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Dug out my old M02 Alpine last night. Unfortunately she is in a poor state so i have decided to give her a well earned rebuild. Sadly the body was so badly smashed up it was binned many moons ago and the price of a replacement on ebay right now is silly money so i will be using a different bodyshell once i have finished rebuilding her. Up to now i have ordered a new chassis A parts tree and i have a new set of bearings that i will be fitting too. pics below show her current state




















I purchased a James ultra 7000 ultrasonic cleaner yesterday after reading JR's review as i thought id give one a whirl and see what its all about so im hoping to get some use on it with this rebuild and was thinking of doing this little thread on it if anyone is interested.

The tyres have been glued to the rims on this i was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to remove them? they have marks from the glue is their a way to remove this from the rubber as the tyres look pretty good.

The chassis looks in good condition and the best method to remove glue is the Andy's method. A bath in boiled water.

Thanks stingray i will give it a go just need to do it when the wife's out

Completely stripped the chassis down now see pic as to how it stands only one broken part suprisingly the frontal A section part that i have already ordered everything else seems ok but i will need a new front bumper and a battery clip.

Only things to note on the strip down are that the previous owner had held the motor in using two 3 x 10mm tapping screws also they have left a lot of the casting bits attached to the parts they didnt cut them off before assembling. The inside of the gearbox is like new with hardly any grease inside it

I'd disassemble a bit further than that, the "dampers" look to be of the basic pogo stick variety ... I've also had diffs of that type look virginal on the outside & be absolutely vile on the inside

I'd also subdivide the parts a lot further than that, for example:
- yellow (Cadmium passivated) metal (usually M3 machine screws & 3mm JIS self tapping screws)
- Black (oil blued) metal (usually suspension arm pivot pins, Tamiya body clips)
- zinc plated metal (usually m3 grub screws, longer screws, nuts, servo rods)
- stainless (not usually found in Tamiya kits)
- chrome plated metal (usually damper springs)
- pot metal/mazak/zamak (usually internal diff gears, SRB gearbox cases etc)
- black plastic
- grey plastic
- MSC
- brass (usually just damper mounts, small balljoints)
- bronze (usually just bearings)
- white plastic/gears
- aluminium (usually just the pinion)

You shouldn't have to change the water after every material & the running order is open to debate, but I wouldn't run plated or passivated metals after brass or bronze.

US cleaning the motor (and the drying & relubing it needs afterwards) is only worth it if it's really grotty.

Don't run the MSC resistor (they tend to break up from cracks that weren't even visible before you started) or the RX or servos.

Thanks Jon i have been pretty busy tonight after work i decided to separate all the different screws etc as you suggested and i have been running them through the cleaner and i am getting excellent results they are coming out very nicely i am definitely sold on these they take all the hard work out of the cleaning. I have been experimenting with the jewellery cleaner i got with it and hot soapy water as the manual suggests and i am getting great results with both methods. I am just waiting for the chassis to arrive now and ill start the rebuild. Thanks for the advice separating all the parts up i have opened the differential up and its squeaky clean inside. The shocks have also been disassembled and i have found both are missing the rubber tubing that should be inside them on the shafts to limit their travel. I am also out of this so ill have to think of a substitute

I found my fiat M02 and I discovered a rare hopup on it. The bath protection

Wow that makes it look huge just starting to rebuild mine starting step 1 differential gear ill post some pics up as i make progress

Received my chassis tonight it seems i had the short chassis version not the medium chassis i thought i had and ordered its definitely longer the info i looked at on the internet must have been incorrect looks like im building an M02M

Pics of the rebuild so far excuse the pics :

Stage 1 & 2 diff gear and gear cases: