Help I.D. Vintage kyosho
 

Buddy at work has been telling me about this buggy and I told him it sounded like a kyosho. He found the plastics and sure enough it is. Before I go go gadget google I thought I’d save some time and try here first.

Well let’s name that buggy
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...4f719daf3.jpeg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...03cf10e0b.jpeg

That would be a Kyosho Vanning. They were produced somewhere in the mid to late 80's.

Thanks for the help. Little more research from your headstart and found it’s a mint Las Vegas

Mint baja since it has the cage. The Las Vegas used a full lexan body. It's essentially a 2wd vanning with a solid spool for a rear diff. Cool (and fast) old school nitro. It's really hard to get parts and drive chains are next to impossible to find.

Good to know. Thank you. The more I eyeballed it the more I was impressed. It looks like it’s 100% complete minus the air filter and all original. I think I’ll offer to strip it down and do a little mini restore on it for him for free. Would be fun to tinker on. Thinking about it on the way home I was curious how they were started? No pull start and the flywheel seemed in a funky place for a bump box.

Most would use a hand held air plane starter with a rubber wheel glued to the hub. Kinda worked. I used to have a few vannings and land jumps and used a start box. The ladder frame makes it pretty easy to set up. These cars used an old style flywheel nut that has the clutch bell bearings riding on an integral shaft. Hard to explain until you see it. I call this because it's hard to find replacement engines for these cars now.

I have the Thunder Tiger version of the Mint Las Vegas that Im restoring. Here are the before and after pictures in progress. All I need are some throttle linkage and a link lock for the chain.

I was able to remove all the paint from the driver doll with nitro fuel repaint the rollbar, laminate the radio cover with carbon fiber and polish all the metal. I found some braided aluminum fuel tubing and rewired the original servos.

Some of the parts were so caked up with grime and grunge I had to soak them overnight in detergent and Gunk. I polished the exhaust pipe with a wire wheel and a Dremel.
The chassis I wet sanded with 600 grit sand paper and polished with Mothers Aluminum Mag Polish.

I will post the finished product when Im done.

Before

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...afac80ea0b.jpg


After

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...3ac76b66c0.jpg

Nice silver fox. I used to have one back in the day. Replacement chains are super hard to find. If you need a master link go on eBay and look for a kyosho racing cart chain. It's about the only way to get a master link and of course will cost a fortune. Kyosho and Varicom both used the same size (but different length) chains for the vanning, silver fox, and land jump series of ladder frame buggies.

Thanks I checked eBay and found this

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Kyosho-Land.../142527505118?

I just need to make sure it has the locking clasp which is all I really need. I have the master link

good find. yes there should be two of those clasps that you need in that package. when you install the clasp be sure to position the open side opposit the direction of rotation (ie opening should face towards the front when it’s on the lower side of the sprockets).

Thanks for the tip
Im going to purchase it and I will be just about done!

I actually found some itty bitty e-clips from Losi that seemed to work but I think I will buy the link anyway since don't know if the e-clips will hold in case I want to run it a bit.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...7c98e45aa0.jpg

Looking good so far...nice work.

just to clarify for everyone, The banning is the roll caged 4wd, the presto is the lexan body 4wd, the Las Vegas is the roll caged 2wd and the Mint Baja is the lexan 2wd. FYI.

Cool to see interest in the older cars again. One small correction though. The Mint LasVegas was the 2wd roll caged car and the Impacta was the 2wd lexan bodied car. The cage and lexan body are easily interchangeable on these cars. I've owned my Mint LasVegas since '86.