Autolanka Rc Build Thread

[Davy]

Welcome to the AutoLanka RC build thread!

List of Builds:

1. Tamiya TT-02 '99 Subaru Impreza Monte Carlo Build by Davy

2. Traxxas 1/8 Truck Volkswagen Baja Bug Build by terrabytetango

3. Vintage 1/12 Ford F-150 Restoration by Davy (coming soon) 

4. Traxxas TRX4 Land Rover Defender by Davy

Other RC related discussions:

http://forum.autolanka.com/topic/9445-remote-control-cars/

http://forum.autolanka.com/topic/2148-show-off-ur-rc-cars/ (Unfortunately, most old links here are broken. But please use this thread to share photos of your RC cars)

Edited August 1, 2017 by Davy
Updated build index

[Davy]

Hi guys,

I’ve been contemplating whether to share this build, and when I had a chat with trinity, both of us agreed that the forum could use an RC build thread. So here goes…

Oh and for those of you who are keen on sharing your RC builds, you are most welcome to use this thread. I have created post #1 as a placeholder to add direct links to other builds that will be shared later on this thread.

Been in love with remote controlled gadgets ever since I was little and I still have most of the RC cars that were gifted to me by my father. Among them is a 1:12 scale Ford F-150 monster truck. During a time when PCs and mobile phones were not as common, this truck kept me occupied for years on. Back in the day, you couldn’t really get hobby grade RC vehicles in Sri Lanka. So the truck was all I had. The thought of buying an RC car and building it on my own was always at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t really do it for various reasons. Until now…

Researching and finding stuff about RC vehicles made me develop a soft spot for Tamiya. I wanted an assembly kit, so that I can build the car myself and do all future upgrades. So I got myself a Tamiya TT-02 kit. The car is a limited edition ’99 Subaru Impreza Monte Carlo. Scale 1:10.

More info about this car




Unboxed! The kit has about 8 part trees, 3 parts bags and the main chassis, external accessories of the car (spoiler, rear view mirror) and the decal sticker sheets.Most of the gears, bearings and linkages are hard plastic out of the box, but there are many “Hop Ups” from Tamiya itself and even from third parties like “Yeah Racing” and “GPM”. Since this is my first Tamiya kit, I’m going to stick to the stock parts for now and purchase an aluminium upgrade kit at a later point in time.




The kit has a set or Rally spec tyres with the gorgeous Subaru gold wheels.




The 1999 Subaru Impreza STi body. This is a regular polycarbonate body. It comes with a very thin polythene insulation on the outside to protect it from overspray during painting.

Subaru branded decals to go on the car. The external trims and stuff are also in a separate decal sheet. They need to be carefully cut out and pasted. Some delicate and precision work involved.


The 540 Torque Tuned brushed motor. And the ESC TBLE-02S [More info]. Note that the ESC is brushed and brushless capable, really nice of Tamiya to include a brushless capable ESC in the kit. I might go brushless sometime in the future.




The assembly kit does not come with transmitter, receiver, battery, charger and steering servo, so I had to source them separately. Placed an order for a Tamiya 2.4GHz system [This one], and it’s on the way from Japan. I’m expecting it to arrive before I finish the build. I’ll be sourcing the battery and charger from a hobby shop.

Paints are also not included in the box, so I purchased them separately even before the car arrived. 4 separate colours were needed. Main body colour, a different metallic blue for the spoiler, Matt black for the side mirror and a smoke colour for the windows. Thinking of painting the spoiler also in the same colour used for the body, hence the three paint cans. Other things I bought are a Tamiya craft knife, CA cement to paste the wheels (not sure I will use this), Tamiya masking tape and a Vernier calliper. Yes, I have a mini Tamiya fetish already.




Stay tuned for the build...

EDIT:

Continued on post #13

Edited July 17, 2017 by Davy
Fixed broken image links

[trinity]

Wow... great you decided to put up topic here as we talked. I know seeing this will inspire that small kid in us to go and attempt something like this. having seen your intricate work before, I sure well know that your will complete this build to the perfection.

Cant wait to see future progress.

Cheers!

[asrock]

Wow cant wait to see the build. I never had such an advanced RC car but back in he day I had a RC Porsche 911 Targa, built in jap, which I modded with front and back LEDs Still working today.

[asrock]

The Receiver is just a tiny module in this one. In my Porsche, the receiver occupied one third of the whole damn car.

[Davy]

  On 6/28/2016 at 6:53 AM, asrock said:

The Receiver is just a tiny module in this one. In my Porsche, the receiver occupied one third of the whole damn car.

The photo I've shared is of the ESC, but yeah, the receiver is pretty much the same size as well. The receiver circuit in my Ford F-150 is also pretty huge. I guess that's the difference between the 90s and today.

  On 6/28/2016 at 6:48 AM, asrock said:

Wow cant wait to see the build. I never had such an advanced RC car but back in he day I had a RC Porsche 911 Targa, built in jap, which I modded with front and back LEDs Still working today.

Would love to see your 911 Targa. Please share some photos in this thread if possible.

[asrock]

  On 6/28/2016 at 7:05 AM, Davy said:

The photo I've shared is of the ESC, but yeah, the receiver is pretty much the same size as well. The receiver circuit in my Ford F-150 is also pretty huge. I guess that's the difference between the 90s and today.

I went through the link for Tamiya 2.4GHz system and saw the receiver module there, yeah almost all of the electronic modules are tiny.

  On 6/28/2016 at 7:05 AM, Davy said:

Would love to see your 911 Targa. Please share some photos in this thread if possible.

The car is in Kandy at the moment, I would definitely post few pics when I go there.

[terrabytetango]

This was my final proper scratch build, back in 2009. A frakenstein monster of parts from various Traxxas models, all so that i could properly fit the 1/8 scale body onto it. Back then proline didn't make the 1/10 version so we had to make do with what we had.

[Kavvz]

  Davy said:

... Other things I bought are a Tamiya craft knife, CA cement to paste the wheels (not sure I will use this), Tamiya masking tape and a Vernier calliper.

'Cos regular masking tape at Rs 75 just doesn't cut it?

Edited June 29, 2016 by Kavvz

[Davy]

  On 6/28/2016 at 6:56 PM, terrabytetango said:

This was my final proper scratch build, back in 2009. A frakenstein monster of parts from various Traxxas models, all so that i could properly fit the 1/8 scale body onto it. Back then proline didn't make the 1/10 version so we had to make do with what we had.

That is sick terra! Very nice! Was so tempted to go for a Traxxas Stampede 4x4 VXL, but even the 1/10 scale ones are so expensive!

Is that graphic on the body a sticker or a very complex paint job involving three colours?

  On 6/29/2016 at 12:34 AM, Kavvz said:

'Cos regular masking tape at Rs 75 just doesn't cut it!!

Shhhhh! People will hear!

But yeah, couldn't help it. Just glad I didn't buy one of everything from the "tools" section of the hobby shop.

[terrabytetango]

Two colours. The metallic grey was achieved by alternate coats of black and silver. All graphics are paint, done using paint masks.

[Davy]

  On 6/29/2016 at 1:36 AM, terrabytetango said:

Two colours. The metallic grey was achieved by alternate coats of black and silver. All graphics are paint, done using paint masks.

Very neat! Well done!

[Davy]

I started the build! The link below is to the instruction manual I’m following. Gives a clear picture about each step of the build since I couldn’t capture each step.

Assembly manual + body specific manual (8mb PDF)

The first step is to assemble the spur gear at the back of the car and then the propeller shaft. Lube the plastic bearings with grease and then put ‘em together. Note that the prop shaft is plastic too – something that I didn’t like because there’s actually a bit of flex to it.

Then came the differentials – both front and rear. Filled the diff housing with a liberal amount of grease. The kit came with two types of grease. Regular grease for bearings and the diff and Anti-Wear grease for suspension links and even between the prop shaft and the spur gear.

Next – the motor. The motor itself came with a 19T spur gear, but the kit had a 17T one. The instructions for the car said use the 19T one, so that was what went in. Here’s the motor installed.

Suspension arms were next. And after a couple of hours, this is what I ended up with.

Done for the day

Edited July 17, 2017 by Davy
Fixed broken image links

[Davy]

Shocks assembled. Each strut came in 5 separate parts.

Assembling the drive shafts...

 

And we have something that looks like a complete chassis...

Edited July 17, 2017 by Davy
Fixed broken image links

[Davy]

I also got the Finespec 2.4GHz Transmitter system. This kit has an ECS too. So I've now got a spare TBLE-02S ESC. The ESC that came with the car is set to brushed mode off the factory, and the one that came with the transmitter is in brushless mode. The setting (amongst other settings) can be modified.

The transmitter in the box (ESC and servo in the bubble wrapped bags).

The Tamiya TRU-08 receiver:

The Tamiya TSU-03 steering servo. I have installed the arm that came with the car onto the server here.

Electrics will go into the car next. I've got to buy a battery for the car and a charger. Thinking of getting a 5000mAh NiMH battery with a good charger that allows balancing of LiPo batteries as well.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Davy
Fixed broken image links

[asrock]

Where do you fit the battery?

[Davy]

  On 6/30/2016 at 9:46 AM, asrock said:

Where do you fit the battery?

The servo, receiver and the ESC go on the side of the motor. So the space on the other side of the prop shaft is totally for the battery.

[terrabytetango]

Once you get the hang of it, upgrade to Tamiya CVA shocks, which use shock oil. You'll feel a world of difference in terms of handling over rough ground. Also read up on this.

http://www.rctech.net/forum/electric-off-road/828544-tamiya-tt02-tt-02-rally-off-road-thread.html

[terrabytetango]

Upgrade those plastic all bushings to ball racers, also after you get the hang of things.

Edited June 30, 2016 by terrabytetango

[Davy]

  On 6/30/2016 at 9:56 AM, terrabytetango said:

Once you get the hang of it, upgrade to Tamiya CVA shocks, which use shock oil. You'll feel a world of difference in terms of handling over rough ground. Also read up on this.

http://www.rctech.net/forum/electric-off-road/828544-tamiya-tt02-tt-02-rally-off-road-thread.html

  On 6/30/2016 at 10:18 AM, terrabytetango said:

Upgrade those plastic all bushings to ball racers, also after you get the hang of things.

Thanks mate. The springs on the stock shocks are really stiff, so I'll definitely be switching to a good set of shocks. And yes, the plastic bushes need to go. I also noticed that the drive shafts have a bit of horizontal free play near the wheels which I don't like because it can cause the wheels to wobble.

There are aftermarket upgrade kits which cost more. Like this one by Yeah Racing. Still thinking which way to go. This one here costs more than the car itself.

[Davy]

Posting this again since all posts made after June 30th are gone after the recent forum upgrade attempt.

So I thought of moving on to bodywork since I wanted to get the body painted during the weekend. I marked the body using a permanent marker and then used a pair of scissors and the crafting knife to cut the excess plastic out. Cutting along the wheel arches was the most difficult.

After that I installed the body mounting posts onto the chassis and positioned the body to where it would sit. Although this is a rally car, I didn't want it sitting higher than normal, so I settled for a 5mm gap between the wheel arch and the tyre. This way the front wheels were able to turn left and right without touching the body even under full suspension travel.

I washed the body with soap and water as instructed in the manual and then masked the windows.

I also got the charger and a battery. Having heard of horror stories of batteries catching fire and exploding, I decided to buy a good charger. Went for a SkyRC B6AC + V2. Capable of charging/discharging NiMH, LiPo, NiCd and even balancing LiPos. The battery is a VENOM 5000mAh 7.2V NiMH.

The charger came with all sorts of adapter cables for different makes of RCs. The charger even has a micro USB port to connect to the PC and monitor stats on a PC app.

The battery also came with different adapters, so I can use this battery on almost any car that supports 7.2V NiMH.

Running a series of charge > discharge cycles on the battery.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Davy
Fixed broken image links

[Davy]

The paint job went pretty well. After masking the windows, I sprayed three even coats of blue. A light coat at first, followed by a bit thicker coat and then the final one being pretty thick.

First coat...

And the final coat

The spoiler. Since I used the same colour that was used for the body (ignoring the manual's instructions that said, "use a different colour"), the spoiler appeared to be different from the rest of the body. I might have to spray it with a few coats of clear to get the same shine as the body.

Rear view mirror painted in semi-gloss black

Unmasked the windows and painted them in the smokey black colour. Looks like all windows are tinted now.

Next was the biggest surprise. I removed the polythene on the outside after the paint dried up and dang!! look at that shine!

A few more shots with the painted body mounted on the chassis

Really happy with how the paint job turned out...

Edited July 18, 2017 by Davy
Fixed broken image links

[sathyajithj99]

Nice work Davy.It seems like you have a lot of patience. Looking forward to seeing the complete work.

[Davy]

While the forum was offline, I actually finished my build!  

So after the paint job, the next part was to stick the decals and stuff on the body shell. This took the longest of all. A good pair of scissors and a knife is essential for this part.

Some stickers needed to be positioned perfectly, so I used tabs of masking tape to position them first and then peeled off the back of the sticker from underneath. Made it much easier to paste them.

For smaller decals, I stuck them onto the craft knife and positioned them on the body:

Halfway there...

Note how different the colour of the spoiler is in the above photo. I will paint this again.

And we're done! I didn't paste all decals to be honest. There were some that I left out because I didn't want to covert the whole car with stickers. I might change my mind later.

Here's the actual car for comparison:

 

Will share photos of how the electrics went in next.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Davy
Fixed broken image links

[Davy]

This how the electrics went in:

Servo installed:

The receiver is pasted on the servo with some double sided tape. The ESC was pasted onto the chassis with double sided tape. All wires connected and tied:

I got to painting the spoiler again as well. Three coats of metallic blue followed by two coats of clear. I'm going to install it on the car like this and give it a good cut & polish a couple of weeks later.

Painted the battery bracket and the front bumper with the same blue as well. Just because.

 

Edited July 18, 2017 by Davy
Fixed broken image links