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Toad16v

Toad16v's new TA03R-S and TA03F rebuild.

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Good evening. 

I've bought another kit. My girlfriend has started a uni course with lectures in the evenings which leaves me with a few hours a couple of times a week with not that much to do, so the obvious thing to do is buy another kit. So far in my collection I have a Hornet, Terra Scorcher, DF03, TT01E and an XV01. I hadn't bothered with road cars until recently and realised I quite liked them. Ideally I would have got a 2wd buggy, perhaps the TD2 will be up my street but in the mean time the TA03R-S had been on my list before getting the XV01 and it wasn't that expensive so it ended up in the shopping basket.

Because I'm a creature of habit it won't be entirely standard, but it won't be massively hopped up. I don't like the screw pins for the suspension, but also couldn't find the stainless steel pins so, ridiculously, bought the titanium pins from a seller in Japan. Hopefully they don't take too long to arrive, but will most likely hold the build up a bit. I've got a low profile etronix servo, same as I used in the XV01, hobbywing 1060, an SMD 21t motor, a collection of steel pinions, full set of rubber sealed bearings - I hoon the cars around in the street so pick up a lot of dust and grit - and finally some silver paint, cos I didn't fancy white.

Because it is getting cooler, darker and most probably damper I've started with the shell, I think the weather will be OK this weekend and I'd like to get it painted if possible so I can slap stickers onto it haphazardly, and have it ready for the chassis at some point. 

So far the shell is cut out, and I'll begin masking it up tomorrow.

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Almost finished the painting. Think I need more ps41 to be really happy though. Going to try to get the dregs of my 2 all but empty cans out and see how I feel about coverage. 

I used coathangers and the thin coper wire from the inside of some old, scrap cable to hang up the mirrors and spoilers and spray them. Worked quite well.

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Decided that there was enough paint on the shell - especially after one of the cans splattered some thick splodges and made the paintwork look a little bit less great.

Really pleased with how it looks unpeeled. Going to let the paint go off for a bit longer before unmasking it.

 

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Had a delivery of parts to help with the build. Hopefully tonight I'll start putting some parts together!

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My girlfriend headed off to uni tonight, so I made my first steps on the build. I want this to take a while, although it feels like I could build it quite quickly if I wanted to. 

The paint is done, but I didn't feel the level of enthusiasm needed to start stickering the shell tonight. Maybe a other night this week...

First thing to do was clear the table, collect tools and parts and open the book. Diffs were the first step. Built one for the front packed with AW grease, and one for the rear with ceramic grease.

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Diffs built, time for the front gearbox.

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My last build was the XV01. This feels like quite a change using self tappers and the less nice plastics.

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Front counter shaft built with some of the rubber shielded bearings.

I've been internally debating whether to use the stock upper arms, or to make up adjustable units. I don't need to adjust the camber, the original arms will probably hold the hub more firmly, and it's an extra expense. I bought a couple of packs of the 54489 short low friction 5mm ball adjusters, a pack of the 50592 5mm ball connectors, and a couple of packs of the 9805761 3x18mm turnbuckles and made up adjustable upper arms anyway. 

The stock arms seem to have holes at 27mm centres, my measurements suggest that to mimic this I need a 7mm gap between the adjusters. This will probably need a little increase due to the way these arms fit, but have set them for now.

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I fitted the shock tower to the top of the gearbox, the cover to the bottom and the pulley to the counter shaft before calling it a night.

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Going to try to get a better lamp to help with the build.

 

 

 

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Tonight I got to use my latest performance increasing hop up. Best £15 I've spent on this model.

A lamp from Argos. 

Found things gloomy last night and struggled to see properly so I ordered the lamp this morning and picked it up at lunchtime. 

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Decided that tonight I would get on with stickering the shell. It's one of my least favourite jobs and one I normally don't bother with most of, but this shell would look a bit bare without them, so I'm doing a proper box art sticker job. I reached sticker 40 tonight in about 2 hours 40. Sticker 40 is the wonkiest and I should have stopped at 39. Nevermind.

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The other slight regret I have is not painting the mirrors. Turns our the sticker colour is exactly the same as ps-41

 

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Continued with the build on Thursday night and picked up a few bits last night and today - some annoyances too.

Finished the stickering on Thursday night. Just realised I put the side repeaters on different ways round, and also noticed a little hole in the paint on the nose of the car and a section that hasn't been painted properly on the spoiler. Overall, it isn't terrible though, I might get all keen and buy some more paint to touch it up, but realistically I'm probably going to drive it into something pretty quickly.

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Once the stickers were done I worked on screw bag B - the rear gearbox. Overall very similar to the front but with an extra gear for the motor and the motor. Again I made up adjustable upper arms, and fitted a 15t steel pinion in place of the stock 14t aluminium one. While I was all enthusiastic about building this, I made a stupid error.

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Can you tell what it is?

I fitted the rear lower arms upside down! Silly boy!

Only noticed as when I built the shocks and tried fitting them I noticed that the ball connectors were way too close together.

All rectified now, shocks built, filled and fitted. Motor wires soldered on to make the connections/cabling as simple as possible.

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I made up the tie rods and an adjustable link from the servo to the steering bridge to help sort any tracking issues out. Centred the servo and fitted the Kimbrough servo saver, with a screw that was too big so it stuck, then unscrewing it caused the entire servo saver to pop apart. There's no chance of me getting the spring back in so I have ordered another.

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Finished the build mostly yesterday evening. The new servo saver hasn't arrived so I fitted the kit one as I just wanted to take it for a drive. I need to rearrange the wiring when the servo saver is fitted.

I took a couple of photos of the build but they're a bit rubbish and show my ridiculous errors. For some reason I cocked up a number of times on this one, I think I got complacent and I should have taken more time to read and check the instructions. One of the sillier things to do was put the belt tensioner in the wrong place, but this was soon fixed when I looked at the book again. I was really surprised by how much difference the top carbon fibre plate made to the belt tension.

Something I did splash out on a pair of anti roll bars from ebay. Pretty soon after I saw the post showing how to make your own bars on here. Nevermind. I needed a second pair of larger washers to hold the front bar and after hunting around found a spare pair of the spoiler washers from my DF03 which fitted perfectly. 

I took it out onto the street at lunchtime and after work and it drives brilliantly, far better than I actually expected. I think it's easily a better drive than my TT01E, more controllable on turns especially considering it was damper and dirtier on the road than it has been while driving other cars. I haven't driven it without the anti roll bars, but I suspect that they make a big difference. I think it is also running far less camber than my other cars. Had a quick blast at the postal racing course. Would be good to time it against my other cars sometime if the weather plays nicely.

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Looks nice mate,

I raced a ta03 briefly after retiring my tl01 and it was night and day. They are great chassis's 👍.

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Nice build! The color looks better than the suggested white.

Good thing you got the stabilizers off Ebay. 
 

How is the balance of the car with the diffs?

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On 10/28/2021 at 6:01 PM, bavee said:

Wow. That color really suits the car!

Thanks. Really pleased the way it came out.

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5 hours ago, wtcc5 said:

Nice build! The color looks better than the suggested white.

Good thing you got the stabilizers off Ebay. 
 

How is the balance of the car with the diffs?

Thank you.

It seems pretty good. Not driven it that much, but got the high torque servo saver yesterday and fitted that before we came away for a weekend in the campervan. Hopefully if the weather is alright next week I'll get to put some more battery packs through it. I found it a lot easier to drive than the TT01E, less likely to slide out, seems to turn better, sharper and more predictably. It probably isn't far off the XV01, which really surprised me. I expected the rear motor, short wheelbase to be a real handful, but it really isn't. I don't know if it is the anti roll bars, or comparative lack of camber but it seems really planted. Going to have a go at this months postal racing course - will be too late to submit, but should give me a benchmark against the other cars I have. I do wonder if it is the relatively low gearing that is keeping things in check. 

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After enjoying the TA03R-S I realised that a TA03F would probably be a lot of fun, so I started keeping an eye out for one. A couple of weeks back I bid on and won what I thought was a TA03F FRP chassis kit, what I actually bought was just the chassis plates. Then a few days back a TA03F with a few bits missing popped up on here for sale so I picked it up, the car arrived today so I've set about stripping the car to see what it needs.

I forgot to take a before photo, sadly.

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It's a grey chassis, so I assume original, has cvds all around on the up side. On the down side the upper arms were screwed into the holes for the anti roll bars splitting them and several of the screw holes have cracked through needing new plastics.

 

What I believe I need to rebuild this car is;

A complete belt tensioner, apart from the pulley - I have a pulley from the R-S kit.

A motor plate.

A motor cover.

A front gearbox.

A rear gearbox.

A front shock tower.

Front uprights.

A new set of shocks.

A set of servo mounts.

 

In R-S news, I imported a set of carbon fibre stabiliser bar supports, and fitted them in place of the washers, they look great and seem significantly more functional.

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Shame about the splits😐

Are you on the lookout for some replacement grey's?

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8 hours ago, svenb said:

Shame about the splits😐

Are you on the lookout for some replacement grey's?

Grey or black, I'm not too worried.

I researched parts last night. The rear gearbox is the expensive, difficult one to get. Buying all the bits new from ebay etc is prohibitively expensive at the moment. Might see if I can repair some of the splits by putting CA glue into the cracks, clamping them up and then putting some fibre glass strands and araldite on the outside.

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I spent a while looking for parts, and couldn't find all the bits I wanted for a reasonable price. So I did the sensible thing, and bought another second hand one.

 

Going to build one from the two sets of parts. Progress and photos to follow.

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Forgot to post any pics, but built one car from the two, and then let it sit for months. Finally took it out tonight with spare torque tuned motor and acheap servo I have lying around in it, and wanged it around the street until the unglued tyre pinged off the rim.

It's lovely. Really nice car to drive, predictable, turns nicely. Slightly concerned about stones and general rubbish being flicked into the belt/pullies, but I think I'm going to really enjoy it. Need to make some anti roll bars for it to see if they work/make it betterer.

 

 

 

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Bought some wire for DIY ARBs a while back. After posting the comments above I sat and bent some while watching a film last night. Fettled and fitted today. Damp road, not the dry tarmac of yesterday, but I think they may have made it a tiny bit nicer to drive. Think it turns in a touch quicker and the back is slightly looser if required.

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