TOPIC:

Now I can tell.

A Marui Hunter. My first buggy was a Marui Hunter. There was two stars on the box, it came from Japan, but it was from another brand than Tamiya. It has a weird front suspension, the rear chassis structure looked like a copycat of the Tamiya's holiday buggy, but it has something different. It was nice in my eyes.



it's in better condition than I expected, but there is missing parts... Won't repeat what I put in the other post, but I'm happy :-D

I am sure that tbg do a repro body

I even thought this one was a repro body at first (and I know they do one). But looking into the details, it may be an original one. Holes where not drilled on the Hunter body, but there was clear indication. this is the case for the fog lights..

This buggy was very lightly used, apparently. The front of the body got soem mark of use as well as the bumper, but the underside differential carter is in very nice condition. Not sure the reason of the missing parts. Maybe they were used to repair another one in even better condition... For parts, I found it is possible to get some of them on shapeways. The one I can't found are the motor mount, the front gear enclosing (the one going on top of the pinion gear and iddle gear), and the driver figure... I've not ordered anything yet on shapeways, as I consider this being the plan B. I started to put a post in Wanted section here and on another vintage-rc french forum you probably know already... Let's see. In the meantime, i'm really happy with the tires condition (less parts to source, clearly), and to be clear, if this buggy runs at somepoint, I may want to use some Tamiya wheels easier to source to avoid damaging them...

I guess this project is a going to last for few months of parts search and work. Time will tell...
 

VRC is a good source I'm member to.
I have the motor for you. 

I finally managed to finish a Tamiya after a long time of not building. Tamiya nr 58161 is a real TA02 original new build Ford F-150 4x4 Racing Truck. I wanted to keep it classic so i replaced the metalic blue with standard blue, added panel lines, detailed the rear tyre on the truck bed in flat black AND, painted the wheels white. Off-Road racers need white wheels. Period  . Grts! 

Good lookin' TA02 Truck 


Today I have played a bit with swapping parts on my DF01 Lunchbox project.

Yeahhh it Koen it looks very nice.  I'll take my s10 to clean it

@ Silvertriple.   Only been using what came with the machine, I have some other types of mounts that go all the way across the chassis and I plan on using a different filament in the printer so they will be stronger and not so brittle, just learning at the moment so using what they gave me. Just designed a brace for a hornet chassis. Got to print it now see if it fits. its for weak spot at the front suspension mounts and chassis. Will see how they go with a body on. But thanks for the heads up. 
 

Technically not today. But I got up to a few things. 

I found out I didn't have 2 hornet chassis, I had 1 hornet and 1 grasshopper. The grasshopper had lost its front suspension uprights so I 3d printed a set of uprights that were designed for the Grasshopper chassis. They seem to fit ok.  We shall see how they hold out. There's better material to print them from but for now this will do.  Repaired a couple of warped gearboxes, they may work they may not. Lunchy is together and running and started to reshape my Big Bear tyres for when its ready. 



Hornet chassis had cracks at the front so repairing them with DCM and black sprue pieces melted in it. Fixed the small cracks with straight DCM They will need some bracing to stop the chassis flex. Looking for something I can 3d print or I will design my own if I have to. Learning how to use cad at the moment. 

 


Grasshopper chassis had lost the Suspension struts and had a couple of cracks but using the same process as with the hornet, the cracks are fixed and alternative suspension mount is screwed in place to test as soon as I have the parts. The mount will be made from nylon at some point as it will be the best material. 



Lunchy 2 is almost complete, all electronics are fitted and working, no body fitted in these pics but the old flouro red body is on while its on the shelf waiting for it to be repaired and repainted. 





Gearboxes have been sort of repaired where possible, theyr'e not the best but may be ok to use. They were warped somehow. I have used a hot air gun to get them back into shape. They actually screw together now. They didn't before.



Packed out the Marui Big Bear tyres to try and get the shape back as they had developed flat spots, Used foam pipe insulation. Seems to work ok and its cheap.


Got a few Lunchy tyres to do too, nothing major, just slight flat spots. tyres are ok apart from that. Need to source some soft seat foam or similar so I can cut out donut shapes from that to fit. 

Are there any tyres that are the same size and design as the BigBear tyres? 

That's it for the moment. Attempting to print some Lunchy Rims lots f hours to go..

Imex and Proline used to make tires for Big Bear, but they a obsolete these days.
There is nothing on the marked today that match the size of the tires, they are very wide.

These are the closest I've found.
They are 2.2, 130mm diameter and 75mm wide.
www.aliexpress....73441.html

Big Bear tires 115mm diameter.

You could cut the tires in the link down so the would be 115mm and then fit them on Lunchbox wheels that are 1.9" in diameter.
That way you get the correct width and diameter to match stock Big Bear tires.

Back around 15 years ago we did cut down plenty of tires to match our crawler needs as there was very few tires on the marked that fitted our needs.
You need rubberized glue for the tires so they will remain flexible.
Proline 2.2 Masher 2000 was a very popular tire to mod.

The easy way is to fit Lunchbox tires that are the correct diameter at 115mm, but they are 10mm narrower than the Big Bear ones.