TOPIC:

eddrick wrote:

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Did you get as far as looking at the milling setup for the Unimat? Did the speed control help?

It's claimed that the Unimat clone can be set up as a different machine "within minutes", and that's true to a certain extent - there are 120 minutes in 2 hours after all So I'll be leaving it set up as a lathe.

I'd always planned to cheat a bit with the bumper block, essentially it will be two sheets of 3mm styrene with offset holes to get the recesses (looking at WB's drawing, I don't think 0.5mm here and there will make that much difference) with tubular bits for the bumper & chassis fixing bits.

Thanks for the bearing measurements WB

I think I've got the "full perm" of bearings now:

"K2": 4 off 5x8x2.5mm flanged (MF85) - closest fit for the flanged bearings, I guess spacers may also be needed, they also seem very expensive compared to the modern bearing prices I'm used to ...
"K3": 4 off 1150
"K4": 2 off 730
"Ball Bearings": 4 off 8x22x7mm (608-ZZ for metal shielded, 608-2RS for rubber shielded) - I had thought these would be too expensive to be worth replacing, but they appear to be a popular (and therefore cheap) skateboard size so I'm tempted to upgrade the wheel bearings to RS ...

Dug out the wheels I bought months back to see if I felt any better about them ... no, not really

A much better set came with the car (with the correct tyres) so I'll use those, but I think I need to try and make something of these - I paid the best part of 20 GPB for them

The evostick won't come off with picking/peeling so I'm going to try graffiti remover... I might as well, they're useless as they are.

More positive news on the decals though - most of them I could cut out of vinyl, a few I could print on clear, the "CITY" numberplate is loose in the box, it's only the white on clear "hyper turbo" windscreen ones I can't reproduce, but I'm hoping to save the ones that are already on the car.

yep those oversized wheelbearings are the same as for skates, bruiser got them too.

Without looking, I'm guessing the MR85 flanged bearings live in the gearbox, mounted through a plain hole & use the flange to stop them falling out? - an option might be to use a flanged "bucket" to hold a standard 850 bearing, but it would mean popping the gearbox hole out bigger to take said bucket (Along similar lines to the outdrive plastic bearing cups on the Frog/MB).
If it were me, I'd copy the gearbox plate in question & keep the original one unmutilated in case of future sale.

Wheel bearings are same on old Hilux & Blazer too, & yeah they're cheap as chips. Unfortunately, the 25 spares I've got are a different size....

When I said they were expensive, I should have put that in context - I've got too used to paying 50p for a bearing (as opposed to the ruinous cost in the early 80's), which recently went up to 60p each .. the flanged bearings are only twice as much

No chance of doing the spraying or 1:1 car stuff that I need to be getting on with (weather), so I had a look at the bodywork ... it doens't look too bad, only the details have been painted, the decals aren't that good (but IIRC are very difficult to get to sit right anyway), and the body has a few scuffs & gouges...









That's all easily fixible, the "glass" is more of a problem - it doesn't look too bad in the photos, but is warped on the front (and has smoke damage on the inside), various scratches, paint additions, and cracks...












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Just as the photos don't show how bad it was, they don't show how much better it is after a going over with Fairy liquid & the 3 stage Novus plastic polishing set ... I can't do anything about the cracks or the warping, but otherwise it's looking good

you could risk warming the front screen and try to get most of the warp out.
but the rest of the body and glass is looking great.
this is your second wheeler right, how about doing it in the other color scheme they have, the yellow or green one. (thats my dream, wheelers 1 thru 5 )

I'd never get the shrinkage out, and chances are it'd only get worse, so I'm inclined to leave it.

Technically, this is my 2nd wheeler - but the first one went a long time ago - 25 years? So I'll go with boxart on this one

IDK about having all 5 liveries ... the red/blue does look the best IMO.

Incidentally, the 1:1 source of the Wheeler is often cited (including on Tamiyabase) as being a Japanese racing series for female drivers ... I do seem to remember a short clip of cars in the right liveries, but as I remember it, it was a demonstration race at Suzuka in 1982, with the 5 cars being driven by Satoru Nakajima, Jonathan Palmer, Stefan Johansson, Thierry Boutsen & Kenny Acheson respectively, who were or later became F1 drivers.

These are pics of Ebbro replicas, BTW: