BuzzBomber
Posts: 2649
Joined: 12/17/2002
From: Newton,
NJ, USA
Status: offline
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I had an original Frog which I got for Christmas in, I think, 1985. My first hobby-grade r/c, and it stuck around till about 1990, serving as a buggy, with a blackfoot body on homemade mounts, heck I even put foam tires on it and ran it on-road with a monte carlo body. Last April, I bought one of the re-issue Frogs, and I've probably accumulated as much runtime on it already as I ever did on the old one. It's pretty much stock, with the exception of a Trinity CO27 Pro, ballbearings all the way around, and the CVD setup from Tamiya.
The body is torn and looks like hell, the skid plate is bashed in, and the transmission is all ground up on the bottom from too many jumps onto asphalt. The spaceframe chassis has a few white areas(fatigue marks), too. Not long after I swapped out the silver can for the Trinity motor, I started losing the dogbones a lot, especially on jumps, and wound up with quite a bit of play, to the point where I had to shim the outdrives with nylon washers. Over time, the trailing arms developed a lot of play, too, where they mount to the transmission cases. With everything tightened up all the way, I can move the arms in/out about 1/8" per side. The stock dogbones won't stay in with this kind of play. When I added the CVDs, I discovered that they are just a *bit* short, so that the inner ends would pop out of the drive cups when the suspension's fully extended, ie. in the air. I had to fit a 1/8" piece of fuel tubing on the shock shaft inside the shock body to shorten up the travel so this wouldn't happen. Also, after a few cartwheels, I started having problems with the front stub axles coming out of the uprights(the steel axles are press fit into the pot metal uprights)--jbweld seems to have that cured. Also, you may want to fabricate some kind of battery guard--I made one out of a piece of lexan as long as a stick pack and about 3" wide, heat bent into an "l" shape to cover the front and bottom edges of the exposed pack. Otherwise, your packs will take a beating.
Despite all this, I still haven't blown out the differential yet! I may not be the best example of what to expect to break, because I actually beat on this car harder than my modern ones, like setting up jumps to clear a 12' gap in a parking lot, jumping off a 3' cliff, etc. Anyway, have fun with your new Frog, it's hard not to!
< Message edited by BuzzBomber -- 3/1/2007 8:21:41 PM >
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Matt Smith
If you''re not having fun, you''re missing the point.
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All Forums >> RC Cars, Buggies, Trucks, Tanks and more >> RC Electric Off-Road Trucks, Buggies, Truggies and more >> RE: The official UNOFFICIAL thread of Tamiya Frog - LB stikes again.. 
RE: The official UNOFFICIAL thread of Tamiya Frog - L... - 
It only made it to 12 posts. 
Maybe you need to get a more popular car to if you want to join all the discussion.. (not that should be important.. you should just have fun w/ whatever you have!) 
I would love a vintage 
Oh to have a job 
