TOPIC:

Can anyone enlighten me on the history of the 5x11x4 solid brass bearing
Was it standard in any models?
If not was it a cheap/expensive hopup
Was it a forerunner of the ballrace bearings
And what yearish did they stop being readily available as a hopup, superseded by ballrace I assume
Hope some one can make sence of that and plshine some light on it for me
TIA Alan

The older tam I have with brass bearing is the holiday buggy. And the younger is the top force. I can't say if it was a hop up. 5X8X2,5 bearings are still in brass to.

They were definitely standard in the SRB’s. I’m sure like a lot of other people I’ve got a load of them knocking about.
I think the Cheetah and XR311 came with brass bearings.
Everything else I’ve ever owned from the early days were plastic.
Sand Rover ( that green/grey colour), Hot Shot ( white ). Pretty sure the Porsche 935 was plastic certainly at the front.

The 3 speeds had brass bearings ?


I don’t think they ever came as a hop up ?

You're thinking of semi-porous Phospor Bronze bearings ... actual brass bearings are few and far between, IIRC there might be one in the Wild Willy (and derivate) gearboxes where one has flat machined on the outside? Even the tiniest ones (730s) are still phosphor bronze.

XR311/Cheetahs (#4 & #7) have 1050 Phospor Bronze bearings, the March 782 BMW has black plastic (#13) but as already said, the SRBs (starting at #15) go back to p/b.

1510 phosphor bronze bearings are still supplied in current CC-01 kits, 850 p/b still appear in the pajero wheelie gearbox cars (grasshopper, lunchkins etc).

TBH I don't think you're going to find any pattern as to when/where they're used, but wherever they were, they are standard fit. TBH I think they're better than plastic, as although the phospor bronze bearings do cause a bit of wear on the shafts they run on, generally it's the bearings themselves that wear, and can be replaced. The plastic/nylon bearings tend to destroy the shafts they run on first, especially when exposed to any sort of dirt (I'm thinking especially of the front stubs and outer gearbox bearings on my first Grasshopper here).

Many thanks Flo and Jonny
The main thing is I now know they were only fitted as standard and were not an optional part, I keep getting hornets and the like that have had them fitted in the front wheels, which is why I was wondering if they were a hopup as such

One last related question, what was the first model a ballrace was offered as a hopup/alternative, I would imagine this is one for you Jonny

Well if I am taking a guess ( and I am guessing here )
I would say That the first I saw any ballraces was a hop up for the SRB series, OK anything that used 1150 bearings ( they were very expensive too, about $20 for 4 back in the day) and Wild Willy came stock with ballraces on the wheels in 1982??
Am I close here????

goldfish999 wrote:

Many thanks Flo and Jonny
The main thing is I now know they were only fitted as standard and were not an optional part, I keep getting hornets and the like that have had them fitted in the front wheels, which is why I was wondering if they were a hopup as such

One last related question, what was the first model a ballrace was offered as a hopup/alternative, I would imagine this is one for you Jonny

I'm going to say the XR311 (#4), as (looking at the manuals) although the first three Tamiya RC cars did have bearing surfaces, they look to be very much specially made sleeves rather than anything off the shelf. AFAIK Tamiya have never offered complete ballrace sets* for specific cars, just small numbers in a pack, the earliest of which looks to be SP-1036, which is pair of bearings, probably 1150s from the compatibility chart. the 4-pack of 1150s in a plastic box (which is the one I'm familiar with) came much later I believe.

* There is a set for the RM cars steering

oldwilly wrote:

Well if I am taking a guess ( and I am guessing here )
I would say That the first I saw any ballraces was a hop up for the SRB series, OK anything that used 1150 bearings ( they were very expensive too, about $20 for 4 back in the day) and Wild Willy came stock with ballraces on the wheels in 1982??
Am I close here????

I think you're answering a different question there ("which was the first car with (some) ballraces as standard?") - but that's a good shout , I can't think of anything before that, and I'm not sure I CBA to look through all the manuals between the XR311 and the Willy on what's probably a wild goose chase, the only times I can remember having ballraces in a kit was a "bonus item" in a Re-re Brat, and in the re-re Bruiser. It's rare for Tamiya to show any generosity in terms of ballraces

The Willy/Wheeler (and the other cars that use a similar chassis) are a bit of an oddity in including ballraces - but they are the "funny" 608ZZ size, which i don't think have ever been used in any other RC vehicle. I can only image that due to their ubiquity in rollerskaes and skateboards they were (comparitively) very cheap at the time and Tamiya decided to base the entire chassis design around them?

The 4-box of bearings (50073) were released as early as 1978.

tamiyabase.com/.../735-50073