Simple pleasures

[SuperSlab]

This is definitely one of the aspects of the hobby that I particularly enjoy: taking a straightforward car that is not running that great, make some simple tweaks to it, take it to the track and end up with a big smile on your face as the car now runs beautifully. I had this experience with two of my cars this past week:

1. Fly Alfa Romeo TZ2

I find this to be a very pretty little car that (in typical Fly fashion) was very well modeled, very well finished but presenting a few running challenges. I had messed around with it somewhat in the past but I really just wasn't very happy with it. And while I know that front engine cars can be challenging, I have numerous front engined cars that run exceptionally well: this just wasn't one of them!

So I decided on a bit of a Heath Robinson-style makeover! I had considered grafting in a Slot.it (or similar) pod. I had considered getting a 3D printed chassis and doing a complete makeover. But in the end I decided on a rather agricultural approach: I just glued a slim can FF50 motor (of uncertain heritage I must add...) onto the original chassis! Hard to get more crude than that but hey: not every car I have needs to be a Mona Lisa. And I must confess to a degree of OCD-eness, so aiming for something akin to Mona Lisas is rather more in my nature than kludging.

So I:
i) cut off the piece of 1.5mm motor shaft protruding beyond the pinion,
ii) glued in the motor,
iii) trimmed the interior,
iv) turfed the independent front stub axles and added a full Slot.it axle,
v) added Sloting Plus Victors bushings in the rear,
v) put on some natural anodised silver Sloting Plus BBS wheels all round (very pretty and suits the car very well I thought),
vi) added a Slot.it rear end (axle, crown gear) and finally
vii) a Slot.it universal screw guide with soft NSR braid.

Glued and trued some urethanes, added a bit of lead and off to the races!

And it runs beautifully! Smooth, reasonably quiet, corners like it is on rails (or maybe in a slot...). And it still looks great! Lap times are comparable with most of my Slot.it cars, so what's not to like?!

The second one:

2. Spirit Porsche 936

I ran this car a few weeks ago and realised that, while it ran passably well, I had not glued and trued the tyres. I felt this could make a significant difference so I decided to tackle this little job this week as well.

And immediately ran into a couple of problems! First off: the rear bushings were an incredibly tight fit in the chassis. When I forced them out, I promptly cracked BOTH bushing holders in the rear! Darn! Secondly: on inspection of the rear axle, I found that the spur gear was turning quite freely on the axle. For some weird and wonderful reason, Spirit (in their infinite wisdom) decided to use a plastic spur on the car but with a 2mm grub screw added. The outcome was clearly predestined: so little "meat" on the gear that the thread was stripped, hence the freewheeling spur.

So the work on this car:

i) I pulled off the plastic rear wheels: good news, bad news, good news. The first good news: the axle was not knurled! No unintended "reaming" of wheels or gear when removing said items. But the associated bad news: the lack of knurling made me mightily suspicious as to how well the wheels would actually fit on the axle. And then the last piece of good news: they actually fit uncommonly well: best press on fit on an unknurled axle I have ever found.
ii) Test fit a Slot.it spur: the Spirit axle was ever so slightly larger in diameter than a stock Slot.it axle, so I had to ream out the gear just a smidgen. Fortunately I have a range of Ream Monster reamers (highly recommended: truly fantastic reamers) and the 0.0945" one was a perfect fit.
ii) Glued some urethanes and on to truing. And promptly ran into a problem: the axle was just a touch too short for the bushings to fit into my Tire Razor if the spur gear was left on the axle. So off with the one wheel, off with the spur and back on with the wheel. All right: perfect fit! But now the concern: this meant I had to pull off one wheel post truing to refit the spur. This always worries me: should not be an issue if the axle is perfectly straight, but...
iii) Trued the tyres, marked the wheel position so I could ensure I returned it in the same orientation, put the spur back on, put the wheel back on. Looked OK...
iv) Put the axle assembly back in the car and used some thin superglue on the bushings + bushing holders. Worked the bushings a bit to try and ensure some of the superglue got into the cracks on the bushing holders.

And that was it: off to the track. And it ran magnificently!!! On Luf's Targa track (rather technical wood) I was able to do a 7.15 second lap: this is very fast! Pretty much faster than any of my Slot.it cars! All this while being very smooth, very quiet. And this with plastic wheels and a totally unimaginative flat plastic chassis.

Really love it when things work out like this!

Alwyn

[chappyman66]

Love to hear about the Spirit 936. I have one that is in need of some work as well. This gives me hope to be able to run with the other Fly roadsters (908s and Chevrons).
Very well done! What great cars on the Targa!

[SuperSlab]

[chappyman66]

Yes, I took mine one night and it was a definite dog compared to the Fly cars. We run stock except for tires. They do get a little tuning (the superglue bearing trick, true the wheels, deep guide) but the 936 won't keep up. It will need an 18k motor transplant. That's in line once I get these other issues addressed.
Nicely done, sir.

[dreinecke]

Great to hear! I love stories like this of fixing things!!! I keep going back to my fleet and doing similar things. It is so satisfying to get them to run well.