Never knew I wanted one
I'm not normally into buggies, and this model came out after I had lost interest in RC as a young adult.
I always loved my childhood Hornet and after reading a couple of interesting restauration threads on the TC vintage forum about Super Hornets and Grasshopper II Super Gs I started scouring eBay for them.
I was then fortunate enough to pick up this project on a local, Danish auction site. The price was quite reasonable and the car itself is complete and not too abused. Or so I thought. The list of issues include:
Steering tie rods bent (replaced with left-over FAV ones)
Front tyres dry rotted (will try some repair glue for scuba suits)
Rear tyres worn down (replaced with DT-02 Sand Rover ones)
Headlights ripped out of body (body epoxied and filled)
Driver body missing, head present (new Tamiya sprue including the missing headlights purchased)
Damper rods bent and corroded (replaced with the corresponding parts bag from a DF-03 courtesy of Tamico that also yielded new o-rings and correct diaphragms)
Damper pistons wrong
Damper springs corroded (simply polished with Autosol)
Spring broken in the rear suspension mount (replaced with Grasshopper II parts which look different but are supposed to be direct replacements)
Wheels have white marks from overly tightening the wheel nuts (heated with a hair dryer and then clearcoated)
Front bumper broken (replaced with a new part fron Tony's Tamiya Parts)
Front uprights seized and worn (replaced with black F-103 parts 54154 that are carbon reinforced from Tamico)
Tub bent in the front (since it wasn't broken I just tried to relieve the stress marks with a hair dryer)
I'm still trying to decide on decals, I'll probably go with MCI from Canada