More Vintage Kyoshos

After a few month of collecting projects I have nearly finished all the chassis I wanted to restore. I must thank TC members who kindly offered me some of them, and my friend Nils (Nilsken) in particular.

So it's an Optima Mid in it's basic version, An Original Ultima and (a personal favorite now that I have this example) the Ultima Pro.

The Optima Mid has had most parts replaced with new ones and I also found new screws for it, which to me is a very important part of the overall look. The experts will spot that the shock mounts are not the aluminium ones but it's temporary as I have sourced the right ones. Wheels were nearly new but I decided to spray them as they were slightly yellowed. Apart from that, it's all stock with a nice new Le Mans 240ST. Bodyshell is on it's way from our very own Marwan, king of Kyosho repros.

The Original Ultima involved more of restoration work, especially the wheels. They were in a terrible state but as you can't get new ones easily I used my usual technique to salvage Kyosho wheels. I'm pretty pleased as it's hard to tell they were worked on now. The front tyres which are also a pain to find were replaced with some SM-26 Kyosho Sandmaster/Outrage tyres, they have less ribs than the originals but for me they work nicely and are availlable and not expensive. It has the front anti roll bar that came with the kit originaly (usually lost) and the optional rear one. Shocks were very good indeed (miracle) and just needed Pargu's red aluminium clamps. The cage also was in pretty good condition and just needed a good clean. Just the body left now...

Last one is the Ultima Pro. I think it's now one of my favorite. All this smoked aluminium is fantastic to look at. This kit came with loads of options, I had to get some of them new to replace the damaged ones. the one I really didn't know about is the special spur gear W-0110, it's basicaly the same as any Ultima or Optima but with 48 DP mesh instead of the 32 DP, so that you can use the finer mesh pinions. Its also made of a stronger plastic. Another obscure Hopup is the hard final pinion (OT-76) made of steel instead of butter. I added the special counter gear W-0111 which I had 'in stock' and a new Le Mans 360ST for good measure. This chassis got the best I could offer and is almost entirely new apart from the back wheels, the adjustable tie rods, the F+R bulkheads all cleaned and/or restored. Again only the body left to do...

Comments welcome as usual, thanks for reading!