Tamiya DINGO FF01-B buggy conversion project
**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 little something to break in the new year ;)
I've been thinking about doing this for some time, the one type of off road car that is missing from the tamiya line up is a Front wheel drive buggy, Kyosho have done one, Nichimo have done two but for some reason Tamiya never seemed keen on taking a gamble and making one, but they had made a number of FF road car models, so that got me thinking, how hard could it be to make a FF buggy using the chassis off one of their FF road cars models as a basis, well just lately an oppertunity has arose that will allow me to do just that.
Richard Brooker (flat4driver) had won a Tamiya Mondeo BTCC model off Ebay but as he had already got one he only needed it for the Box and a few bits that came with it, the chassis was surplus to his needs, anyway I happened to mention to him that I was thinking about making an FF buggy and he told me about the Car he was getting and that if I wanted he would sell me the chassis so I could make a start on my project, well anyway that car arrived and Richard bought it round today, after we had stripped it of all the bits I didn't need or Richard wanted to keep (radio gear, motor, pinion, shocks, body and wheels and tires) he sold me what was left for £15 UKP which was fine by me, and after he left I started to see what tamiya off-road suspension bits of other models I could use to make this into a buggy.
Well for starters I tried the front wishbones off my Baja Champ but they were too wide so I had to try something else, the suspension mounts reminded me off the Manta ray and as it happens I have a set of Manta ray supension arms lying around as spares (after I modified my Schlesser Buggy Megane from a Manta ray chassis by fitting it with shorter suspension arms) anyway I got the bits out and low and behold they are near enough a perfect fit, I had to trip the pivots bavk a little as they were fouling but after that all I had to do was swap out the steering uprights with Manta ray ones as well anf modift the length of the shocks and make up some custom steering tie bars and the front end was finished :)
The back end was much the same although I had to make up some top wishbone links as the Manta ray ones were a tad short, then to finish off I fitted the Manta ray wheels to finish the job off, and it looks kinda weird with the huge bulk of the motor & gear box sticking out the front but that can't be helped, the ground clearance is quite impressive but the touring car springs are too short and still and I will need to get some slightly longer and softer shocks to make the suspension work better, the next job was to find a body?
As it happens I have a spare Kamtec Astute body set that isn't doing anything so I decided to raid that for the job, cutting it to fit has been a bit tricky as the shock mounting are really chunky and sit quite and if the body is rested on the tops of the shock mounts then it sits way too high and the chassis is not covered properly, so I had to cut the body back and droproproprop it lower than the shock mountings, the end result is not too bad, the body fits over the chassis tub a treat but again the bulk of the front mounted gearbox is hard to hide, I have made a small cab to fit over the top of the gearbox and when painted it should not look too bad, I thought that would be enough then I stumbled across another spare body that I could use, its the original body off my SG Coyote, but since I got a better one its been lying around as a spare, anyway I spied it and thought that it might be a better fit, I dropropropropped it on the chassis and actually it almost fitted stright away, so I got the dremel out again and did a little trimming and actually this body is a better fit then the Astute one, its got better proportions and covers the chassis from front to rear, it does sit a little bit high
but its so chunky that it doesn't look too out of place so I might actually use this body instead, but its quite tatty and needs a lot of work to smarten it up, also I think that a rear wing would not look to out of place on this car as well.
I'm planning to fit a manual speedo to this car and have all the bits save the speedo mount which Richard will try and sort out for me, I also need a 20t pinion but these are minor teething troubles to be sorted out later, for now I have the basis of a rolling chassis and thats not bad for a couple of hours work :)
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UPDATE: Today I managed to get most of the other bits I need to finish off the chassis, and have found a set of Bling wheels & tires to go on the thing, I've also removed most of the old decals from the body and as well as doing a littlr axtra trimming have rigged up a front body mount so that it stays on properly, I've also bodged a front bumber on and trimmed away some of the platic motor guard so as to make the motor more visible and inprove cooling, all in all this is comeing together quite well, I have yet to put in some radio gear and give it a spin, also I have a rear wing that I need to fathom out how to attach it, but I've updated the pictures and its looking a lot more like a workable buggy :)
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UPDATE #2: Now I'd not done any more to this car in ages, I had made it a runner and test driven it, its reasonably quick with the Sport Tuned motor and the pinon that I had but there ius the option of fitting a faster motor and the other pinion which would get better results for sure, the car handles superbly, on dry tarmac it grips like the perverbial Sh...t to a blanket and canb turn on a dime even at full speed, it might be suffering from a tad of over steer but the suspension is so soft and pliable on the rear end that it dosen't step out at all it just follows the front end obidently no matter what you do, in fact this thing turns so smartly it kinds takes you by surprize, still it not running as fast as it could, would be interesting to see how it would go with a faster motor :)
Now as for ther body, I wasn't too happy with the bulky look of the Coyote body so after cutting the battery vents out I went whole hog and chopped the side pods off completely after which I kinda regretted it :S still I had the Astute body to play with but that wasn't exactly working out as I'd hopes either so I put the thing in the box and left it....
Some time later more recently I decided to go back to it and see what I can do, the lack of side pods on the bady was a problem, it looked naff with the chassis sides exposed and it offered little protection, so I had to get some more side pods onto it, I had the under tray for the Repro Astute body lying around and it had a nice curve to it, so I cut the curving side sections and made them into two side pods, I then sorted out some small screws and bolted them onto the body, it was looking better, then I had to fit a wing, again the Repro Astute body set came to the rescue, it has a large 3 piece wing that I cut out and assembled, I then found 4 double ended screw posts and bolted ot to the back of the car, by this time I'd come up for a name for my creation, as I'd used the Coyote body I decied to run with the wild dog theme and in the spirit of Tamiya using animal names I thought that the Dingo the indiginous wild dog of Australia would be a fitting creature to name my car after, that said it also gave me a clue as to the colour to paint the car, as Dingos are kinda yellowish fir on top and a white under side that is what I'm going with an addition of a thin black stripe to cover the join on the side pods is what i've also added, and what buggy would be complete without head lamps, two lamps were sourced and fitted just to the a pillars just infront of the side window front corners, I painted the body on the outside with Tamiya acrillic gloss paint, using a brush that not really thick enough the brush stroked are very visible, it will need 2-3 more saturations coats to cover properly and then I'd got to think about decals.
I'm going to use what I have at hand but I'm toying with getting some custon decals made for the 'Dingo' logo and perhaps a suitable slogan to go on the rear spoiler, this body is now looking more the part but there is still issues with it the main one being the way that the front of the body sits high to get over the bulk of the front gearbox also the side pods don't come down far enough for my liking, I still have the Astute body I could adapt, this I think will look better but getting the mounting sorted out is a pain, I'm moderatly happy with the current result maybe when the body has some decals on it will look more the part but for now its still a work in progress.
Comments
amigamad
Looks good be interesting to see how it runs. You could do the same thing with the ff02 you can fit baja champ arms and body not sure though if it would be anywhere near as good as your ff01 based buggy.
rhenbelz
Interesting conversion, please let us know how it handles
tamiyatom
damm ive wanted to do that for a while now, thats were being lazy gets ya ... looks awesome fun, nice one
tamartin
I feel sorry for this ultra rare body!!! Some Ayk 566B owners would have given their last shirt for it!!! I could cry!!!
wldnas
I'm sorry Tamartin but the body is off an SG COYOTE not an AYK 566B Super Trail, if you check the showroom entry for my Coyote yo will see where the body originally came from, I do have quite a few AYK cars but I don't own a Super Trail, though the design of the two bodies is veryt similar I have to admit.
flux density
I remember Kyosho had a Front gearboxed buggy. The Coyote body fits pretty well, great mod. Tell us how she runs...
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