TOPIC:

OK. Here's the backstory (again). A little while a ago, my 15 year-old stepson brought home a Tamiya Frog from his Dad's house. He and his Dad had rebuilt this out of his (Dad's) old Subaru Brat and (I think) an old Frog bought off eBay.
This meant that there was (almost) a complete car in bits left over. This prompted me to dig out my pile of old RC bits and start to rebuild the Brat.
The main problem (and I think what caused the car to be abandoned in the first place, 25-odd years ago) was that the chassis was broken off just behind the front suspension (no pics, sorry). I bought a new "A" parts from eBay and set to work to build a runner for my 10 year-old son and hopefully get him interested in something practical and away from the XBox.





The front bumper mount was broken (on both cars) and were fixed with a couple of CRP combined bumper/mounts from eBay. So far just dismantled and cleaned parts and some reassembly. I have an MSC from another model that I will probably modify to fit (unless I feel generous/lazy and buy a ESC). I will probably keep the 380 motor for now because I have the pinion for it and also want to keep the speed down a bit until my young lad learns to control it!

Bodyshell. Not too bad. Just a couple of cracks and a chunk missing from the front wing. Also some scratches from sanding with too-coarse sandpaper.




Anyone got a new windscreen/sunroof clear part? Can't think how to fix this neatly otherwise.

Front panel:


(yes, that is Meccano!)

It's finished! (not really )

I was thinking about just filling the roof and painting it to look like a solid roof, but was worried about "scale" looks. However, it looks like the sunroof was an option (at least on early models)


..so I don't feel so bad.

My experience With youngin's is that most can't grasp the concept that the sticks are proportional - it's full throttle, then full lock left and right until they crash, then repeat Bearing that in mind TBH I don't see the point of doing anything beyond making it barely functional...


If it were down to me, building it for me to use or for the shelf, then finding those sales pics would be justification for filling in the roof, the windscreen doesn't have a lot of curve on it so could be replaced with anything flat & clear, spray red & make a set on the minimal graphics found on the top pic.

For a responsible yoof (and only you can make that judgement) I'd be looking for a lexan spare body that came with the re-re (or maybe a Repro frog shell).

An alternative would be to sit your lad down to watch the Mad max trilogy, then any bits of scrap, mesh, Meccano, matt black & fake rust weathering make a feature of the state of the shell

Another option - may I present the world's least capable scaler:




Technically it's a Frog with Pajero wheelie wheels, but you get the idea ... locked diff. & 55T motor may not be you idea of fun though ... I did have a 35T in their for a while & it was a hoot

I did think about the "rat look" as an alternative (edit: This was in response to your Mad Max post, not the one above )

I am going to need some steering/msc arms for this and future (?) projects. In the old days you could go down the local model shop and buy generic rod ends quite cheaply, then make up arms of any length using lengths of studding.
However my current "local model shop" - eBay - seems to be short of model rod ends and all those listed seem to be for specific models. Do you know of any source for these, or am I looking for the wrong things?

Yes, I do like the look of the Kamtec Bowler shell, although I would probably go for the rally car look rather than crawler look.


Or the Kamtec Landy shell - my lad would probably like that:

A first Brat as first RC in 2012... Lucky boy!!!!
An advice, don't spend too money. you risk to cry after the first run.
Keep your old body to run...

Sunroof suggestion - chop out the busted bit & replace with CD case material - it bonds well to the original "glass" & ABS body materials with model-making "Styrene cement".

Steering/MSC rods - buy bicycle spokes off Ebay - one end is already threaded (M2?) & will happily screw/hold in generic M2 plastic rod ends, the other end can be double-bent as per the originals. Get the stainless ones as they're softer & easier to work with than the hard zinc plated ones. Stainless won't go rusty either. Only thing to watch is that the wire is very slightly thicker than the originals (2mm vs 1.8mm I think), but this will probably work FOR you, taking up the slack in any worn holes. The leftovers can be chopped up for use as wheel-driving pins etc

Happened to be passing Screwfix today so popped in and got a bottle of De-Solve It graffiti remover.
Seems like the decals were attached pretty firmly to the paint, but the paint was not attached very well to the body...


After one application - not too bad.


The Sand Scorcher body, on the other hand, has been painted with Hammerite