Tamiya F104 driver steering mod
 

Hi guys

After seeing this clip on youtube i had to get myself an f104 and do it myself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VnTuG5aJgo

this one is freakin pro, he has made fully cylindrical arms, and even the head turns to look into the corners, it would have taken at least 1 if not 2 more servos to make it work
the guy in japan that made this custom mod has had many requests to show how he did it, but has kept silent

so here is my solution to get your driver turning the steering wheel when you turn the car left and right
this mod will require some adjustments so where i have said glue it, i recommend not gluing innitially, use blutack and test it first before gluing

Step 1
cut our your f104 shell around the driver to release the arms and steering wheel
be sure to cut away extra space so that the arms and steering wheel can rotate without catching on the body of the driver or car

Step 2
find yourself a couple of eyelets (i used ones from one of my 1/8 scale buggies (the shock absorber bottom ends)
use a knife to trim a slit in the bottom of one of them and glue it to the battery place holder as in the image
take note of how high it sits as it needs to me inline with the other eyelet we will install, and not up too high that it hits the body.

Step 3 (this step can all be glued together first go)
Get some differential gears from a 1/8 scale dif and begin making the turning mechanism
glue the other plastic eyelet to a diff shim, but be careful with the glue you want the gear to be able to spin freely
Then find a plastic ring washer and glue that to the gear, again being careful with the glue so the eyelet and the gear still spin independently

Step 4
get a piece of plastic shaft and start to assemble the whole unit
spider gears from my 1/8 dif and shims
glue the gear at the front of the car to the pole, the other spider gear needs to spin freely but remain in place so i glued a shim behind it to the pole.

Step 5
put it in on your f104
feed the shaft through the other eyelet, and put the steering wheel on just with blutack for now to test it
glue the plastic ring washer to the part of the servo that rotates, be careful again with the glue so not to get the shim stuck

test your invention as it may need some tweaking before you finally paint your drivers hands, arms and the steering wheel and glue it all together

once your ready and happy with it glue the steering wheel to the shaft

see my final product here
http://youtu.be/C7fBw87X6cA

i did this ages ago so if i missed any steps or havent been clear about something let me know, i probably just forgot

im sure theres more than one way to do this but this was my quick and easy solution

It's hard to tell in your video but does the wheel & arm assembly stay attached to the driveshaft or is it attached to the body?

Great job BTW, I wonder how the guy with the Lotus got the head to turn as well.

hope my pics make it clearer
i attached them the first time but for some reason it didnt work

hope my pics make it clearer
i attached them the first time but for some reason it didnt work

Thanks!

That is freaking awesome!

That's cool! Thank you so much for sharing. :nod:

Clever idea and awesome job.

great effort. will be giving this a go.

F1 steering mod
 

Here is my contribution :-)

did it in 2013 :-)

+ YouTube Video

yeah nice one, would love to see a vid with the shell off to see how it works