Kyosho Blizzard Restoration (part 2)

A small update.  I assembled and installed the gearbox, suspension arms, wheels and tracks.   These tracks are the originals that came with the kit.  They are a little worn and some of the plastic has broken between the ribs making them weaker and more prone to total track failure.  I don't know how long they will last.  I have some spare tracks that I should be able to use if these break. 

I installed a couple of cheap aluminum heat sinks designed for 380-size motors.  They have a low profile so as to not interfere with the body:

Then I replaced the standard battery plug with Deans on the ESCs and mounted them to the sides of the chassis tub with servo tape:

Rather than hard-wire the ESCs together, I got a parallel Deans adapter assembly so a single battery can power both drive systems.  The battery will fit between the ESCs with plenty of room.  Some foam will have to be mounted to the tub in order to ensure the battery does not slide around and hit the ESCs.

The next step is to convert the Futaba plugs to type "G" to match the old Conquest 4 channel radio that will be used.  Then, some testing before final soldering of the motors to the ESCs.

Tamiya Super Fighter GR Buggy

Tamiya recently released the Super Fighter GR off-road buggy (58485) and I thought it looked cool, so I bought one.  It is an entry-level buggy based on the DT-02 chassis. 

After watching the above video posted by TamiyaUSA, I thought it only had a 380 motor since it seems rather slow, but the kit comes with a 540 silver can.

Here are some pictures of the kit:

I am not sure what the bonus parts are.

 The tires come pre-mounted on the wheels.

Interestingly, the kit comes with both a gray and white body and wing.  Maybe the white body set is the bonus?  I knew the kit details posted by Tamiya said the kit came with a gray body set, but I don't remember white.

 Parts bag showing the stock 540 and yellow shock bodies:

Not sure when I'll get around to building this one.  I've got other projects waiting.

Kyosho Blizzard Restoration

I've started restoring my original 1985 Kyosho Blizzard.   I completely disassembled the chassis and cleaned all of the parts.   Have a look:

The plastic tub is in excellent condition but not perfect.  There was one suspension spring retainer fin that was broken, so I used CA to fix it.  I don't remember breaking it.

All of the suspension arms are in good condition:

The original Blizzard offered two choices of gear ratios.  The white gears on aluminum hubs are the final drive gears used on the rear drive axles.  Choose a ratio by tightening the set screw on either the large or small gear on both rear axles.  The other gear would free-spin and not get in the way:

Close-up shot of the suspension springs (3 different types) plus the rear drive axles and drive wheels.  These wheels are aluminum with rubber rings on either side of the drive spikes:

The original Blizzard white wheels are in excellent condition and cleaned up well.  The tires are also in really good condition.  The spur gears and their shafts are also in great condition.  I drove this thing quite a bit back in the winter of 1985-86 and also in the winter of 1986-87, but the drivetrain shows very little wear:

The middle gears that drive the final gears are in perfect condition:

These are the gearbox side plates.  The gearbox was pre-assembled by Kyosho at the factory in the original kit, however I wanted to completely clean all parts and bushings, so I disassembled everything completely:

The speed control system in the original Blizzard was a cool piece of engineering.  Two servos controlled two different speed control wiper arms.   This speed control handled the forward/reverse functionality:

And this speed control handled the proportional steering by modifying the amount of power going to each drive motor.  If you look closely, you can see that there are two small coils instead of one large one like the control above:

These are the drive motors.  They are Mabuchi RS380s:

The servos.  Two of them control the speed and steering through the speed controls shown above, and the third raised and lowered the plow.  I'll be retiring two of these (see why below):

This is a makeshift 90 degree pivot arm for the plow.  The original 90 degree arm broke one cold day when the tractor slid off a snow embankment front first and the plow took all of the impact.  The little plastic arm shattered in the cold.  I fashioned this from a large servo horn.  It looks ugly but it works:

For the restoration, I am going to try and use these 90 degree red anodized aluminum servo horns.  I will drill out the center so they will slide onto the pivot shaft and double them up for strength:

Instead of using the original mechanical speed controls with servos, I am switching to an all electronic control system.  This system consists of two Viper 25 marine speed controls and a IMX-1 mixer circuit.  The R113ip receiver will not be used - I was testing with it when the picture was taken.  The reason I chose these speed controls is because they have instantaneous reverse (no brakes) and were reasonably-priced.   The IMX-1 mixer is designed to take two receiver channels (throttle and steering) and control two independent ESCs driving two motors like a tank.   It works really well in testing on the bench.  We'll see if it translates to good control in the real thing once I get everything rebuilt:

This will be the receiver:

And finally, the transmitter.  It's only an AM system, but that is all I have for two-stick 4 channel ground control.  The right stick is ratcheted up/down for the plow.  The left stick is throttle and the right stick (left/right) is steering:

I'll update again as this project progresses.

Reproduction Bruiser/Mountaineer Tires Part 2

I mounted the reproduction Bruiser tires on some RC4WD Classic Bruiser aluminum wheels that I had.  I think the combination looks great.  Check them out:

 The texture of the rubber is smooth and soft.  The foam inserts were used before mounting on the rims.