Nitroholic

Starter box is basically a motor with a rubber wheel that contacts the cars engine flywheel when you press the car onto it. A contact switch starts the motor, which spins the flywheel turning the motor over until it fires. You will often find the starter box has a glow plug igniter wire that runs off it's battery too....as hte glow plug needs power when starting up.

Yeah.....theory and practice are different beasts, and when I did this...I saw no improvement in anything. When the bearings wore out, I replaced the brace with an IRC one that was thicker and that served me just as well and was more resilient to muck and rubbish.

I bought some top-hat type bearings, drilled out hte brace to suit, and pushed them in. Can;t say I noticed much difference TBH.

https://usermanual.wiki/Document/tamiyarisingfightermanual.1472891499 dry version for you!

why? The larger wheels would mess with the gearing, and would either result in an over stressed motor/ESC or you would need to lower the gearing to compensate. Larger wheels would give you slightly more ground clearance...but you are not going to notice it on a 1/16 truck.

hmmm....well. I haven;t used my larger RC's for a year or two, so I think maybe it's time to...build a project out of one. Wanted to build a half-track based on an HPI Baja drive train. So might do that this summer. Want to build a 1/24 sacale crawler course in my garage, and will include some micro RC heli landing spots on there too. As this year...I also want to actually learn to fly my micro CP heli. Picked up a used old mCX co-ax, as I haven;t flown for a while, and need to get back into the swing of it with something controllable. Might look at a 1/16 tank build from scratch too. Kept meaning to do it... 3D print mixed with flat styrene sheet composite build. Got a few ideas.

I got a small pink 1/24 FTX Landy .... which has already been driven round the garage a few times.

Just check if they modified the chassis to make it fit too.

I think this simply comes down to needing clearance for the spur gear here. In the same way Nitro cars need a clearance hold for the spur. Otherwise, you have to mount hte motor higher, which thenmakes hte driveline layout less simple. It's easier to just make a hole in the chassis. A plastic cover would stop debris getting in...but...would snag on anything the car drove over and probably get torn off. You could probably make a cover of sorts with a piece of lexan ( bodyshell material ) but you would need to mount it on the diff mount screws, which isn;t ideal.

Funds send for 'Lil Pinky' time to build a little indoor course in the garage to play with this when it's not so cold I got frost on the INSIDE of the garage door!

Gaz mate..I'm gonna regret this in the morning.... but I kind of like the pink Landy. I haven't been drinking....honest. Sell it to me quick before I change my mind/sober up

When soldering bullets, I always use the block of wood thing to hold them. Even for occasional use, though, a decent soldering iron is so much nicer to use. I had a cheapo one, and everything about it was annoying. From a flex that wanted to 'curl' and make the iron roll over if I rested it on a stand though to wobbly tips and unpredicvtable heating times. I also have a big chunky Weller iron. The good iron is so much nicer to use. I solder better with it too as a result

Generally speaking, runtime is down to the size of the battery. Highr mAH ratings will last longer. LiPo batteries put out more power, and as you run them down, don;t drop voltage in the same waya NiMh does. They take more care, and need to be properly looked after, but they will make your car run better. In practice, the usable runtime tends to be longer as well. Just make sure your ESC has a properly set low voltage cutoff Last thing.... when I last ran a LiPo on a brushed motor, the motor got pretty hot and didn;t last. It was a cheapy RTR motor, and the extra power the battery made available gave the motor issues. So be aware. You may need to watch the gearing, and certainly the motor temperatures.

I've never really had issues melting connectors.... only when I was using old-school Deans type. Then, I found things went better if I plugged both halves of the connector together when I was soldering. Gives a slightly bigger heat sink. I also used a fairly broad flat tip on the soldering iron to get good heat transfer. The longer you leave the iron on...the more heat transfers tot he plastic, and the more likely you are to melt it. I also found that holding both halves of the connector was easier. Tin the wires and the connector and let it cool Flux will help solder melt and flow, and with flux cored solder... when you tin the wires and connector surface....the flux goes. A dab of extra flux helps the joint to form faster. Or...seems to for me!

Ran a KM clone and genuine HPI Baja side by side for a while. Only thing I found about clone that needed close attention was the prep. Diff and gears were poorly greased, and the threadlocking was not what I would want. I bought the absolute bottom end KM clone, which had awful cheap servos and wheels without a reinforcing band. Wasn;t fussed...as I had intended to replace those parts with upgrades anyway....so I wasn;t fussed. Haven't run a Rovan clone, but I have seen one in the flesh, and I was not impressed. Buy a KM clone....but strip it down, replace the diff oil, regrease the gearbox, and reassemble with threadlock where its needed. Also...if your choice of KM doesn;t have an alloy clutch support...buy and fit one. Look at things like the servos and radio gear, and if you aren;t happy...plan to upgrade. A lot of the clones RC Modelz sell have had upgrades applied....just dont bother with alloy suspension arms. Plastic is better here.

I would say dead too. Very dead. Unbolt it and open up the motor can if possible. See how many bits fall out. Unless the car is less than a year old, in which case....contact the shop about a warranty.

I'd probably get in trouble running that at my local park.....

Yeah do it . I did it to mine. Just install a low voltage buzzer, and be sure not to forget to turn the damn thing off when you pack everything away.

First thing to check is the size of the wheel hexes, and then check the tyres diameter. There shouldn;t be a need to buy wheels/tyres designed specifically for the buggy, as generally tyres are made to a variety of standard sizes based on scale and type. so...for example....if you have a 1/10 scale buggy ..... most good model stockist ( Modelsport, Wheelspin etc. ) will give you options to narrow down the choices. so: https://www.modelsport.co.uk/wheels-tyres/wheels-tyre-sets/buggy/110? If you then need specifics...go to the info tab, and it will usually give you the tyre dioameter and wheel hex size. so: https://www.modelsport.co.uk/product/fastrax-1-10th-mounted-cuboid-black-buggy-wheels-and-tyres-front-434084 these are 12mm hex, 2.2" in diameter. Check that against what you have, and it should give you a good idea if they are right. You can also find different wheel styles, on road tyres, and varying off road tyres depending on the sort of surfaces you run on. Once you know the basic size, type of fitment and the like, you will usually find many options out there.

No...life would be so easy if that was true, but it isn't. If the parts are no longer made, and there are none floating around on E-Bay, and no suitable made to fit aftermarket parts, then you need to get creative. You need parts designed to fit or close enough that they can be modified. Suspension arms need to fit at the hub end and on the inner side. Plus they need the shock mounts in the right place too. You may hit lucky buying random bits....but the odds are not in your favour. Your best bet is to take all the arms off...take a good clear photo of each, then measure every critical dimension...add them on the picture in photshop...then puit them up in here to see if people have any parts knocking around that would work. Then buy them, or ones like them.

Not petrol powered..... this is a 1/10 scale nitro powered car. Actual petro lpowered RC's are usually 1/5 scale....and a LOT bigger than this will be. I don;t recognise the chassis. but it doesn;t look to bee in too bad a state.

nice model to start with

Sounds like you have a fun project ahead of you! My tactics would be to tell the wife they are all worth more as runners with radio gear, so you can put them up for sale tested and usable. Then you are guaranteed the enjoyment of tinkering, and having a few test runs ..and then just keep the good ones! Sounds like you got quite a bit of stuff to work through, and it sounds like you are going to enjoy it! best of luck!oh.. and tell us if you find anything interesting

The biggest challenge with a collection like this is actually identifying what you have. For example....with the tanks.... the common scale is 1/16, and you could have Tamiya tanks ( costing £500 or more new ) or Heng Long tanks ( costing around £150 new) and if you are selling them on, you don;t want to sell Tamiya stuff for Chinese copy prices. Same goes for the cars. Plus, of course, if you need spares, you need to know if you can get them, and how easily. Keeping cars for the kids to play with is nice, but you want to keep ones that you can use properly, and fix if you break things. Not find out you are driving a rare and collectable shelf-queen with parts made from pure unobtanium 🙂 Or end up trying to shift a Chinese HiMoto rebrand on E-Bay for double what its worth. I'm guessing that some of this stuff is fairly old, as 'crystal' based radios have been largely replaced with 2.4Ghz gear that do not need or use them.

got one of these: