Eman77

If you need a shell, wing, gearcover, etc, I've found that a seller named teambluegroove sells a complete set for something like $35 shipped. They must be reproducing the originals, which is fine by me. I have one on the way - I only wanted a wing and gearcover, but after shipping it's only $10 more to get a body and undertray too. I'll let you know what I think.

As for the diff, if you spin a wheel one way, then yes, the other should move opposite (assuming you hold the spur gear to restrict motion there). With these diffs (ball diffs) the interesting part is to figure out how far to tighten them - it's a "by feel" thing I fear, and I just don't know. I've had other ball diffs where the manual has a suggestion, this one wasn't really helpful. I'm just sort of shooting for something between "cranked down" and "feels too loose". *shrug*

Not sure on mild brushless - I'm guessing since folks ran some pretty hot brushed motors back in the day, a mild brushless would be fine. Maybe something in the 3500 kV range? Not sure I'd go higher than a 4000 - I just keep thinking of my Castle 5700 that I've used in other setups, and that rips pretty good. I'd be a little concerned.

Feel free to post pics of what you have - good to see another restore on the way!

Eman77

Getting a little closer now.

I put the orange wheels/tires on for looks. I now have 3D printed front/rear shock mounts (from sabulatech.com), and the black progressive front springs. Those are sweet. Still trying to find some rears, as I'm using stock Tamiya springs in back right now.

It still bugs me a bit that the front shock bodies are darker than the rears, so they don't match exactly. I'm also not crazy about the white nylon lock nuts, so will likely dye them black.

I've installed the Trinity Joel "Magic" Johnson motor that it came with - no pinion on yet, but I do have a large selection of 48 pitch non-metric to choose from, so I might end up with a 17T for starters.

I've got the sabulatech ESC tray installed, with the ESC on it - I went with a HobbyKing 45 amp brushed motor version, which goes for around $17 shipped, so I'll give that a go. I put deans plugs on it, and put new bullet plugs on the motor and ESC wires, so that's all hooked up now.

Eman77

I mentioned before that I was looking for a wing and gear cover, and found a set sold by teambluegroove on ebay (located in Canada). With shipping, it worked out only $12 more to get a body and undertray along with it, so I went for it.

Turns out, they must have accidentally scratched the body (and protective film off, as you can see), so they sent me that one for free, and a perfect one as well! So I got 2 bodies, a wing, undertray, and gear cover for a nice deal. They even wrote "Free" on the "damaged" one.

They appear to be made well, and come with that protective overspray film, so I'm quite pleased. I highly recommend them for JRx2, or any other reproduction bodies they might sell.

Eman77

So I got my electronics all in and decided to take it for a spin in the basement, using the Joel Johnson motor it came with.

I was just blipping the throttle around a bit, noticing that the motor sounded a bit odd - sounded like it wasn't running smoothly. Then I heard a "POP!" and some white smoke came from the motor. It still ran, but I thought it best not to anymore.

Here's what I saw. What is this, a blown capacitor? Never had this happen before.

Eman77

I then decided it best to put a different motor in - I have a Tamiya super stock BZ motor that I pulled from a CC01, so I put that in along with some new wiring.

Eman77

Here's a pic of where the battery tray meets the servo post. I dremeled enough out of each to make it fit (although it still pinches in a bit - I didn't want to remove any more material).

I guess the old 1500 mAh packs of the old days were a bit smaller?

Eman77

I then tidied up the wiring, and here you go!

Last step is to get that body painted. What do folks here like to use to make nice straight, thin lines? The narrowest masking/painting tape I found was about 2x too wide.

Eman77

At last, the paint job is done! Well, almost - I still need to do the undertray, but here is the shell, gear cover, and wing. The pics are a tad blurred, so I need to do a better job next time (just noticed it now that I'm looking up close).

Anyway, I went with Duratrax standard black and competition orange. I normally go with Tamiya paints, but wanted to give these a try.

Turned out ok! Makes me want to dye the white nylon nuts black though.

Lunchboxer

The buggy has a very weird rear suspension setup for sure!

If you take out the 2 trailing arms on the side, can the rear hub move toward the front of the car and back? Does not look like it would since there's 2 links on the bottom..

Almost like the suspension would bind with this setup... !!

Eman77

It is interesting. The lower arms are a bit thin and can slide a touch front to back, so without the trailing arms there is that. But It seems odd to have the dual trailing arms and all that when you could just make a lower arm that is more fixed and call it a day.

The lower shock mounts to the trailing arm itself, which is different. I certainly don't understand the performance implications of a setup like this compared to your standard rear suspension.