“959 Help”

[Maverick74 63]

So after many years of wishing I finally acquired a 959.  It was only driven on-road so parts and plastic in great shape.  Restoration hopefully won’t break my wallet.  As versed as I am with Tamiya this is uncharted territory for me.  Did the 959 not have diffs?  I haven’t gotten into the gear boxes yet so if it does have diffs they are locked.  Being the year it came out differentials we’re standard or at least I thought.  Can anyone give me some info and if it’s a plain drive gear is there a diff upgrade that I’m not aware about?  Any help would be much appreciated

[Juggular 4964]

Congratulations! Since there is no way of knowing when (or if) Tamiya would rerelease, you might as well get it instead of waiting 10 years. (I'd settle for MF-01X in a 959 shell)  

Here is an instruction booklet. (there are diffs) 

https://www.yumpu.com/fr/document/read/41238551/tamiya-porsche-959-paris-dakar-manual-competitionxcom

 

[Maverick74 63]

Hey thank you for the manual however looking at it I’m only seeing diffs for the rear.  I want to say I heard that the difference between the 959 and the Celica is that the Celica had a center ball diff.  I guess I’ll just pop it open to see what she has!  Thank you again

[Juggular 4964]

Step 7 is showing one diff, step 17 seems to show another. 

 

[KEV THE REV 2319]

Both 4WD . The Celica has a different 'centre diff' set up to the 959

[Maverick74 63]

So thanks gentlemen,  the disassembly is complete.  When I do a restoration , the disassembly is one of my favorite parts not only to clean and Re-soften the plastics but to locate and identify all broken/damaged/missing parts.  I took a leap of faith when I purchased because I really couldn’t tell from the pictures what I was getting myself into.  It looked to have everything but the fact that the seller wasn’t trying to inflate the price to what all others are going for and accepted my first offer which I didn’t think I’d had a chance and he would reject.  So knowing how pricy a 959 restoration could be I assumed the worst. Once getting it i noticed how clean it was with the exception of the body which was in the condition you would think it be in after 30 plus years.  The wheels looked brand new but only came with slicks so I assumed the reason for the wheels, bumper and bottom chassis guard did not have scratch and to be in this shape must have been driven on -road only.  The first mechanical issue I noticed was that the wheels were rotating in the same direction hence why I asked if it came with diffs and once you guys said yes I assumed the guy locked or glue them for whatever reason having seen that before. As I was disassembling prepping for its sonic bath I also was  looking for breaks or cracks.  After finding none I slowly started to realize from how good of shape each piece was in I wondered if that guy had the intention on restoring it and buying all the parts he needed to restore and for whatever reason decided not to and sold it to me.  Once I noticed the screws looked brand new and they were  from that period it only reinforced what I was thinking.   I kept waiting to discover a part that needed to be replaced and had every piece down to the servo saver in the cleaner with the exception of the gear boxes which was driving me crazy why the diffs seemed locked.  Once I had them open I then saw brand new gears and the reason why the diffs were not working.  The poor guy didn’t have the pinion meshed correctly and once I looked hard at it I saw the teeth were bent I knew the drive gear was going to need to be replaced.  He used locktight on his drive cups which I assumed he stripped them running it when his gears weren’t meshed correctly and not a dab of grease anywhere. Then it made a sense why he sold it like he did with all new parts.  He spent a lot of money for restoration and got really ticked off when he couldn’t get it running right and just washed his hands with it and took a loss. So the only thing I needed to buy were new body, decals ,new gears and bearings which he might have kept and replaced with plastic ones. Anyway sorry for the Novel I really wanted to share that.  I’ve always had crappy luck and was the guy who never wins anything but in this case I feel so lucky.  Thanks for your opinions and listening 

[Tex76 43]

You've been very lucky indeed!

Plastic bearings were provided in the original kit and you did the right thing in sourcing metal ones.

Re: differentials

as you already discovered, the 959 has front and rear differentials; you can install the centre differential from the Celica (it was available separately as a hop-up: when I bought one over a decade ago it was easy to source, don't know if it's rare now), but I can't comment on its effect as I've just rebuilt my 959, but I've not run it yet as the electronics are giving me a headache.

[Exit13 673]

On 8/24/2021 at 7:39 PM, Maverick74 said:

So after many years of wishing I finally acquired a 959.  It was only driven on-road so parts and plastic in great shape. 

Pics or it didn’t happen