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OSRC's Vintage and restomods

OSRC's Vintage and restomods

Old 12-28-2016, 02:04 PM
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Default OSRC's Vintage and restomods

I've done it all in the surface arena. Been through the RC10 racer era, the Maxx and nitro revolution, the touring scene, the short course craze, and now I've settled on scale rigs and crawlers. Generally that's what I run and build nowadays, and have for years (though I still keep an eye on the hobby as a whole, and very much enjoy my "go fast" rigs occasionally)

When I burn out on scale rigs or get hung up on something, I've been tinkering with vintage rigs. I've picked up a few over the years and I like cleaning them up and modding them as I go, and it keeps the creative juices flowing... Figured I'd create a thread to post them in and update as I go.

I've got 3 ORV chassis, Thundershot, Falcon, Bearhawk, Kingcab, Madcap, Clod, Monster Beetle, HotShot....So Tamiya is covered. A few old Kyoshos's, some vintage HPI supers and some other odds and ends. Plenty to keep busy.

The Futaba FX10 has a special place for me, it was my first "hobby grade" RC car. I beat the holy out of the car for a few years, and somehow it held up, and was eventually succeeded by a Kyosho Raider. Little did I know that I was opening the door to a hobby that would stay with me for almost 30 years now.

So anyway, enough memory lane. I had picked one up a while ago, and it was a shelfer for me - basically has a place of honor on my workbench. I wanted to run it, but didn't want to ruin it in any way. After a little horse trading, I picked up a second one that I plan to run. Basically go out in the backyard and bash it like I would when I was 15. It was in great shape when it arrived, and was immediately torn apart. Let the build begin!

The biggest mod is going to be up front. I picked up a CRP suspension conversion for dirt cheap, and it gets rid of the front swing axles/spring shocks and replaces them with an upper/lower control arm setup and provisions to mount oil shocks. This looks like it came straight from 1990, copied instructions and all.


While it was all apart, I cleaned the chassis and gave it a coat of paint. Also hit the body with some black and red as well just to give it a different look.



While waiting for the paint to dry, got working on the rear gearbox...Bearings! I saved forever for a bearing set back in the day. Today, I threw in some spares out of my bearing box.


Made a mistake here. When I pulled the outdrives out, I saw they had no pin connecting them like modern Tamiya's. So I pulled one out of a new style outdrive, cut it to size and stuffed it in. Later, I found the pin had just stayed in the diff gear. I should have swapped them out, but I left the homebrew pin in. More on that later.


Cleaned up transmission and a 550 Redcat brushed motor. Should be plenty of power, but not too much.


Rear clip back on the chassis, and I modded the suspension for a bit for smoother travel. The dogbones are a bit long and they compress when the swing arms are level. I shaved a mm or so off each end and they arms then move freely. Can see the left arm is naturally dropped and the right one is hung up.


More to come..
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Old 12-29-2016, 07:54 AM
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Now that the rear is ready, time to work on the front. I assembled the front suspension pretty much per the instructions. Definitely feels 1990-ish...though quality seems good enough.


I had to make a set of shocks. The car I bought amazingly already had CRP oil shocks up front, but they are in serious need of rehab and I can not use them. Standard Tamiya CVA'a are to thick and rub the body, so I needed something thinner in diameter. I dug out a set of Axial shocks and the diameter was perfect. Of course, they are 90+mm and I needed something in the 50-60mm range so I cut down the shock bodies and swapped the shock shafts with a set from Tamiya Mini CVA's and it was a match made in heaven. This worked out so well, I'll be using this on other builds for sure. Some 30wt oil and tamiya springs and it was good to go.




After everything is all assembled, I've got a lot of positive camber. While this looks very 90's, it not good for performance. I left it be for now, but I'll change this around for sure later.


Rear shocks were upgraded to Tamiya CVA's, with some spacers to keep the swing arms from going too far either way. Has about 1/2 more uptravel than stock, and really doesn't need more.


Sitting back on it's wheels again!


More to come...
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Old 01-04-2017, 05:10 AM
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Mounted up the tires which were in great shape for such an old ride. Nice little trick with vintage tires is put a rubber band in the bead channel. This keeps the tire from spinning in the rim, and you don't have to glue anything so it can easily be swapped later.


Simple electronics ...and a lot cleaner than the old MSC setup. A leftover XL5 for the motor and the original Futaba servo stayed in. I have no idea how old it is, but it works just fine.


Have a few of these beauties too if I drop down to a silver can. Work as well today as they did 20+ years ago. Not sure if they will handle a lipo though, and I'm not sure if my NIMH packs even hold a charge anymore. An adventure for another day.


...and finally, old meets new! Bone stock versus modded.

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