TOPIC:

I can't do a boxart pilot. My approach : I'm the pilot, I can't be boxart

😂sure you can't.

I had Hunter and Galaxy drivers sitting unpainted on my desk for a while (a long while)... Got recently some goodies from my friend optimaforver for the Galaxies, and I needed to showcase them. No way I can do this without proper driver figure and wings. The wings were tackled a few weeks ago. That was not the case of the driver. I got to the task at the same moment as the Samurai driver...


One is an original and the two others are repro in resin (molded from original).


For the molded ones, I used some black filament to replace the missing wheel...

The Hunter was quick to finish : I juts had to glue the driver in (double face tape). But for the Galaxies, I knew it would take more time : to put the driver in place, you have a bunch of screws to remove from the roll cage. I did procrastinate a bit. And I wanted to do something for the wings: something to help maintain them in case of roll over (there should be a reason why none of the Galaxy I got has a wing). Fusion360 was again my friend.


This is very simple. There is two parts, one goes on the roll cage and has a support preventing the wing to fold, to close to the screws, and the other one replace the washer and is designed to enter in the wing recess to lock it properly.

I printed some, in red, because I like the red, and it will be nice on the Galaxy, but slightly less on the Galaxy RS (although there is already some red on the wing). But that's it.

But before this, I needed to put the Galaxy Shock Stay Reinforcement Bar (GSSRB) from Optima House on the Galaxies. This is a part he made to complete his Hunter gearcover, specifically designed for the Galaxy, and it is versatile enough to work with the non broken Galaxy chassis alone and with a Hunter gearcover for broken chassis. And it is nice, with a Galaxy fine print on the bar in plain center




After tackling the red, and while my son was finishing to put his Super(hot)Shot together, I tackled the blue...



and then it was time for some family pictures. It's missing a variant at this stage (the Hunter with V1 chassis), but at least I have 3 complete cars on this picture (if we don't count the electronics as the Galaxy RS is missing both a RX and an MSC/Servo or a ESC...





Still have a lot of things to do with the other cars you saw arriving in this thread, but that will be for later

wow, these are looking great, nice job on the restores. Now the tricky question, will you run them?

I'm not sure, but I may run them. Technically, they are stronger enough with the reinforcements for that. But I won't run them with those set of nice wheels (and I still need to do a box art bodyshell for the Hunter, as I have some stickers for that )

yeah, the wheels and tires are darn hard to get these days. I do have plans to one day machining a set of rims, especially for the red galaxy, that would look pretty sweet I think. They are a pretty basic design and shouldn't be too hard to do. At least the axles are pretty standard so there are lots of other options to swap while driving.

As for the Hunter, yes, you should have plenty of stickers    How did you find the TBG body? Its pretty expensive for me to just get one, so the plan for me is to cast a mold from what I have and make a few of my own. I'm hoping very shortly I'll have the ability to vac form polycarbonate, so it should be a good weekend project.

Yes, for the tires and wheels, I got extremely lucky... Unfortunately, it seems the sources is depleting...
And yes, there is possible alternatives. The front tires barely gets used, and there is all sort of easy solution solutions for the rear ones (being vintage or not. The Kyosho Scorpion 2014 rears are one of the solutions with my adapter ring, and that is probably the solution I'll use for running one of the Hunters and the red Galaxy (sorry, I have less love for the Galaxy RS :-/)

And yes, I have plenty of stickers. I need to use them, at least to thanks the one who provided them to me (Thanks again for that, by the way). And for the two TBG bodies, I'll need to trim one of them soon. Maybe I should have ordered 3 instead of two, but I ordered before I knew there would be another complete Hunter joining the crew (for which I'll try as well to save the body)... That being said, I still have some interrogation on the dimensions for the body : the Samurai body seems to be slightly shorter than the original one, so I will need to be careful about where I drill the holes... But for sure I'll report about it once it is done for the Hunter...

 

Today, while still awaiting one single part to finish my Samurai n°1, I decided to tackle the Galaxy RS my son will use for vintage events...

For memory, that's the one which came in a field box, with a missing roll cage and broken shock towers.

My son has already a driver for this car. It is based on resin printed stl based on a Marui Ninja or Shogun driver. I just paint the face of this one, my son made the rest...

Normally, I'm not the one doing the build of this car. He should be building the car for himself. But first I need to tear it off, clean the parts and repair the chassis (or make proper patching).

I did tear the machine down to parts early this afternoon... There is some very good surprises, and some that are quite bad.
First, as per the general state of the underside, it does look like the car was not used much offroad...

Second, opening the gearbox shows a idle gear and a differential close of being new (just like the red Galaxy, actually).


I finished to tear everything down to parts quite quick (40 minutes - when you know the car by heart without having to think, it goes faster, you do it in the inverted sequence from the build). Most of the screws are close of being new.

I believe from the analysis that the kid (or his father) building the car initially made a mistake mounting a front shock at the rear, and that probably led to the left broken shock tower (because the shock had no axial movement in the suspension arm), and the right followed, because the screw was torqued to much.


Most of the parts, beside the chassis, are in very good state...


For the chassis, it is another story. Marui manual as available in french stores mentioned Philips screwdrivers. But it was not Philips screws. It was JIS screws. That make a lot of difference in the way you feel the torque when working out the screw. As a result, many users were applying too much torque. And the result is catastrophic...

Front bottom arms axles were just kept in position by the bumper


Beside the shocks towers torqued too much, there was also broken mounts for the rear bumper.


Last, one of the screw seats of the gearbox under cover is damaged. To the point you can distinguish a crack on the chassis. Normally, this is not much issue, as the chassis will be taken in sandwich between parts that will be holding it together, but I think I will have to do something at least for the screw seat...


Not too bad, finally. I will have to print some parts to help holding the rear bumper and gearbox cover together (this car will use the OptimaHouse gearbox cover and will be a runner for my son). First I will take care of the cleaning (basically, this is now).

The ones in the family picture looks great, more than great in fact 

Yep too much force when vehicles is a common problem when buying secondhand sadly.
Seen a lot of that myself.

Getting JIS screwdrivers is a gamechanger.
If someone here is still using Phillips screwdrivers, please put those aside when doing Jap stuff, and get yourself some JIS screwdrivers.

One of my regreats is that I did not know that myself when I started this hobby 32 years ago.
But I always tried to fit the bits that fitted the best for the screws. I seldom damaged the screws.
Another tip I hope most know of when screwing on things that has already been assemble is to backtreads each selftapper screws so they find their orginal threads.
Crossthreading might happen if you don't..

Great thread btw 

Thanks Richard! I will try to keep my threads as much informative as possible...
100% agree on the backtreads comment. 
That being said, when tapping thread is dead, using metric thread screws still work as the root of a Metric screw is generally larger than the equivalent tapping screw... 
You may need however to grease the thread to ease the work of the metric screws and avoid to damage it. And in the case of those Marui screw seats it will require circling them to avoid any issue...