get the 48T gear closer to the motor. That should be possible, relatively easily. I got the idle gear stl file from a guy who is actually posting on another forum, and he has some quite interesting ideas... I told him my idea (not that I'm not able to do, but just because he is selling his work, and for me it makes sense to value his work as well, so he can even provide an improved version of it) and we started some detail engineering discussion on this topic there on my thread on that other forum...

On the Tuesday evening, I did check something that makes me think that something was wrong : the transmission was not as smooth as the one of the Hunter in the same state... And following my discussion on the other side, I wanted to do more precise measurement... I unmounted the gearbox and motor again to check in details and to precisely estimate the modification to do...





Few measurements for the record if someone search for it
The washer that  came with the NIP idle gear is 0.6 mm thickness
A new idle gear is 15.5 mm large, including 4.9mm for the 48T gear
Chassis side wall to motor mount is 16.4 mm
Printed idle gear is less large than the original one (15.0mm without ball bearing and 15.2 with them).
Apparently the 48T gear could be enlarged of 3 mm without any risk of touching the diffs satellites (maybe even 3.5mm). On the NIP idle gear, up to 4.0 mm of the 20T gear can be removed (it was exactly this which was mention by a french guy in a french forum). This would allow to use a modern 0.6 mod pinion with the following advantages:

• pressure point closer to the motor, so less vibrations of the motor shaft
• Pressure point on idle gear closer to the motor (motor mount is metal, while chassis is ABS
• More choices in terms of pinions (19,20, 21 as provided in the Marui kits, while possibility to mount 18 to 22 with modern pinions

And last point : the rotation issue was coming from the motor : it doesn't turn freely on a rotation (I believe the shaft is not straight, perhaps due to the pressure point far to the motor. I will have to replace this motor. 

On top of the list of screws, servo and ESC I need, I'll need to find 2 motors instead of 1... The project is moving ahead, but each day come with surprises, and it is fun :-)
 

[silvertriple 3560]

First thing this morning, I ordered screws to complete my part set. They should allow me to build all the kits.

Next is calculation (based on the question : would be a brushless fitting those cars? (I'm quite sure at least one TC member will be interested by the answer :-D)

It's all about ratios, so I calculated those

Motor pinion choices are 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (assuming modern pinion to complete the set).
Idle gear is 48T/28T
Differential is 60T

Internal ratios would give with the motor pinions the following

• 18T: 8.00
• 19T: 7.58
• 20T: 7.20
• 21T: 6.86
• 22T: 6.55

I also assume the motor mount could be modified to be able to mount smaller pinions, or biggest ones (but then the motor cover would be an issue).
Ultimately, from what I found on internet in terms of recommended ratios for motors, it seems a 15.5T could work well with a 22T and a 6.55 ratio... Tires, although very vintage, have the same external diameter as a modern 2.2 inches buggy wheel, so I didn't factor this in, as the recommendations are mentioned in the chart I found for standard sized rubber tires. (and I won't go for a 13.5 or 10.5T motor there, I believe the idle gear would not survive)

For reference, the chart I found :

[silvertriple 3560]

Finally decided to do the paint the Hunter saved body shell. As there is still some small traces of blue here and there, I'll have to compose with that...

Roof will have to be dark blue, roll bars will be black, white on the bonnet and the rear

Light blue on the middle...

... and dark blue on the bottom (same color as the roof)

but as there is no overspray film, I have to mask the top as well... Not that comfortable with this, as it will make difficult to see the masking and painting issues to correct. That will be challenging...

[silvertriple 3560]

Painting a body without visual feedback with a transparent overspray film is challenging.

After the paint here is the final result

Blue traces even appear where I did not saw them, but with the time I spend on this car, I love this body, and the blue traces in the white will remind its history. I'll do something else when I get a chance to order a TBG body for this car...

In the meantime, It is doing it.

[KEV THE REV 2319]

Looking great 

[silvertriple 3560]

Few pics of the body on the car... The driver remain to be done (Ideally, I should make a 3D scan of the driver before doing the paint)

[KEV THE REV 2319]

This looks great , deffo scan the driver , these Marui parts are like hens teeth.  Hunters used to be easy to find , not so now . It's great to see these being resurrected and restored . After seeing yours,  I wish I'd kept mine and finished 

[silvertriple 3560]

25 minutes ago, KEV THE REV said:

This looks great , deffo scan the driver , these Marui parts are like hens teeth.  Hunters used to be easy to find , not so now . It's great to see these being resurrected and restored . After seeing yours,  I wish I'd kept mine and finished 

Yeah... There is even here in France one broken to **** (both shock towers broken, roll bar damaged, under gear box cover drilled to fix a structure to mount the shock, radio lid broken, front train suspicious, and overall very dirty) displayed at 250€ (it was indicated at 500€ six month ago) but with only the driver, tires and eventually the body to be saved... Proposed the guy 40€ which I think is more than a fair value looking at the state of that wrecked car considering that I paid all those cars I used to get the parts around 50 each and 85 for the complete Galaxy RS. The guy declined laughing at me and adding i'm loosing my time giving all the arguments to explain the price...

Long story short: some people are over evaluating the price of their wrecked cars looking  at the amount a perfect state car is selling (and considering that recently, a NIB Galaxy RS was sold on ebay for 260USD, 250€ for a broken Hunter is definitely too much)

 

[KEV THE REV 2319]

One sold here 2 months ago for £40 GBP, pretty complete but with the usual rear suspension damage

[silvertriple 3560]

Ordered the servo and esc for remaining builds (And unexpectedly won an auction on ebay saturday by putting a bid 2 seconds before it ended, with a package now on the way - looking forward for it).

[silvertriple 3560]

The package on the way will be apparently delivered on Monday... I was expecting it to be in time for my 500th post on Tamiya Club, but it is too late for this ... If everything goes well, there will be an update on Monday evening (french time) on this thread :-D

[silvertriple 3560]

The package arrived today, and waited patiently I'm home to get opened...

I'm please to say now that if have no more reasons to keep my active search for Marui Hunter or Galaxy on ebay and other sites, as here is what I received today:






Yes, it is a Marui Galaxy, THE red Marui Galaxy, with all its red parts, and its Marui 360RS motor (550 size cage). The chassis is unfortunately broken, but I have already another black chassis in proper state to replace it. I will inspect the chassis as soon as I can unbuilt this car, but looking at the state of the bottom, I believe it was lightly used, so I may give it another life as repaired Hunter or Ganter chassis

And I really need to suppress the Marui search as well for some other reason (reason that I'll only disclose when I have proper pictures, as my father went to get the thing for me) :-) (nb: I will have to open another thread for that one reason!)

[silvertriple 3560]

Today, while at work, the tire issue was running in background the whole day in my brain...

I know the Scorpion/Tomahawk/Beetle tire can sit on the rim, but it needs to be glued. And while I don't really care about the white rims, it's not the case of the metal plated ones. Gluing the tire on them would also mean that I would loose the metal plated finish at the time I'm going to unglue them, and this whatever the method being used... Ultimately, there is 2 ways:
- finding another alternatives that is more convenient to work with
- finding a way to fix the tire to the rim without gluing them to the rim

Here is a picture of the rim, the Kyosho Scorpion re-release tire and it's foam insert (without it, the tire runs flat)


Taking into account what is done normally on a Scorpion rim, the part of the tire glued on the Scorpion rim is on each side of 5mm large by 2mm thick, I thought about a printed insert which would fix the tire by the inside of the tire and which would be fixed inside the rim (the rim is closed by 4 screws). In the event the tire is too soft to be fixed this way, I can still glue it on the printed insert from the inside of the tire...


That sounds like a plan, and a good solution for my Marui rear tires (no issues on the front, I got enough front tires in good state for the moment...

[KEV THE REV 2319]

22 hours ago, silvertriple said:

The package arrived today, and waited patiently I'm home to get opened...

I'm please to say now that if have no more reasons to keep my active search for Marui Hunter or Galaxy on ebay and other sites, as here is what I received today:






Yes, it is a Marui Galaxy, THE red Marui Galaxy, with all its red parts, and its Marui 360RS motor (550 size cage). The chassis is unfortunately broken, but I have already another black chassis in proper state to replace it. I will inspect the chassis as soon as I can unbuilt this car, but looking at the state of the bottom, I believe it was lightly used, so I may give it another life as repaired Hunter or Ganter chassis

And I really need to suppress the Marui search as well for some other reason (reason that I'll only disclose when I have proper pictures, as my father went to get the thing for me) :-) (nb: I will have to open another thread for that one reason!)

Great score