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Toad16v

Toad16v's hernia recovery tt01e build

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Bonjour.

I've had an operation planned for a while to repair a couple of hernias, so I've known that I'll be off work for a little while and I'll need something to do. I saw a few VW Corrado bodyshells on the various Facebook groups and really fancied doing one while I procrastinate over actually rebuilding my real Corrado. This lead me to 'requiring' a road going chassis, as I only have buggies up to this point and I decided on the tt01e as it's fairly inexpensive and gives me a good base for to put the shell I want on. Also, hopefully it's fairly simple and I'll not struggle too much whole somewhat incapacitated.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect - I've not had general anaesthetic before, but I feel pretty ropey. Was stuck in hospital for 24 hours longer than expected while my body slowly began to cooperate. This build will be fairly slow paced and probably feature a few mistakes, and hopefully not too much bending over. Also, I'm going to try to update the thread in real time, or as close to it as I can get.

I started picking up the kit and various hop ups over the last few weeks. Bearings and an alloy prop shaft were the first things on the list. A set of cva dampers, toe in rear hubs and turnbuckle tie rods were soon picked up too.

I'm hoping that this will be a fun little kit for blatting up and down the street over the summer.

Here's the kit and I'm about to set off on this new journey!

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Decided to fit a 22t pinion rather than the kit one, but with the standard spur for now. Also have an alloy motor mount ordered but that won't arrive fir a couple of days I expect.

2021-04-29_09-16-09

 

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Rear diff built with aw grease for lubrication of the bevel gearand pseudo LSD effect. Ceramic grease between the bevel gears and plastic casing.

2021-04-29_10-56-18

 

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Trying not to sit still for too long, so doing little bits and them having a break or a short walk. Also, I need to keep myself entertained for a few days.

Built up the back end and fitted the toe in rear uprights, need to work out what body posts are required for the subaru body. It might say in the paperwork but I haven't noticed it.

Only had one slight teaser during the build and that was the bearing for the rear part of the drive cup at the front of the rear gearbox wouldn't push into place and let the bevel gear fit properly. I had to loosen the gear cover to get it seated correctly. Built up the front diff now so I can put the horrible aw grease away from the rest of the build. I'm surprised how effective it feels providing a limited slip effect on the rear diff now that the driveshafts are in. I was slightly more generous with the grease in the front diff as I hope to have that one a bit stiffer.

 

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Didn't do anything on the build yesterday, felt sorer and didn't fancy sitting down for too long.

Started on the cvas this morning so I can leave them to settle for longer. No idea about the best setup, so building with the standard two hole pistons and spacers as per the instructions. Trimmed up all the parts and polished the pistons where the sprue attached. Finding the e clips harder at the moment due to being a bit wobbly and I blame the drugs for reducing my motor skills.

On Thursday I did sort the self centring out on my new flysky fs-i6 and recalibrate the sticks to get them showing true centre on the display.

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First time using my new fastrax stand for filling the shocks. Pretty handy so far.

Not too sure if the spacers are right or not. The shocks have around 8mm travel right now, which seems miniscule compared to the buggies I've built. Going to keep the faith and see how they turn out. Held the piston end of the rod with needle nosed pliers to do the ball connectors up, worked better than I had expected.

2021-05-01_08-15-45

 

 

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Moar progress, I fitted the bearings, spacer and front diff, followed by the suspension arms and the front diff casing etc. I'm not keen on the fact that the diff casing is held together at the bottom by the bumper rather than screws, but I guess it's solid enough if they have kept this design for so long.

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I checked the shocks were clear of air bubbles, fitted the bladders and caps and cleaned the excess oil off and then fitted the stock springs. These needed the thickest spacers to remove all play from the springs which I was again somewhat surprised by. 

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Next I built up the hubs, fitted the drive cups, driveshafts and then the hubs with kit screws etc. Everything moves happily enough, the front diff seems to spin more easily than the rear which wasn't my aim, but I'm not going to fiddle with it until I've run the car. 

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After advice on here and from other research I used the ball connectors rather than self tappers with ball collars to fit the shocks onto the car.

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Finally I'm onto the steering. I wasn't keen on the stock tie rods - they looked like they would limit movement, plus on all of my other cars I now have turnbuckles for adjustment so I ordered the turnbuckle kit. I've made that up as per instructions - 40mm outside to outside, fitted a set of 850 bearings to the arms and will next move on to fitting the ball joints.

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Finished the chassis now, fitted the electronics and run it around the street to see what it's like and what I want to adjust or amend.

I picked up a waterproof, metal geared etronix servo for this build, maybe a little overkill, but better than the other way round. When I fitted the servo saver etc I noticed that the centre position of the servo and the no. of teeth conspire to leave the steering off centre a bit without an adjustable link from the servo to the steering bridge. I've used the trims on the controller to bring it back, but I'm not especially happy with that approach. I need to find out what length turnbuckle I would need to replace it. I've I've kimborough servo saver that would probably be a good replacement and make life easier when doing this. 

The hw 1060 sits nicely in the chassis space and I've tidied up the cables for now although I could, and will improve this. I haven't been overly impressed with the tble 02 esc in the past and just swapped the one out of my terra scorcher for another hw 1060. I've fitted one of the flysky recievers I picked up off ebay too - throttle is ch3 on the fs-i6.

I was surprised by how quick the car felt/seemed on the quick test. I'm glad I fitted the metal motor mount as I imagine there's a good chance of heat building up in it with the taller gearing.

After the run I fitted some 8mm aluminium hexes and shimmed the axles to remove slop, I've some serrated nuts, but I'll get some 5mm hexes and go back to the normal nylocs in due course.

I wasn't going to glue the tyres but put a couple of spots around the inside edge of the rim, not too sure if I should get some foams to fit in these tyres or not so I didn't want to make too good a job of it.

Photos to follow once Flikr catches up...

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Quality, keep the updates coming.

Hope you don’t feel uncomfortable for any length of time.

Great shock stand as well 👍

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2 hours ago, Grumpy pants said:

Quality, keep the updates coming.

Hope you don’t feel uncomfortable for any length of time.

Great shock stand as well 👍

Thank you!

I'm feeling better today, definitely looking forward to everything inside not hurting so much!

Yeah, picked it up after a reccomendation on here. Been handy for sitting cars on while doing work.

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I've ordered some turnbuckles, ball connectors and have some spare ends I can use to make up a connector from the servo to the steering bridge, hopefully I've got my measurements and assumptions right. I've also ordered some cheap 5mm hexes.

Ran the car out on the street again. It oversteers really easily if you jump on the power too quickly in corners, definitely need to learn how to drive it more carefully. Not sure how to make it more stable, perhaps better, not box tyres.

Made a start on the shell. Easily my least favourite part of this hobby. Definitely not doing box art sticker jobs as my stickering always ends up bad. Going to paint it the correct blue, do lights, grille etc, but that is it. 

One thing I like is clear windows, it would be so much easier to use the stickers but I think I will try to mask the windows before spraying. Ultimately this will just be a bashing body. Given the oversteering I imagine it'll encounter a few kerbs - the wheels have a few marks already so getting it perfect isn't that important to me, but I want it reasonable.

Usually I drill and file body holes at the farm but given that I'm stuck at home, I bought a body hole reamer from ebay. I'm not sure if I got a rubbish one or if other people have just been luckier, but it is absolutely rubbish, just pushes the plastic out the way rather than cutting it. Going to try to pick up a file tomorrow to sort the mess out. Have at least got holes in the body now so I can see how it sits.

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Finished trimming, prepping and masking the shell, wing and mirrors yesterday, laid down the black on the wing and mirrors, and ps-16 on the body between showers yesterday, bringing the parts and paint in to sit in front of a fan heater between coats and utilising my girlfriends hair dryer for additional heat and drying. I used the entire can of ps-16, and this morning put two coats of ps-41 silver on as backing. 

I'm really pleased with the colour and appearance of the shell. I'm also really pleased that I went to the effort of masking the windows. 

I used minimal stickers, because I hate stickering stuff, and I am just not that bothered about having it box art, I've just fitted what makes sense.

Took it out for another hoon around in the street. It has been really windy, there are twigs and bits of fir tree all in the road which the car bounced over and provided a few obstacles to drive around. The oversteering seems to have been reduced, I turned the expo down on the controller to reduce the twitchy-ness, and I wonder if the tyres are wearing in a bit.

I had been thinking about stripping the diffs and redistributing grease to make the rear looser than the front, but I am going to leave it for a bit longer to see if it continues to become more reasonable.

I'm a bit disappointed by the play in the rear hubs - the bearings seem to be a bit floppy and the driveshafts move more than I expected even with the shims in place. Going to check the bearings are correct.

Also surprised by how much dust, stones and debris was in the tub after the run. Think I'll order a Kamtec cover, although I worry about how much warmer it will make the motor run, it'll be better without crap getting into all the nooks and crannies.

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Received my turnbuckle adjusters and some ball connectors today, had been thinking of using ball collars and self tapping screws as the steering bridge and servo saver had already been drilled with self tapping step screws but this wasn't possible given the options I had in terms of lengths, so I used leftover ends and the ball connectors with machine threads. The ball connectors seemed to screw in firmly and I'm hopeful they won't fall out. If they do I'll either get connectors with longer threads and put a nut on the back or put ball nuts on and run a screw through from the back. 

I regret not putting the turnbuckle on in the same orientation as the others on the car, it annoys me, but not enough to take it apart again and put stress on those threads. I'll have a run with it later and check the tracking, hopefully it isn't too far out - I don't think I can shorten the link much more.

I noticed the wiper arms moving vertically a little on the tubes they are mounted on where the top deck doesn't quite touch them, wondering if a spacer is worthwhile there.

I also bought some 5mm alloy hexes, but found they had been machined really badly so went back to the 8mm ones I have on there for now.

 

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Got a better set of 5mm hexes, also fitted some JC racing 5 spoke wheels, tyres and foam inserts as although the kit tyres do seem to have worn in and improved, I'm still not 100% on them and wanted an alternate set. I'm hoping the softer rubber will quickly wear in a bit and provide better grip on the street, although they were pretty slippy on my first go resulting in a near full speed run into a kerb reducing the level of newness of the shell.

I set the tracking so it runs pretty much straight without any trim, this did involve removing the new turnbuckle as it was wound right in and didn't want to turn, this did give me the excuse of refitting it in the correct orientation.

A present arrived from the gf earlier, the Kamtec corrado shell, plus the chassis cover which was timely as I had to shake all the gravel and detritus from the chassis after my run around the street. I'm still concerned about it affecting the temperature of the electronics, but keeping them clean is probably more important. I did find the Kamtec lean was a bit easier to crack and end up with splits in places I didn't really want. I'll be extra careful with the actual shell as a result.

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Began work on the corrado shell for the car. I have no idea how the spoiler is supposed to fit the shell, or how I'm going to fit it, but I guess I'll figure it out. Trimmed the shell and spoiler out yesterday. Fiddled around and marked it up today to drill the post holes, used a 5mm drill bit to allow me to make minor adjustments to the positioning. Sadly I've got the holes about 2 or 3mm too far back on the shell so it sits too far forward and the wheels are towards the rear of the arches. I've retrimmed the rear arches to make the wheels look better but have lost the nice clean, straight line I did have. Will try to fix it with wet and dry tomorrow, but I think it'll just be one of those things.  The front arches are less of a bad fit - the pictures make it look worse than it is - and trimming them further will affect the shape of the arch too badly.

Got a combination of paints coming to try out, ordered ps 16, 58 and 59 to try to mimic the blue pearl effect, plus some silver for backing and smoke for the moon roof. Doubt the weather will be kind enough to let me paint it for a few days looking at the forecast.

 

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Lifelong fan of the Impreza! Thank you for sharing your build experience with us so far. And I wish you a speedy recovery!

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great job - especially like the paint job on the scooby body - looks brilliant!

Looking forward to seeing the Corrado shell take shape (one of my all time favourite 1:1 cars) 

Hope you make a full and speedy recovery mate :) 

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On 5/10/2021 at 8:11 AM, bavee said:

Lifelong fan of the Impreza! Thank you for sharing your build experience with us so far. And I wish you a speedy recovery!

Thank you!

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On 5/10/2021 at 8:42 AM, jonboy1 said:

great job - especially like the paint job on the scooby body - looks brilliant!

Looking forward to seeing the Corrado shell take shape (one of my all time favourite 1:1 cars) 

Hope you make a full and speedy recovery mate :) 

Thanks!

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I've been waiting for more masking tape to arrive as I had very little left on my original roll, that arrived today and I've been able to continue with body prep.

The body work, painting and stickers are my least favourite bits. I'm just not accurate enough. I was eased to see that the kamtec shell came with window masks - one less job for me to do wrong. However, they don't fit right. They're too small and my attempts to get then in the middle of the windows failed. I resorted to putting tape on the outside of the windows, drawing round, cutting out and fitting to the correct side of the shell. Sadly, the indentations for the windows on this shell are really faint, so you can't see or feel it through masking tape. I ended up using thin tape drawing the edges on each strip before putting another one on. They haven't turned out terrible, but they aren't amazing either.

I spent a bit of time measuring my actual car and making up a sunroof mask for the shell too. Hopefully it'll look right when painted.

I've just started painting some offcuts to see what the paint comes out like. Hopefully will have a good idea of how to paint it later.

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I experimented with three different offcuts. I put a thin layer of ps 58 pearl clear down followed by a thicker coat, then three thin coats of an old can of ps 59 dark metallic blue. Then I applied another coat of ps 59 to one sample, a coat of ps 16 metallic blue to another and a coat of ps 41, bright silver to the last one. 

I've put photos below and compared them to my Dark Impact shell (ps 59 and ps 41) and the Impreza shell (ps 16 and ps 41).

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1. Silver backing.

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2. Ps 16 backing.

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3. Just ps 59.

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4. All 3.

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5. Against the subaru shell.

As far as I can tell from looking at them, there is almost no discernable difference in the three samples, and there isn't really any pearlescent effect from the ps 58. Maybe I used it wrong, maybe it was a bit too cold? Either way, I don't think it matters too much as to what I do in terms of paint.

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I set about painting the shell today, armed with last nights experiment results. Last night I remembered that the real car features a black plastic number plate surround on the boot lid, and a black lower spoiler on the front, I don't have any matte black, but I do have some gunmetal, so I masked these areas off before putting any paint on. 

The best results I've had have been when the paint and shell have been warm, it was often sunny today with a few overcast spells, so I was fairly happy to paint outside and bring it back in to put in front of a fan heater if it was a bit chilly. I put the cans of paint in a pan of hot water to get them nice and toasty.

After the disappointment of the Pearl effect paint, I wondered if I hadn't applied enough, so I put the entire can of paint on the shell in around 5 layers. You could see an effect, with a slight shimmer/shine in the light, but effectively the paint was completely clear. Next I applied a can of dark metallic blue again in around 5 thin layers. It seemed a bit translucent at this stage, so I applied two layers of the metallic blue followed by two layers of bright silver. Usually it had 15 minutes drying between layers, sometimes more. 

I noticed during the first blue layers that the sunroof mask had started to lift a bit on one corner, and the front splitter mask had started to lift in the corners, which was annoying and made me a bit sad. I stuck them back down with carefully applied extra masking tape, but the damage was done.

I removed the mask for the number plate surround and the splitter and applied a few layers of gunmetal. It's a bit lighter coloured than I would have wanted, but it isn't a bad fit. Most of the number plate surround will be filled with a number plate anyway. The splitter has so blue paint bleeding in the corners, I couldn't remove it with any of the household chemicals I had lying around and left it in the end. It isn't great, but I don't have the patience to wait for paint remover.

I just need my can of smoke paint to arrive tomorrow to paint the sunroof and I'll be able to reveal it properly. I peeled some of the protective film off the rear quarter. The paint does look nice, nice and deep blue, but I can't really pick up any significant evidence of the pearl layer.

In hindsight, I should have done the grille in gunmetal as well. 

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The smoke paint hasn't arrived, I've been bored so I uncovered the front and rear of the shell and wacked stickers on. Badly.

Anyway, I did find that using my girlfriend's hairdryer helped a lot with the stickering.

2021-05-13_04-30-36

 

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The smoke paint arrived a day or so later, and I painted the sunroof without incident. 

On unmasking the windows it became clear that my masking job hadn't been great and some of the a,b amd c pillars are a bit wonky. Still, could be worse.

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I ordered a motor heat sink for it, as I'm a little worried about the potential heat buildup, and also picked up one of the black can 21t motors which are branded in a million different ways to see what that was like. The car is definitely faster than with the torque tuned motor, but it's difficult to quantify by how much. I did notice the esc and motor were warmer than I would have expected given the short duration of my test drive, something to keep an eye on I guess. The heat sink hasn't arrived, hopefully that will have a significant effect on temperatures.

Tempted to get another of those motors to try in my terra scorcher, to replace the Carson Cup machine motor it has.

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