rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

kinda wishing i hadn't sold mine for $10...

the lug

lee172

are you going to replace them friction shocks, or keep it stock?

The Collector1

My Feedback: (2)

If I can find some red shocks to keep with the color scheme I would

john01374

Guys it's finally time to build. The old rally car is complete and runs great here we go.

Please note that I'm doing this build with the GF. She has taken an interest in building Tamiya's after we put together our Pajero. This build is being done in our spare time so it will happen a little at a time over the next few days. If I where to sit down to build this car myself I have no doubt it would be done and running it just a couple of hours.

I'd like to mention that I'm going to build this car the way Tamiya intended it complete with the plastic bushings. I plan to test it and gradually hop it up as I go but not get too carried away with power. I have bearing sitting here and want to document the improvement they make after initial testing.

The first thing I noticed with this kit is the lack of parts. For those of you that have build cars like the Hotshot, Boomerang and the F350 you'll be extremely disappointed in this build as there is simply just not that much to put together.

Step 1 & 2 - Attach the steering to the main chassis. The Steering for this model comes assembled. One screw holds it to the main chassis. One nice thing here is the steering rods are the same length and made of heavy duty plastic. The thin wire from the Hopper and hornet are no where to be found. You also notice the black plastic shock tower has been attached. Simply slide it into place and install two screws.



Next come the front A arms. They simply push into slots in the chassis much the same as hornet and Hopper. They're held in place by a heavy duty front bumper. Note how thick the front arms actually are.

john01374

Here you can see the front bumper attached. It's held in place with 4 screws. One thing i'd like to mention. When screwing into the gray plastic you REALLY need to be careful not to over tighten the screws. The Gray plastic is flexible and will strip pretty easy. The black plastic seems to be very strong.





Next step is to flip the chassis over and install the screws that hold the axles to the A arms. They simply thread in from the top.

Lunchboxer

Put the bearings inside the tranny during the build so you don't have to open it up again... (plastic is not meant to be screwed on and off that many times.. ha!)

Looking forward to the build!!

john01374

Next comes the front shocks. Like the steering the shocks come pre-assembled and ready to install. The instructions show that a small amount of grease should be applied to the shock shafts. I tried to aviod this as I know it will only attract dirt. The instructions are correct. These shocks are SO BAD that they do require a tiny amount of grease on the shafts. When i first installed them they would bind up and squeak!!!! They are held in place with 4 shoulder screws. Note: There are two shock locations on the A arms. The instruction show they are to be mounted to the outer holes but I noticed there is enough droop in the front arms to allow for the shocks to be placed at the inner hole if you want more ground clearance. However doing so will give the car a lot of positive camber.

Sorry. I got carried away and had to put the front tires on.




That's it for today. It's dinner and beer time. Tomorrow evening we'll do the gearbox and hopefully get it attached to the chassis.

Lunchboxer

Hee hee.. positive camber, like a LB!!

john01374

LB - I'm gonna build it with the bushings everywhere. They'll be easy to change later. Only 3 screws hold he tranny case together.

Lunchboxer

Sure John, it is your build.. do as you wish.. it is all good!! I am just lazy, that's all..

Looking good!!

860Crawler

This is cool! The front suspension looks much tougher than the wimpy Hornet/Hopper, has to handle those giant tires!

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

the tires are accually really light, and made outta hard rubber and are lacking in foams, at least thats what mine were,
that grease tip on the shocks would've helped a ton cuz mine were pretty bad when i got it used
and if i rember right the tranny isn't just 3 screws...

the lug

The Mad Modder

Yeah, I have to say that tamiya did it up right. They didn't just slap new tires on and call it quits, like other companies might.

john01374

The tires are relatively light when compared to other tires their size but they are seriously heavy when compared to the hopper/hornet front tires. It also takes more force to turn them while spinning. Speaking of spinning. I did the spin test on all of my wheels for this thing and 3 of the 4 are ok. The 4th on is seriously out of balance. I weighted all 4 of the wheels and tires and the one that is out of balance is .0093lbs heavier than the other 3.

The gear box is held together with 3 screws. there are the 2 additional screws that hold the motor in place but other than that there are only 3.

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

i was more talking about getting to the gear box, tho that may've just been my total lack of a clue regarding chassie layout,

arg this build thread is really makeing me wish i had mine back... i never apcreated it until now when i could see how some stuff fits together it makes much more sense now... idk if that makes gramtical sense cuz ima tired boy but yah i want one now but with badlands... i love badlands..

the lug

john01374

Lug - After talking to LB I called Tamiya and sure enough they still have them so get yourself one before they're gone

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

cool cool i may have to get one again... if i can find the $ to set it up, at this point it'd be a low kv BL so that'll probally cost more than the kit... but maybe in a few MO....

the lug

john01374

Looking at the gearbox I think it would take just about anything you could throw at it but i'd grab an extra set of gears just in case. I'd buy the kit now and just put it aside until you could afford to put it together. Never can tell how long they're gonna have it. It was discontinued for a long time and then suddenly it was available to ship and now it at a discounted cost so.......

juleous

I have a Mad Bull, I stripped out the wheel nuts where the wheels lock onto the axels and now I am have a B4 instead. That car has really poor suspension design in the back end you will find it doesn't track well over rough ground. I also broke the stock shocks and had to replace them, it also makes a fairly significant noise from the gear box which I was told by the LHS that is normal for that model. Overall I would not recommend this kit to anyone unless you get it really cheap like he did fromt the garage sale. I really want to get an AVANTE they look really cool and I wanted one when I was a little tyke they were state of the art at the time.

Lunchboxer

While I don't disagree w/ the comment on the performance.. I do think that if you get the Mad Bull to compare to a B4 then you are missing the point...

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

ahh so that drivetrain noise was normal mkay i thought it was busted, and yeah it sure did have a beefy tranny...
yeah i soon found out driving the truck it wasn't a big preformer but was fun for sure...

the lug

john01374

Well guys we made a little more progress last night. We managed to get through the gearbox and get it mounted up to the chassis. When I first bought this car I took a look at the gear box and thought it would be the same basic layout as the Hopper/hornet. I couldn't have been more wrong. It's an interesting design that I think will hold up well but it's totally different from the hopper cars..

Heres a shot of everything that goes into the gearbox on this model. Like everything else so far you'll notice there's not a ton of parts. What is there a pretty beefy and should hold up to my abuse later. I like the fact that the inner diff gears are metal.


Here is the left side case all assembled and ready to go. Nothing too shocking here. Pretty much standard tamiya. Some of you might notice that I'm not using the stock grease. I've never liked the stock stuff for a couple of reasons. 1 - they never give you enough of it. 2 - It just feels too light to be used in a heavy duty gearbox like these. A couple of people mentioned that the gearbox on this model was noisy. I had similar noise problems with my Hoppers and hornets before switching to a heavier grease. Now they're nice and quite. Here I'm using "Green Grease". It marine grade and meant for boats etc.


he right side of the case is even easier. Just put the axle in place with a dab of grease and you're done.



here is the complete diff. I didn't snap a pic of the internals as I'm sure we've all seen these. It's the standard 5 gear setup. QUESTION: Is this Diff used on other models? It looks an aweful lot like the diff that's in the TT-01 cars. Can someone confirm that?


Here's a shot of the completed gearbox ready to o together.


Note the fact that there is only 2 options for gearing. We're going to be using the holes at 12 and 6 o'clock. This model uses a 17 tooth pinion. I've been told that the other set of holes is for a 19 tooth pinion that is used on the fighter buggy with the smaller tires.


The next step was installing the motor. Because of the way this motor is tucked into the gearbox, getting the screws to line up was a bit of a pain in the butt. I go it after about 2 mins of wiggling. Do remember to put a drop of blue loctite on the grub screw that holds the pinion on. Here's some pics of the completed gearbox.

john01374

Now it's back to the chassis to install this little rod. This is an interesting idea that would have worked well on the LB and hornet. I'm guessing that it's job is to prevent that awful slap you get when the gearbox rotates on those other cars when you nail the throttle. Those of you with a LB or Hornet know what i'm talking about. What's nice about this is it still allows the axle to rock left to right.


Here is the gearbox attached to the chassis. It attaches the same way the Hornet does with a steel bar running through the front of the gearbox and into those sliders. There are no little spring in the sliders to get lost like on other models.





Well guys that's as far as we got last night. The next update will be adding the rear shocks, installing all of the electronics, mounting the wheels and tires and maybe a quick test drive.

The Mad Modder

I don't know about the tt-01, but the metal internals look exactly like the ones in my m03.

kaiser01

i guessyou just don't "get it".

want to sell me yours?

TFL (tamiya for life) lol

back on topic, great looking build john, and big props on getting the old lady involved!