Low Budget Race Team

[Ralphthe3rd]

Back in the day, in the 1:1 world, I owned a V6 Ford Pinto that I thought was a Hot Rod- lol. Anyway, I've always love the little Pintsters. Here is a shot with my Collection of HO Pinto Racers.... I'm still looking to add to this collection and there are some old tyco Bodies I'd like to get if I can find them for a reasonable price....

FYI- The White body is an Ideal TCR body, the Blue Pintos are Matchbox, the Orange is a Tyco, and the Lime Green is an Aurora A/FX.

[Ralphthe3rd]

Restoration work continues, on this original Aurora '68 Firebird T-Jet Body. The major hard stuff is Free Sculpting - *Goop rebuilding, of the hacked out rear wheel wells. Each layer of goop takes days to harden and shrink before the next layer is applied. Eventually enough goop plastic will exist to shape with a file and sandpaper, then final buff/polish.
*Goop: is a Toxic mixture of chopped up Aurora Plastic in the color you wish to restore, mixed with Testors #3205 Liquid Cement , which dissolves the plastic into a workable paste or wash- depending on the % of the mix. Testors #3205 contains a large % of MEK

[dge467]

The starting tower looks great! Neat tip on the body work! I'll have to try it sometime.

[Ralphthe3rd]

[Ralphthe3rd]

Here's just a bunch of old pix that were lost on the old site when my Photo host changed the URL to all these pix.....

It's like the late 1970's all over again :D
The #55 car is an old 1977 Ideal TCR Body of a Mustang II Dirttrack Modified, I adapted the body to fit an old tyco U-Turn SWB Chassis. I wish I had the Nerf Bars that were supposed to go with that Mustang II and Pinto Modified, but oh well....


With the Mustang II, I could have used either LWB or SWB U-Turn Chassis, but I chose the SWB(as shown) because I have more of them. But when I tried the LWB it did look better.


On the Mustang II, besides the missing nerfs(& Radiator) is also a missing faux motor that stuck out each side under the hood, and with headers coming out and going into dumps alongside


My '37 Ford Roadster.....the FIRST Nu-Rora Body I ever owned.

And yes, those are RRR Rallye SS Wheels, with old dried out and cracked tires, that needed to have the rears replaced(with Tyco 440X2 Front tires mounted on the rear) before the car could even make a complete lap. I bought this Nu-rora '37 Ford -USED off of Ebay, it came mounted on a NOS Aurora chassis with the Rallye Wheels.

Note the Flathead Ford Engine under the Hood :)

Lets call this last pic- "Vintage Day" at my L.O.G. Speedway, and they were using this Vintage '37 Ford Pacecar for a Parade Lap :D

[Ralphthe3rd]

Here is a sweet Orange '66 Ford Fairlane....which is one of only a very few Skinny tire T-Jets that I race :D





Here's a Grounder Pounder using an old Ideal TCR Body, the #17 is(IMHO) one sweet lookin '55 Chevy. Like my other *drifting Dirttrackers, this body was mounted on an old Tyco U-Turn chassis, this LWB body and chassis fit together perfectly and with a very low stance.



FYI- I got this body off of ebay as a complete running TCR car for $3.99, but never intended to use the TCR chassis, which was in kinda sad shape anyway. So I stripped the chassis of it's motor and wheelsets and tossed it, and then proceeded to adapt the body to my tyco chassis. And the Result(IMHO) is Awesome !

[Ralphthe3rd]

I've set up four of my Fave U-Turn chassis cars with '50s era bodies for these pix :D

[dge467]

Yep, I've gone through his thread a while ago on Hobby Talk. He dose some amazing work. I may try it sometime. I got some junkers to experiment with.

[Ralphthe3rd]

Well, this week has brought me plenty of sweet lil packages in the mail, and two of them have been awesome lil Cars. The other two packages brought some old aurora Super II Motor magnets and a pair of tyco U-Turn chassis.
For this post I'll focus on the Matchbox Pinto. And this was the First Matchbox Slot Car I've ever owned, or even Touched for that matter....but I'm now an expert of sorts- lol.
The car in it's glory and in action....








Ok, now about the Chassis and motor. This is a cheap lil car from Matchbox, it originally came from a battery operated set called the Trenton 150 and I believe this car uses a 6 volt motor- although some Matchbox slots used 12 Volt motors. And FYI, if you didn't already know, Matchbox track uses pick-up rails that are closer together than all other brands of HO slots, soooo.... I first needed to modified the pick-up shoes to work on my tyco dirttrack. But the mod was simple enough, I just soldered on a portion of the fwd section of some EXTRA W-I-D-E 440X2 Shoes, and thats all it needed. The car now runs perfect on my track.
In the other photos, I show the chassis from underneath and on top, and also show a close-up of the cheap Can motor, which looks to be the same size/dimensions as some of the older tyco Cans. This Matchbox 6v can is so cheap, it doesn't even use carbon brushes as pick-ups for the commutator, but instead, merely used brass/or copper spring wires that rub under tension....not the HOT set up, and should melt off rather quickly under higher voltages. BUT, it's so far held up under a dozen laps of restrained Mattel WallWart power of about 15v.
w/pick-up conversion

[Ralphthe3rd]

I slapped together this "Pinto" Modified, using an old Ideal TCR Pinto Body, and is now mounted to an old Tyco U-Turn chassis, and is driven through a Life-Like rear axle set....

[Ralphthe3rd]

This Yellow Gremlin Modified, that was also made by Matchbox in the late 1970's. I now have the pair of cars(Pinto and Gremlin) that came from their Trenton 150 set....awesome little buggers, and it's pretty easy to modify their pick-up shoes to work on regular H.O. track.....'cept I'm still leery of running these puppies at full bore, since they have 6 volt motors with really cheesy commutator "springs" instead of carbon/copper style brushes.






PS- I got this Gremlin from a fellow HobbyTalk'er, and tho the body was really nice, the chassis was broken up front and the rear wheels were wonky and the front had old tyco rims on it, but I fitted later model MB wheels that are alot straighter on the axle, and also added the MB fronts as well. And as I mentioned, I converted the P-U shoes, and also repaired the frame...and she runs and drifts really sweet :D

[Ralphthe3rd]

This is my "BIG BOOTY" Jalopy...and yes, the Body is SUPPOSED to look Rough, like a rusty old junker with a coat of fresh paint slapped on it :)
It started out as a Resin cast body of a Willys Drag car, with a Huge rear Deck wing molded in. Well..... I removed the wing, but couldn't remove any more material from the deck than what is left, hense the "Big Booty" Moniker. Lets say this was an old moonshiners car, and the Big Booty concealed a 200 gal. tank of 'shine ;)
Before Paint

[Ralphthe3rd]

We were working late in the Shop today....trying to get a couple customers Vintage Race Cars finished up....





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Ok, the real Truth is, I was actually just working on my Speedy Pit Shop, and threw together this diorama, just to take a couple of pix :)

[Ralphthe3rd]

Sprint Car Racin' ! Ok- 1/64 slotcar racin'....errr...ok- only the last car #53 is a slotcar, all ther rest are diecast models ;)




*we miss you Nacey #26....god speed

[Ralphthe3rd]

This vintage old-time "Modified" Race Car body, was found, when my friend Wayne, was cleaning out his old storage Barn, and he was about to junk it for scrap, but instead, gave it to ME - WooHoo !



The Body started out as an original old Aurora '41 Willys in blue which had seen better days, then it had it's fenders removed and other mods performed, and was painted Yellow, and they should have stopped there- because adding Red Flames didn't highlight the car, btw- I'm in the process of sanding off the flames when these pix were taken.


FYI- the current chassis is just a JL pullback roller, the final chassis will be a Race Prepped NOS Aurora T-Jet which will wear much larger Racing tires :)