RC37027

Recently, while visiting my childhood home, I brought all my old RC cars out of the attic. I figured I'd try to introduce my son to the world of RC. I mean, it's a fun hobby and it can be very rewarding!

The stuff is 30 year old vintage/old school Kyosho. I have an Optima and a Kyosho Racing Montero. The Optima is incomplete. However when I stopped building it in 1988 I upgraded it to the gold chassis, belt drive, an all ball bearing kit and had some more things it needed to make it a complete car. It needs the radio plate, shocks, the body, and other assorted small pieces. Then I'd need a battery pack, charger, probably a new motor, and a radio. It probably qualifies as a bit of a basket case.

The Kyosho Racing Montero is complete but it has a Pulsar 2000 AM radio transmitter and receiver. You can imagine the amount of chatter and interception the servos have when you turn it on. Sometimes it just has a mind of its own and the servos will activate or even worse the channels will get switched.

For the Montero I was able to get the OS Max .10 FSR-B to start and run for a very short amount of time. I used very old nitro fuel (Cox Super Power fuel for an old .049 182 Skylane I have). So I bought a new glow plug, new 10% nitro fuel, and fuel lines. The engine still would not run for more than a minute no matter what needle adjustments I used. The manual I found online said 3-4 open turns of the needle. The OS 10 FSR-B only had an idle set screw but no low speed idle adjustment screw.

I believe the engine may be shot. I don't think there is much compression as I was able to turn the flywheel easily with my fingers when the glow plug was installed. I ended up disassembling the engine and then checking the pinch of the cylinder. It did not go through the top of the cylinder/piston sleeve. However, the piston may have been damage when I removed the sleeve. Regardless, the motor will not even start now with a #8 glow plug that glows bright red and does not dim when you try to blow it out. I disassembled it today and the wrist pin for the piston had two small white caps that fell out. Bad news for sure.

I realize parts for the Montero are basically non existent. All that can be found are bearing kits but I don't need those. When I started working on the buggy a few days ago, I had to fabricate the output clutch shaft from a metric machine thread bolt that the pinion gear attaches to. Even if I were to buy a new OS Max .10 FSR engine from an auction site, I might be running the buggy on borrowed time since any breakage would require more fabrication.

My question to the forum is what is the opinion here? Ditch both cars or try to work with what I have? I could repower the Racing Montero and get the remaining parts I need for the Optima (I know the Optima was just reissued for 2016).

If the general consensus is to try to restore these cars, I would guess I'd need to get a 2.4 gHz radio as well as look to a brushed or brushless motor for the Optima. I'd also need to decide on what battery type to use for car. I'd also have to get another engine for the Montero which I've found for 75 bucks NIB.

I'm just wondering if I'd spend more in restoring this stuff than if I went out and bought a modern day RC car.