A Cracking Clod Buster Deal.

**PLEASE READ THIS** for anyone looking at this model displayed in my showroom and wondering if I will sell it? PLEASE DON’T ASK!!! I get numerous requests from TC members wanting to buy cars displayed in my Tamiyaclub showroom, and to be honest I get very annoyed when people ask to buy something that is clearly NOT FOR SALE!! This car is part of MY COLLECTION and as such I want to KEEP IT!! So please don’t Email on the off chance that I might sell it to you, if I want to sell any of my cars I will put them up for sale in my TRADE ROOM, so look there to see what cars I am prepared to sell otherwise don’t bother asking cos the only answer you will get is NO!!! thanks for reading this disclaimer. Regards wldnas.

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I couldn’t resist this : ) just recently I have been thinking about expanding my Tamiya car collection, and to this end I had managed to acquire a Bush Devil and a Bear Hawk, there are quite a few more cars on my list of addition like the Avante, Isuzu MU-X, Juggernaut 2 and Dyna Blaster to name but a few and the Clodbuster was pretty much top of that list, now I realised that getting a Clod in good condition could be quite an expensive undertaking and when the funds became available I would start a concerted effort to find one and was quite prepared to pay upto £150-170 for a nice boxed example.

I was toying with the idea of buying an MIB one from Ebay from the Hong Kong MIB kit peddlers but as they are still available in the UK and retail at around £250 I really wanted to get one quite a bit cheaper than that, so imagine my delight when on Thursday 12th June I saw not one but two apparently New Built Clod’s for sale in the Tamiyaclub trade room, one for £100 with Box, Manual two fitted servos and unused decals, and another for £150 with full radio and two batteries that apparently needed minor finishing, the only problem was I didn’t have any money to spare at the time, I was still reeling from the previous months escapades and only had the Emergency funds in my second building society account available to me and that money can only be used for very special situations…

So I ignored it and went on with life for a few days before I finally realised just how good the price was and decided to break into my emergency cash (only if I promised to replace it later ; ) and GO FOR IT!! I decided that the cheaper of the two trucks would be the one to try for (as it had pictures in the trade room, where as the other did NOT) but I realised that such a good deal would not go totally unnoticed on a web site full of Avid collectors, so my first Email was one of hope and prayer that the Clod would still be there, as it happens it was and I managed to get a positive response from the seller Paul Worrell A.K.A WHITEWALLS on early Saturday afternoon, I sent a reply which was returned most promptly, and then I was hailed by Paul using MSN messenger and we started to chat on that.

After a while of pleasant conversation I realised he lived in Hereford which is about 65-70 miles from my home town, I’ve been to collect cars in person before and as he was quoting over £16 for the shipping, it would cost me less than that in petrol to collect the truck myself, so after a quick finalisation of the deal in which he agreed to supply the rest of the radio gear for an extra £30, I then got his address details, downloaded and printed off a few maps and then after arranging an approximate time of arrival, I grabbed a bite to eat and then went up town to get the money out of the emergency fund and set off for sunny Hereford : )

The journey took about an hour and a half and I drove from Leamington to Stratford to Evesham to Worcester to Hereford, most of the route was either A roads or short stretches of dual carriageway, but the road between Worcester and Hereford was particularly slow and winding with a hilly bit in the middle, anyway I arrived safely and was greeted at the door by Paul, He’s called “WHITEWALLS” cos of his interest in American cars and across the road from his house was parked his suitable large and impressive Cadillac : ) Anyway I was led inside to the front room where the Clod was displayed, and what a beauty it was, the immaculate Box was there two with all the packing card and blister box still inside along with the Box for the new Acoms radio, the mint Manual and the unused decals.

I took the opportunity to take a picture or two then we chatted about the truck and his unfortunate situation where by he had to sell off his Tamiya RC’s (All Monster trucks) to raise some addition capitol to help in his new private business venture as a freelance kitchen installer, but he was hoping to be able to buy some more replacement trucks once his business was up and running and his financial situation secure and stable, He also went on to tell me that he had run the truck a few time but found the steering to be very erratic a squirmy, he blamed the weak standard servo that was fitted but after a closer look I noticed there was a screw on each gearbox that had not been secured properly and that allowed the gearboxes to twist and float thus upsetting the steering alignment quite considerably, so I aimed to correct that fault once I got the car home.

I also asked Paul how he got the kit, and he told me he had bought it as a MIB from the guy who now runs Fusion Hobbies for about £140+postage, so fortunately he wasn’t taking too big a loss on the price of the kit from when he bought it new, however I was most surprised and appalled to hear that although he had received many offers for the truck, no-one had been prepared to pay his asking price of £100 : ( he had mostly got offers of around £90 from TC members which I personally think is DISGUSTING! This truck is a STEAL at £100 you could do no better than to buy it at the asking price, and to be honest had I more money available I would gladly have paid my full £150-170 price for it with no questions asked… IT’S THAT GOOD : ) and for all you people how offered £90 for it… SHAME ON YOU : (

Anyway the deal was done and I bid farewell and set off for home, I managed to take a slightly different route going home which saw me tour the Worcester town centre (not by choice you understand : S) and eventually I found my way home, it was quite late by this time and after I had taken a few more pictures there wasn’t really time to do much more to it that night so it was put away till the following day, even then I did not get much chance to work on it as I was going to the Vintage Truck show at Heritage Motor Museum at Gaydon with my Dad and Cousin (TRABBI DAZ) so my time with it would be limited, but I did manage to get the radio gear fully installed and managed to reaffix those gearbox screws, which wasn’t an easy task : (

After I got back I cracked straight on with my task, I managed to get it running but the steering was still all over the place so I had to dismantle the suspension yet again this time to get at the main steering rods in order to adjust them, while I was working on the truck I managed to get a really good look at it, this is the first time I’ve really had a chance to examine a Clod up close, and I found out many new things about I did not know before and it also dispelled a few misconceptions I have had about the vehicle for years, firstly the gearboxes, I’d always assumed that the Clod used modified Hornet gearboxes, and I suppose from a distance the solid diff housing does look kinda similar but I can now see that they are totally original and quite unlike any design Tamiya has used before especially the triple reduction gear train.

The Chassis tub is massive and hugely spacious, the radio gear looks totally lost in it’s gaping maw yet the upper radio tray obscures the neat dual steering servo position hidden underneath, also hiding under there is the Duel power switch? I didn’t even know it had such a thing? On tracking the complicated wiring I can see that the switches purpose is the change the motor connection with the Speed Controller from Series to Parallel and thus changing from Power to Economy mode and back again all at the flick of a switch, quite a neat idea really, the suspension is another puzzle, the large gearboxes are supported on large chunky plastic radius arms that bear an uncanny resemblance to modified Wild Willy rear arms? And the twin shocks on each wheel, although long stroke, have very limited travel thanks to the large rubber bump stop tubes fitted to each shock, but even if these were removed the top of the servo saver on the axle would hit the underside of the chassis such are the limits of the suspension travel : (

The Wheels and tires are Huge, same size as the those on the TXT but with totally solid style white wheels, the Body is typical Tamiya beautifully detailed injection moulded affair which simply oozes class, the body on my truck was painted using automotive spray paint, Paul decided to use it instead of the recommended Tamiya colours as he felt that it gave a much thicker more solid and durable finish and apart from a few bits that usually come through with those types of sprays it’s a very good finish and a slightly brighter shade of red than the original making it really stand out : ) when fitted to the truck it really looks the part, but one thing that troubles me is the fact that the Chevrolet badge that is shown on the grille of the truck on the Box Illustration is not on the model, I have since learned that Tamiya lost the licensing agreement with Chevrolet and subsequently removed all the Chevy references from all the later models, What a pity : (

After the steering adjustments were made and a fresh battery charged it was time for the obligatory test run : ) I decided to test this truck in the garden instead of the street, and at first is seemed a little sluggish, then I realised that the Power switch had been set to “Economy” mode, so a quick flick later and it’s performance was transformed, doing the old “Forwards-Backwards-Wheelie” trick was now a breeze and the truck bounded across the grass with ill regard for the surrounding foliage, however the 4WS didn’t seem to be operation correctly? When the truck moves in a set direction and then tried to steer, for some reason the leading wheels stay straight and only the trailing wheels turn to steer the truck? And it doesn’t matter weather you drive in forwards or reverse the outcome is the same, is there a problem here, or is this normal performance, can someone tell me please.

The fun over I retreated to the house, then I set about applying the decals, some of the decals had already been applied (the ones on the chassis) but the rest where still left uncut on the decal sheet, the long side stripes are quite tricky to apply, but eventually I managed to stick them all down as desired, I’m surprised that this truck doesn’t have more Sponsor decals on it, and just so as to put something in place of the missing Chevy badge, I cut out the tiny Tamiya Two Star logo from the edge of the decals sheet and stuck it down in the place where the badge should have been (well its there on the TXT’s grille?) then all that remained was to do a few minor paint touch ups around the window apertures, rain strips, door handles, front side marker and rear tail lamps, the truck was now complete, and BOY what a sight it makes : )

I did a quick comparison with my TXT-1, the clod is shorter and stubbier but looks a lot taller as result even though it’s not really, they are of about the same width, but the TXT is bar far the more flexible machine and it’s pretty obvious that the TXT is more of a performer and the Clodbuster is more of a poser, just going by the quality of the bodies, detailed Injection moulded or simple and bland Lexan, but there is no doubt that the Clod is an all time classics, first of the true BIG TRUCKS and a must for any Tamiya Collector, I’ve done amazingly well to get mine for the price I paid, and I owe Paul (WHITEWALLS) a massive vote of Thanks for selling me the truck at such an amazing price, I couldn’t have done it without him : )