TOPIC:

It's an abused tl01... the body is dead for me. Try the tbg one. For the b5 part I have one . And yes alk bearings are 1150. 
keep the gears like that and end to ruin it as it was. On road and rallye . Gogogo😜😜😜

1972 wrote:

I have a pair of new ones. Yours if you like. Send me a PM with address etc and they are yours. 

Cheers Jim, I’ve sent you a PM. Thanks.
 

 

Wheels and tyres now.
The tyres had been glued, luckily only on the outer rim. I could already see the cracked rims so I used Andy’s method of boiling them and then very gently pushed the tyre off the rim. I will glue back the bits that have broken off and then try to fill in and missing gaps with styrene.
I’ve ordered new tyres, these ones are shot.
I also managed to find the original manual for sale this morning so I’ve bought that, just a nice thing to have with the car.

 
Probably as far as I’ll get today, but I’ve been going back over every part to give them a final clean up, cotton buds and scalpel into all the nooks and crannies. I’ll leave everything over night now.
I’ve started fixing the wheels which are coming up quite nicely which is a pleasant surprise. I’ve glued back on the pieces stuck to the tyres. Hopefully I can get them finished tomorrow.

Nice work on this tl Al

stingray-63 wrote:

Nice work on this tl Al

Cheers Flo, I seem to enjoy the getting everything clean stage. I’m looking forward to the build.
 

The chassis pices is designed to have that V shaped crack.
Totally normal.
Here is picture lifted from my Escort Mk2 thread
Even this exact chassis is HBX, it's a copy of the TL01
I think the V shape is there to make it more easy to install the rear section of the chassis.


I've seen far more damage on these.
Usually the first thing that goes is the body post outriggers on the chassis. These can snap off in a crash.
Next is the upper shock mounts. The either break off of get cracked.
Due the low ground clearance the chassis is very prone to scratches on the underside.
One thing you can do if you don't want to have it totally stock is to fit M05RA front C-hubs and rear uprights. These give better ground cleance as the have two mounting holes for both upper and lower suspension arm.
I did fit such on my Escor Mk2 build, only difference is I'm using M chassis arms on mine.


And for repairing the body you can use Tamiya Polycarbonate reinforcement tape 54792 and Tamiya Polycarbonate body reinforcement tape 87190
Or regular drywall tape and Hudy bodyfix.
Use the tape to get the shape and then use a brush and take a blob on the brush and smear a thin coat over the tape.
When dry this will seem like a thin fiberglass.
I did this in my Falcon resto thread some years ago.

Crack seen on my Focus build with proper Tamiya chassis.


Also the rare grey lightweight chassis also has the V shaped crack.


 

Hi Richard thanks for all that information.
It’s interesting about the chassis, I’m going to consider myself very lucky with this one, I’ve been over everything on the chassis while cleaning it and there isn’t a crack anywhere, the shock towers were what I expected to be cracked, but everything is good.
I ordered some of the polycarbonate re- enforcing tape last night. I just need the material to go over it.
Hopefully I’ll have some time today to start rebuilding the chassis, but I think I’ll try some wet and dry on the bottom of the chassis just to tidy up the worst of the scratches.
Thank you.

 
I have had a tidy up of the bottom of the chassis this morning to try and get rid of the worst of the gravel rash.
In this first picture I’ve used wet and dry 400 grit on the left hand side, the right hand side is as it was.
 
This is both sides done up to 600 grit.
 

And a third run, now with 1200 grit.

It looks a lot better. I don’t think I want to get it totally smooth as it’s never going to look like it’s a new build. I think I’ll leave this for now, I can always come back to it as things progress.