TOPIC:

Hi all,

After owning a Hornet as a kid in the late 80's I have now resurrected my interest in Tamiya RC buggies at the grand age of 41!!! I bought myself a wreck of a Hotshot ( the car I always wanted but could never afford as a kid!) and have spent the last 3 months restoring it to it's former glory. Having enjoyed that I have now managed to get my hands on another wreck of an original SWB Wild Willy. A restoration that I am now finding will be a lot more difficult both in terms of parts availability and cost! my question is does anyone know of a suspension upgrade that will fit the original WW? it currently runs on just springs with no dampened shocks. I have looked through eBay and found upgraded shocks for the WW2 but nothing for the original. I'm sure everyone is aware of the major differences between the two. The 2nd question is being new to the restoration game, other than the various eBay sites around the world, where is the best place to source parts? I'm finding that parts for the original WW are a lot harder to come by than they were for the Hotshot especially tyres! I'm looking for a decent couple of tyres and wheels ( have two already!) the original WW came with sand paddle tyres not unlike those on the original grasshopper but bigger. Any help you can all provide would be much appreciated.

yeah! another WW resto (really have to get going with mine ), pictures please

oh, oh, tires for the WW that will be a nice hunt. (hope you got all the rims)

suspension, there were some guys who made a aluminum brace for the front so you can fit oil dampers, rear should not be the problem, I got it somewhere have to look it up who the seller was.

Welcome on board, coops4571.

That original WW sounds sweet, as does the Hotshot!
Would love to see some pics...

here is the thread were the front shock mount was introduced to me, also something about other tires.

Thanks for the thread link, think I may have missed the boat on the shock bracket as none shown on the RC-lohas eBay store or their website. looks like they might have stopped making them.

Have a check on Ebay - very recently there was someone selling a set of Blazing Blazer wheels & tyres for 50/60 quid (Cheap for these) - search for "Hilux" in the RC section. The Blazer tyres are the same as Willy ones. Be quick though, cos if they haven't already sold, the end must be imminent!

I did a LWB resto recently, have a look at my "Wild Willy M38 LWB basketcase restoration" - I ended up having to make a lot of the parts

Here it is.

Welcome on board coops

I'm not sure if I'd bother with oil dampers on a Willy - the handling is limited by the car being top heavy, the solid rear axle, and the single wishbones on the front with poor geometry causing massive bump steer ... I'd just enjoy is as it is, proper damping is not going to transform it

Also, if you've got any thoughts about selling it in the future, the value in it is it being an early SWB version - any mods or deviations from box art will devalue it ... but if it's quite far gone or you intend to keep/use it, that hardly matters

Parts ... got to be Ebay really - and mostly from buying other incomplete cars

Jonny,

thanks for the tips. Clearly I haven't run it yet but all the videos on YouTube look 'BOUNCY!' the dampened shock theory was more about trying to limit that rather than improve it's cornering because as you rightly say it's not realy built for that. good advice on keeping it original, not too sure if I'm gonna run it or shelf Queen it yet. depends on how good a job I make of it!

I've now seen a few sets of tyres on eBay one set for

If I were you, I'd have the tyres whilst they're available, despite not having the hubs. If you find yourself with too many tyres, you can always sell them on, but it'll be a pain if you wait for hubs then can't get any tyres for them.
Other thing is, wheels can be fixed fairly easily with glue & plasticard, you can't really do anything with knackered tyres!

Trouble is, they're an odd size & the wheels are an odd fitment - if you end up having to replace the wheels/tyres with something "available but different" you'll have to come up with some special drive adaptors (The original wheels hold the bearings, & without them the shafts are unsupported), & most likely have gearing problems, due to the different size of the new wheels/tyres - there's no ratio adjustment!