TOPIC:

It's been awhile, so time for an update!
Found an Astute gearbox for cheap, so I nabbed that purely for the metal motor mount.

Then it was time to strip and rebuild the Madcap gearbox - first time since the nineties!
I forgot how much fun this was - and how complex it actually is - I'm surprised that 14 year old me did it right! Do the new Tamiya kits include buildable 'boxes or are these a sealed unit now?

New steering knuckles located!

Crusty old shocks alongside shiny new AliExpress specials!

The rebuild begins!





I also found my old fast charger - I remember saving up hard for this bad boy - originally I only had one battery and the slow charger, so I was limited to about one run a day!
Can these old nicad units charge nimh batteries? If not, what is my best option for new batteries? I'm going to get an ESC soon.

Did you you just take a hopup $$$ TTC gearbox apart just for the metal plate :o there are people who would kill for that gearbox.

For the charger, you can't charge nimh with your old one. The best solution is to buy an imax b6 charger. You can use it for pb to lipo aqs.
Why you didn't use the complete astute gearbox?

Its the super astute ttc hopup gearbox with cluth and geardiff if i am correct.

I think like you. I think that you can put it on a madcap.

Agree, put the TTC gearbox on the Madcap (not sure if it's possible...)

Isnt it supposed to fit as a replacement on the king cab /MR and astute type buggy chassis? Geardiff instead of the wobbly designed balldiff

Imax B6 (or other charger using the same 4-button software & very similar underlying hardware) is a good choice - but there are an awful lot of options on it, so there's always the possibility of geting it very wrong - and at best it can be a lot of faff.

You will probably also need another box to produced the 12V dc it runs on.

Don't get me wrong - I have a mix of Ni-Cd, NIMH, Lipo & lead/acid batteries orf very different capacities & no other single charger will look after all of those those - but when I first got back into RC in 2008, I had two NimH packs & a Ripmax 2500 series Nimh capable (not all are) charger & it was a lot simpler then (no buttons for slow charge, one for fast).