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Corranga21

Resurrecting an old Bush Devil

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About 10 or 12 years ago, I picked up an unknown Tamiya at a car boot sale for somewhere around 30 quid. I could see it was missing some bits but looked largely complete, then life got in the way and I stuck it in a cupboard.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve stripped it right down, cleaned it up and started rebuilding, making a list of the parts it needed as I was going.

To say it’s a bit rough is an understatement, a couple of weeks back I wrote it off as uneconomical to fix due to no longer available parts, and perhaps as I have no memories of it as it was used, anyway, I thought about it some more and decided to trying to do it as a proper budget build, I scored out most of the required parts, raided my tiny parts box, bought some M4 bolts and nuts from a DIY store and made the broken servo mount plastic part with a dremel. 

I bought a replacement chassis on eBay simply as it was ending soon, though the original wasn’t actually that bad and could have been used I think.

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Here is the underside showing my home made part:

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I’ll probably stick an ESC in there, but I fear the pair of servos is holding it in!

Next up is trying to fashion or repair the completely destroyed front bumper, and a body all on the cheap of course 😂

I think the original body is beyond repair.

I’d like to get the wheels stripped back to pink too. My attempt with some kitchen cleaner on one failed..

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My other vintage boot sale Tamiya Mad Bull is sneaking into shoot there too :)

Over all plan is simply to keep it running and protect it a bit, and teach my 7 year old daughter to R/C on the grass in my back garden :)

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Welcome to the club :) 

That chassis makes for a great garden basher, I love mine, some parts are hard to find but mostly they're a robust design (more so than earlier monsters that shared the same basic chassis).

Should be a great car for learning on :)

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So...

Many of the original Blackfoot, Monster Beetle, and Frog parts will fit since they all share the same chassis.  The Super Blackfoot shares the same rear transmission as the Bush Devil.

Also, you can get a lot of the SBF/BD parts on Shapeways.  

This might make finding parts easier for you.

Terry

 

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I mentioned the shell was past saving, I thought I’d investigate just in case…

The paint job isn’t great, it’s painted on the outside, the black lining around the windows is electrical tape.

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It looks like someone has tried to fix it with a thin layer of fibre glass car body repair or something then painted it black

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A close up on the underside shows it’s almost completely split in 2!

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If the paint was nice, or if it’s at least had original decals I’d perhaps have tried some sort of repair, but looking like this, I don’t think it’s worth it

 

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3 hours ago, Frog Jumper said:

Barbie says:  "Cool Bush Devil!"

ead0nGc.jpg

 

i guess the body looked too run down at the moment so she took the chassis from ken.

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Ken stays at home and does the dishes...

Back on topic, isn't the LandFreeder body the same as the OG Bush Devil body???

Terry

 

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2 minutes ago, Frog Jumper said:

Ken stays at home and does the dishes...

Back on topic, isn't the LandFreeder body the same as the OG Bush Devil body???

Terry

 

that original body looks rough indeed. i am too attached to my RC bodies to ever let them get that cracked first. im obsessed with reinforcing the bodies before they have a chance to get damaged when i run them. it does make the bodies heavier but im not racing them. i just really dont like breaking the bodies in the first place and take actions before it happens.

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The Bush Devil having a lexan / polycarbonate body didn’t help I guess.

I took some paint stripper to the outside, below the blue is black paint, then red paint, then the lexan which seems to be black underneath (confirming what it looks like on the underside). Not stripping it all though, it’d take forever and I’m not sure it’d hold together. 
I was thinking I could rivet in some plastic inside (since the back end is basically not attached to the front) then decorate with some dabs of rust coloured paint for effect on the broken off / missing pieces, but the blue looks terrible and as I didn’t paint it, to me it’s just an ugly broken shell.

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21 minutes ago, Frog Jumper said:

Ken stays at home and does the dishes...

Back on topic, isn't the LandFreeder body the same as the OG Bush Devil body???

Terry

 

Yes! I hadn’t realised that, but it’s definitely the same. I think I want something ABS though, especially knowing this design seems to break in half!

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The standard BF hardbody is a direct fit, but suffers from other breakage issues.

Terry

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21 hours ago, nel33 said:

that original body looks rough indeed. i am too attached to my RC bodies to ever let them get that cracked first. im obsessed with reinforcing the bodies before they have a chance to get damaged when i run them. it does make the bodies heavier but im not racing them. i just really dont like breaking the bodies in the first place and take actions before it happens.

How do you reinforce lexan/polycarb bodies without affecting the outside looks of them? Is it something that needs to be done before paint? I have an old cracked lexan body that I'd like to respray and use on a chassis, but it has similar issues to Corranga's--namely that it's split in key points where more strength is needed. Those key points are not flat, so tape will not suffice. I notice this happens with a lot of truck style bodies because of where the body mounts are located at the front and the back, the body sags in the middle and puts extra stress in some places, increasing chance of breakage.

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I use a metal foil tape to reinforce my lexan runner bodies…

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Back in my pre-Tamiya racing days, we used to reinforce the ‘practice shell’ by lining with duct tape, it worked pretty well, but was more about preserving the shell for all long as possible than making strong  and looking great.

 

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23 hours ago, El Gecko said:

How do you reinforce lexan/polycarb bodies without affecting the outside looks of them? Is it something that needs to be done before paint? I have an old cracked lexan body that I'd like to respray and use on a chassis, but it has similar issues to Corranga's--namely that it's split in key points where more strength is needed. Those key points are not flat, so tape will not suffice. I notice this happens with a lot of truck style bodies because of where the body mounts are located at the front and the back, the body sags in the middle and puts extra stress in some places, increasing chance of breakage.

I do the full paint job with silver or black backing depending on the colors. Clean and in your case secure the cracked areas from the outside to make it fit nicely. Place the fibre tape and smear the shoe goo on with a gloved finger until the mesh areas are filled (any gaps do let dirt stay stuck there). Do take care about clearances for body mounts and normal contact with the shell sides of chassis. I usually use plastic juice boxes pieces as body post supports and keep the glue under ther reinforcement. Any extra on top might make it hard to insert body clips. I left the repairs obvious when you look into the window of the shell but some paint can hide that better if you prefer it.

Paint on top or under the repair is debatable as paint or glue could fill the gaps though I opted later on to just spray exterior after repair is done. The fiber tape application is a bit tricky when it comes to sharp angles. Sometimes you need to add extra glue to the angle as the tape doesn't want to hold the sharp angle well. The extra glue provides a smoother curve to stay better. You might need to cut and weaken the mesh links for more complex angles. Sometimes small pieces for that face work best. It's best to adhere bottom to top if you are looking at Interior shell as the tape wants to return flat. Strategically compromise it on the up angle ie downward angle when installed on chassis. I did need to resort to glomping glue into the tight areas the tape was too tricky to put into. Examples of weakening the mesh are lines to make then fit the form better as one long piece wants to stay inline. I've also cut every few side by side links to let the tape flex more into round curves.

I've had a bit of practice, did 4 bodies so far. The GTR R33 was a bit tricky but the stock slash body was a pain but I used my lessons on what works well on certain angles. The Jconcepts slash desert Baja body has this shallow top ridge on the roof. Glue to cut the tape angles and single pieces and strategically compromised parts worked well. I still got 5 more bodies to paint and reinforce though one is CW01 and im just doing round corners of the plastic body.

The shell when reinforced is heavier, it depends on how much glue you used ie net weight of the tube. I don't plan to race mine so it's ok. I'd suggest you reinforce the important areas and a bit extra around that to support the important stress points. If you want the full she'll done then 1 full layer and 2 on critical areas though you can still do 2x on critical areas and 1x on surrounding areas to save weight. 2 full coats add alot of weight with the tubes. I went through 2.5 tube for one layer for one entire 1/10 body.  I'm just waiting for them to send the sponsored decals to install on the bodies LOL

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Speaking of shoe goo, one of the tyres on the Bush Devil was torn, where it had been sitting for over a decade. As I said, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to spend too much money on a very broken kit, so did a quick repair job to help me get it running again…

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It’s not pretty, but it got it rolling!

I then cut up some upholstery foam for inserts, it ran much better on the grass afterwards…

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….until I ran it into my daughters slide and the servo connection broke. Turns out the nut holding the ball joint on fell off and I’ve lost it in the grass. New parts ordered, it felt fun whilst it was working, I think the wheels are spinning in the tyres so once I get the parts to get it running again, I’ll investigate

 

 

 

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Nice project. I got a beaten up BD myself, all the same issues. The tires spin on the wheels, body split in the middle. Plus the rear shock mount broke during some lively running. I glued it a couple of times but eventually caved in. There was a replacement available as a 3D printed part which was really cool. I love that it is kit number 101 :D

 

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Almost everything on the BD front can be replaced with the comparable BF part.  I use a standard BF front tower and knuckles on mine, with only the BD radius and suspension arms.

The rear is a different story…

Any 2.2” tire will fit the BD wheel so a cheap set of BF or generic tires will work.

Landfreeder bodies are available on TamUSA.

 

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1 hour ago, J@mes said:

I love that it is kit number 101 :D

 

I love the BD.  The blue chassis is fantastic. In my mind, even though it’s #101, it’s still one of the first 100.  Maybe 100+…

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Ok, so, the budget Bush Devil rides again! Replacement servo parts arrived, so I then had a running chassis again, then rain stopped play.

I picked up a set of cheap tyres from AliExpress (but shipped from the UK, came via Amazon!), they came with foam inlays too. I think they are actually 1.9 inch tyres, but they stretched quite happily on to the Bush Devil wheels so all good.  Taking off the wheels, I took some paint stripper to one of them to remove the silver and completely ruined it. I thought it was some sort of citrus based stripped but no, chemical, didn’t realise until pink started coming off on the cloth :(

Then today, my budget body arrived, needed some body post mods for the rear but quite happy with it, a bit different to standard mind..

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