TOPIC:

Howdy folks - I'm looking to restore my old Bear Hawk to run with my son - I need parts trees D and E. A quick search of ebay shows identical looking parts labeled as Stadium Blitzer beetle ($5.40) and Bear Hawk ($22).
They all look the same, and the chassis appear to be compatible but are the parts trees the same?
58056: Falcon
58093: Bear Hawk
58106: Stadium Blitzer
58122: Blitzer Beetle
58181: Stadium Thunder
58252: Biltzer Beetle Chrome

Welcome on board! And a very cool car if I may add! Been waiting on a Bear Hawk to appear.
Would love to see some pics or even the resto.

fairwood wrote:

are the parts trees the same?

I could do some research for an exact answer but I suspect there's a few guys here that know this chassis by heart...

Thanks Edou!
WARNING!!! NEWBIE ALERT!!!
As there may be some folks here familiar with the car, I'll ask:
Can I modify it to put large rims/tires on the front similar to the Manta Ray?
What mods are recommended? New motor etc?
I'll take some pictures of it this evening when I do a parts inventory - should at least provide the "before" view.
Thanks again!

Have restored my Falcon some time ago (just looking for a new body + wing, as i foolishly painted mine blue, to restore it in vintage condition) and also build a Stadium Blitzer in the past, i do recall the Falcon D,E trees to be different. But D,E trees from the Stadium Blitzer are equal to another.

Others i would have to look up....

Cheers, Bram

fairwood wrote:

Can I modify it to put large rims/tires on the front similar to the Manta Ray?

The front won't work with Manta Ray rims. You'd have to look at another wheel for that.
I see the Bear Hawk already has 12mm hexagonal wheel adapters on the rear.
That's quite the universal size so you'd be able to run all kinds of rim / tyre combinations.
Btw - the rear rims are the same as the Manta Ray...
But it's a 4WD car so another matching set (with free running front wheels) would be a better option.

If you're planning on running the car, I'd invest in a Electronic Speed Controller (ESC) instead of Mechanical (MSC - #6) :


That might save a lot of trouble... but we should know more about your other electronics to recommend anything.

A new motor is possible but if the one that came with the car is still okay, you could start running with that.
When completely rebuilding a car, I'd also take the opportunity to fit ball bearings on the car.
That a really good basic upgrade.

Don't hesitate to ask anything you'd like to know further. You could even start a specific topic for it in the technical section.
We're all newbies in some regard of the hobby and sharing what you know is what it's all about here.
It's always great to see a cool vintage car come alive again.

Thanks again - My son's 4 and totally into cars so after seeing my car in a box in the garage I got to thinking it would be fun to run it in the street (street tires) and out back in the dirt with him. I'm sure he'd be blown away. So my intentions for the rebuild are purely fun and raising this car from the ashes. It has a few broken parts (hence the parts trees) but I have no desire to make any great investments other than making it run well and somewhat reliably.
I'm thinking of getting a 2nd set of rims for street tires and a nice new set of studs for off road. Are there battery options that would offer longer run times over higher speed?
What differences do the ESC make over the MSC?
It looks like they can be picked up for $10-$15 . . . might be a good phase 2 upgrade. It's been 20+ years since I've played in this hobby and it's really exciting again!
Great to know there's a friendly wealth of knowledge to tap.

You son will have a blast with this car!

An electronic speed controller will give much more reliability against higher currents and interference in the signal.
Worst thing that can happen when you have the run running is that it gets away from you...
But if you live outside the city this might be less of a problem.
In general an ESC replaces many of the electronics and integrates it into 1 module.
With all kinds of extra protective measures.

Maybe you could let us know what kind of transmitter, charger and batteries you currently have.
They are probably NiCads and might even still work but some modern NiMH packs will go a long way.
But that'll also require a different charger I suspect.

This is my (second) favourite on road setup at the moment :



I'll have to check if they're a direct match though...
And cheap is probably not the word that would come to mind.

Btw - what parts from the tree are you looking for? Maybe a simpler solution can be found...

So now that I'm home and have the car out of the box for the first time in years, it appears that I'm just missing 3 screws! (insert joke here)

2 Screw to hold the front end on the the main chassis:


One screw to hold the steering collar to the servo:



So this is the project . . .


I also have all the tires I need; just need another set of rear rims for the off road tires and then a couple sets of bearings for all the rest.

Going to go call a couple hobby shops and see what I can find locally first.

Looks like it's still in good condition - with not too many hurdles to make it run again.
Shouldn't be too hard to find some rims for the remaining rear tyres.
The second set of front rims look like they're from the Wild One btw...

I think the Bear Hawk is a very cool car with a great looking body shell.