TurboFurball

To be fair, sometimes when you're trying to get a baby to sleep any noise will be enough to tip you off the deep end. Try having sleep deprivation for a couple of months and see how you feel about other people making noise ... of course it's reasonable to be able to use an electric car by your home, but it's also reasonable for someone to ask you to stop if they have a good reason.

Finally a 100% successful test - 2 hours of diggling over mud, roots, logs, mulchy leaves, and moss. Lots of tumbles, lots of self-righting with the throttle, and nothings broken, bent, or loose Ready for the comp tomorrow, if the weather holds.

Some of those scarves are really nice. I have too many already though

Yeah, looks like THIS, which "helps stability while walking" ... judging by the video it works!

Oh lordy do I ever love THIS VIDEO! The background details is a recent addition to his style, and the terrain is a bit more challenging ... it's enough to get me quite excited

Wow, looking at this I realise just how much of my Unimog isn't standard! Looking good there, though

Right, the alloy steering is back on after a bit of modification - the top to bottom rod part was about 1.5mm too short. Lessons learned - 1: Chinese made parts might look nice, but they can be all kinds of not right so check that things line up carefully. 2: Do not try to assemble small parts that need careful fitting while ill. 3: Be more patent, it's better to make everything work smoothly with more work than to try and just force it together with brute force. 4: Tamiya tie rods might look basic, but they work just fine.

Uber basic luggage rack & bungee cords made up & fitted. Hopefully I'll be able to get the steering permanently sorted tomorrow night ...

Cool, will you be keeping it mostly stock?

Those are good points ... yeah, I think an M06 Beetle might be the way to go. Possibly in Herbie livery Thanks for your thoughts, guys!

Tell you what, lend me the one you're not using, and then we can swap when you want a change

Yup, it is indeed. The kind of info I'm after is, for instance, if the M05 chews through tyres way faster than an M06, or if there's any odd weird hub wear from it being FWD, or if the weight distribution is weird on the M06 ... stuff like that that you can't tell just by reading the spec list.

Ok, I have a yearning to sort a cute little 2wd road car, since a friend got their M01 Mini working today. I have a FF01 Clio thats a bit battered, but I kinda fancy a Mini, Beetle, or maybe Alpine. Probably a Mini, lol. Would it make sense to put money into the FF01 and drop a nicer body on it, or would it be better to just get one of the much newer M05/6 platform cars? Are there any unexpected things to consider with the M05 compared to the M06? What are the tuning options/popular mods? This would be for (very) casual racing both indoors and out. I could be tempted to try and rally it a bit, too.

Thought you guys might like this action shot ... went for a trail run through the woods with my friend piloting this Lunchbox, my CC01 was on Lunchbox recovery duty, which worked really well The Lunchy was almost completely covered in mud by the end!

Well, went for a trek through the woods today, did ok but had a couple of big tumbles that have caused problems with the OE steering linkages So, looks like I'll have to come up with a solution to get the alloy set fixed and installed sooner than I'd hoped. Apart from that it's been an absolute beast on thick layers of mulching dry leaves, sometimes sinking way over the height of the wheels but still plowing along, through, and over! With a bit of practice I'm now finding the shortcomings of having IFS when tackling large obstacles, but where there's a will there's a way

Heh, I wonder if there's any scope for a scaler road-racing competition ruleset ... a lot of drifters go in for uber scale cars, so there's that.

You can have my Tamiya Neo Fighter for

Presumably it's targeted just at carpet racers (?)

There's a thread in the drift forum about this. Basically, a Vaterra V100 can be had for less than a TT01/2 and is better made.

ok, will do!

Successful field test! It works great and the 55 turn motor with Maverick ESC seems to be a great combo. I might still move the battery to try and improve the angle it rolls over at, but its still good as-is

I use Imgur, because photobucket smells.

Yeah, I'll make it work eventually, and it really would have helped to have instructions! Now the keys mashed I think just welding them together is the easiest solution (since I have access to ally welding gear)

To-do list for the LSTR comp on the 29th - ally front bumper with towing point, rear tow point, luggage rack on the back for the waffle boards and tow rope. Test driving might show something up, too, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it!

Finally some real progress! I got frustrated by the rubbish quality control of the alloy steering upgrade components, did a bit of digging online and it appears that I'm not the only one to have got one thats all out of whack ... where the shaft that goes through the chassis keys onto the arm at the bottom there was enough play that after a 5 minute drive it had mashed up ... and one of the ball joints snapped. To be fair, had I been more careful when fitting I could have picked up on it and remedied it before it self-destructed. I might re-visit it by welding them together at work, but thats something to come back to in the future ... the stock system is back on and although it flexes loads, it's useable I also fitted a Maverick ESC, since the Ansmann one that came with it didn't have a drag brake or Lipo cut-off. Which means that it's now ready for a proper outdoor test drive at the weekend! The extended wheelbase does may it a little funny looking (1" longer, the body is mounted so it's half used at the front and half at the back), but it'll definitely help!