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Jonny wrote:

A few "finished" pics, I'm now completely projectless

ps it's not poo, it's a leaf.

Looking great. Certainly XB.

Jonny wrote:

sheriff wrote:

Great work Jonny!

I've also recently bought a Bigwig. Need to source a chassis for it as the current one is cracked. Where did you get the new rubber shock seals from??

I think I'm going to start the 'dismantle' later;)

In the end I didn't rebuild them - all had oil in & weren't leaking, so I left them alone except for cleaning... the manual justs lists them as "3mm o-rings" (12 of them), so i guess they are pretty generic to Tamiya cars, part # 50597 looks fairly promising, although there are only 10 in a packet...

I see there's one chassis on ebay, but it's in the USA - price is 30USD/19GBP, and the shipping is the same. I did see one in the UK a while back, price overall was about the same. How badly (& where) is it cracked? At that sort of price I'd be looking at repairing it.

Welcome on board btw

Cheers Jonny!

Well, here's an image of the chassis crack. Pretty sure I won't be able to do anything with that, without it looking rubbish?

But the wheel refurb is coming along ok, here's the first one, next to the next one that will be getting treatment........

sheriff wrote:

...
Well, here's an image of the chassis crack. Pretty sure I won't be able to do anything with that, without it looking rubbish?
...

Well I don't know ... it's pretty ugly, but is possibly salvageable - but it's a judgement call as to whether it's worth it in terms of time & effort - and whether it'll be as strong as it needs to be...

I'm thinking dremel out the crack a little (to get rid of any glue residue & to relax the obvious stretching), degrease & key the underside of the broken area with 240 grit wet & dry, mask over the crack & the surrounding area on the top side, mix up some resin & layer up with fibreglass mat, recut the drive shaft hole, fill the crack from the topside with car body filler & sand back, mask up & prime, sand back with 1200 to 2000 grit wet & dry, & spray colour - I think Humbrol #85 Coal Black Satin (www.humbrol.com...ers-spray/) would be a reasonable match, especially if you can feather the edges with foam J-tape or similar ....

That's certainly what I'd do, _if_ getting a replacement chassis wasn't possible - but as they are available, albeit expensively, you've got to balance the cost of doing it, and your time ... and take the risk that it may break in the same place.

Overall ... I think I'd shell out for the new chassis, myself.

sheriff wrote:

...
But the wheel refurb is coming along ok, here's the first one, next to the next one that will be getting treatment........
...

Looking good!

Hmmmm, unfortunately I might have to go for the later (but new chassis), as I struggle for time at the moment due to business (emailing now while machine is cutting graphics!). Thanks for the very good instructions though, it is tempting.

Wheels looking good yeah, not quite as 'white' as I'd like, big improvement though. Will splash out on some new tyres for them (god this car will owe me a fortune!!)

sheriff wrote:

Hmmmm, unfortunately I might have to go for the later (but new chassis), as I struggle for time at the moment due to business (emailing now while machine is cutting graphics!). Thanks for the very good instructions though, it is tempting.

Wheels looking good yeah, not quite as 'white' as I'd like, big improvement though. Will splash out on some new tyres for them (god this car will owe me a fortune!!)

Tony (Europro975) has a new Bigwig chassis on Ebay, cgi.ebay.co.uk/...0343563663 -

Replaced the homemade decals on the 2nd one with a repro set, also swapped wheels & shocks over so all the best/most original stuff is on one (foreground) & 2nd best are on the "runner"