TOPIC:

Hi everyone, have probably come the same route here as a lot of you.

Had a Tamiya Sand scorcher in the early eighties and also purchased a used lotus 79 the green Martini one, had great fun with them back in the day, though didnt use the lotus much, and forgot about them for quite a few years.

Decided to dig them out and see what I could do with them. Discovered that there wasnt a lot wrong with the lotus but have a fair bit of work to do on the sand scorcher and wanted to have a go at restoring them.

After searching the internet it became clear that the martini lotus 79 is a bit of a rareity, this has put me in somewhat of a dilema, I am starting think the best thing I can do is to sell this on as I have not restored one of these before and I do not want to mess up a rare rc car that someone else could do a better job with. So I am thinking of possibly trying to source the few bits I need for this and use the funds I get from selling the lotus to restore the ss as although a great rc car is not as rare as the lotus so if I mess up its not as big a deal for me.

here are some pics of the lotus:

6E6B1794 by petewallace1 , on Flickr

6E6B1792 by petewallace1 , on Flickr

Parts I am trying to find for the F1 Lotus are bumper set front and side, some new tyres, and mirrors (imagine this will be hardest to find) thats about it really.

The sand scorcher needs quite a lot more including universal joints, bearings, tyres, mirrors, door handles, driver, rear body clamp the list goes on lol.


Just not entirely sure wether to risk taking on the lotus or pass it on to someone with more experience and time to a proper job of it.

Cheers for taking the time to read my long winded post and again Hi to everyone.

Pete

Welcome to TB! If you feel like restoring the Lotus, I'd say go for it. It doesn't look like it needs much more than a bit of spit and polish anyway. If you are careful I am sure there is not much can go wrong.
If you get stuck, there are plenty of people here very happy to help.

Welcome guy.

Thanks, Stingray and Martin.

Think I might go for it after all, might try my luck with a Ford Ranger shell first that I have, as that has a pre-coloured body like the lotus so if I can get that looking half decent will have a go at the lotus, just a bit new to it all so not sure the best way to approach it.

Do you think it would be possible just to clean and polish the shell as best possible then apply clear layer over the decals, or try and somehow remove yet save the decals sand down and respray the body and try and re-apply the removed decals and finish off with clear. Im guessing the second option would be best but am a bit wary of destroying the original stickers.

Thanks again

Pete

Pete,
I learned on this forum that all bodies merit to be restored. If you can remove the decals, you can reposition them but it is a big job. Maybe can you find repro. If you don't want use too many money, you can just polish it. It present not so bad. Some of my cars are poorer. Keep your money to buy the spares you miss.
Cheer
Flo

Thanks for your advice, think I shall just clean it up best I can and polish it, and like you say save the money for the missing parts.

Cheers Pete

:)II think that just a good cleaning with a very soft polish (lustror) is largelly enough. If you want to giveit more shiny with clear coat, you have to ungrease all your body. Especially if you polish it before coating.

Thanks ill give the polishing a go

Welcome, Pete.

Hi pete! What part of lincs are you from?

If I were you, I'd leave the Lotus well alone. Don't repaint it, don't laquer it. A gentle wash in warm soapy water to get any dust off, but leave it at that. Models (& vintage cars) make much more money in original unrestored condition, particularly if the original condition is good. It's not worth the risk of paint reactions/damage from application of incompatible laquer either. As for the the missing bits, I'd guess you'd be very lucky to find them & even then it could take a very long time. Stick it on the shelf as-is & keep a lazy eye out for the missing bits.
Personally, I would say if you like the model, keep it. As rare & tidy as it is, it probably won't make much if you Ebay it. The Sand Scorcher is likely to make much more money as these are more popular than the old 1/12th cars.

An SRB restoration is always fun, there's lots of metal mechanical bits to mess about with.
If you plan to run the car, don't bother replacing the UJs - like the rest of an SRB they'll destroy themselves before you've flattened your first battery pack...

Things to watch out for if you plan to run the car -
Loose UJ grubscrews
loose/stripped front suspension arm grubscrews
Radio box fixing "well-nut" grommetty things too loose (Box bangs about) or too tight (Box cracks/splits)
Loose/worn suspension balljoints - either tie the top & bottom arms together with cable ties, OR replace the balls in the knuckles with "screw-through mounting" ones, to stop the arms popping off.
Bearings - the bronze bushes don't fit very well in their holders, leading to lots of floppy shafts. Either secure the bronze bushes with "Bearing fit" eg Locktite, or replace them with ballraces.
Servo tape - the MSC fixing servo tape HAS to be high quality stuff, otherwise heat build up will have it releasing itself & you'll get runaways, electrical shorts & fire. I've never owned an SRB that hasn't caught fire at some point in it's life...
Radio interference - particularly if you're using 27MHz AM radio. Metal to metal contact causes it, the metal antenna fixing being the main culprit (The antenna rubs on the base fixing knurled nut thingy as it boings about). Rub a screwdriver on something metal close to or on the car & note the servo-glitching, to get some idea of how bad your particular radio could be affected by this.

Don't worry about gear wear, Martins got millions of them he's trying to get rid of!