Kyosho Blizzard Restoration (part 5)

The temperatures are still cold here so the body has not been painted, but I am making progress to get closer to that stage with this update.  A number of little things have been completed.

First, I cut a rectangular section off of some 0.04 inch lexan sheet and made a mounting base for the IMX-1 dual ESC mixer circuit.  I used double-sided servo tape to mount the lexan piece to the servo frame rails.  Then I used another piece of servo tape to stick the IMX-1 to the lexan.  I routed the ESC radio wires through the foam battery holder and then hooked them into the mixer, and then plugged the mixer into the receiver.  The receiver was also servo taped to the metal plate mounted at the front of the chassis.

Next, I took an old piece of blue colored through-the-hole circuit board that I had lying around and drilled a hole for a mounting screw and soldered a 2x3 pin header with the two ESC switch wires using up the first four pins.  I also soldered a servo extension lead to the two remaining header pins in order to route power from the receiver to the header.  This power will be used to run the flashing light that will be mounted to the top of the body.  The header assembly was mounted to the servo rail using a pre-existing hole.

The 6 pin header acts as a connector so the body can be easily separated from the chassis.  I bought two 16 inch servo extension wire assemblies and super-glued the female ends together.  Then I used some heat shrink tubing and wrapped the connector assembly in order to make it look like one large 2x6 pin connector and provide some strain relief for the wire.

Now the ESC switches and power for the flashing light can be easily disconnected when the body is removed.  The extra holes in the blue circuit board are just in case I want to add a second connector for more lights in the future.

I used small pieces of heat shrink tubing to hold the two extension wires together so they aren't as messy.  I also drilled a 3mm hole in the chassis for the antenna mount and installed an aluminum Tamiya mount (3455035).  The original Blizzard was designed for the antenna to be mounted on the right rear corner of the chassis, however I felt that this was too close to the motors.  The electrical noise emitted by the motors could generate enough interference to cause control problems, so I moved the mount as far forward as I could while keeping it behind the main cab section.

On the body, I reamed holes for the muffler exhaust on the left side of the back of the cab and created two new switch mounting holes.  The vertical switch hole on the left, near the muffler holes, will be used for the flashing light circuit.  It will be somewhat hidden by the muffler and center crate/box molded into the body.  The two switch holes on the right will be for the two ESCs.  The top switch was pre-drilled by Kyosho, so I added a second hole under it.  I wanted to keep the ESC switches separate from each other in case I wanted to turn only one ESC on at a time or perform some other maintenance, otherwise a single DPST switch would have worked fine.  I reamed another larger hole on the right side behind the ESC switch holes for the antenna mount so it lined up with the chassis antenna mount hole.  The white powder on the body is plastic shavings left over from the drilling, filing and reaming of the holes.

The flashing light circuit as supplied from Kyosho in 1985 did not come with a protective case or good method for mounting, so I went through my parts drawers and found a black plastic case from an old relay assembly that I had long ago taken apart.  The size of the case was almost perfect, so with just a small amount of trimming inside the case and some sanding of the circuit board, I was able to slide the circuit board inside and cover it with a piece of scrap lexan which was then glued into place with CA.  I could make it waterproof by putting silicone sealant on the part where the wires come out, but I don't think it is necessary.  This case should provide some protection from water or snow and also make mounting the flash circuit assembly on the body a lot easier.

Finally, I ordered new tracks from Pistenking of Germany.  At approximately $110 shipped to the US, they were not cheap, but there is simply no place else to get replacement tracks for the original Blizzard. 

Each track is made out of 13 small pieces of track just like this one and held together with small screws.

The edges are beveled, unlike the original tracks.

Here is a shot of a single piece of the new track sitting on top of the original track.  The total width of the Pistenking track is exactly the same as the old track.  The "blades" of the new track might be slightly thicker than the original, but it is difficult to tell because they are flat on top rather than rounded like the originals.  The flexible "runners" in between each blade are exactly the same width as the original.  This means the total surface area of the track remains the same, thus keeping ground pressure the same as the original.  This is good news for staying on top of soft snow, whereas the newer BL01B tracks have thinner runners and aren't as good at keeping the Blizzard floating on top of powder.

These tracks are excellent quality and very flexible.  I have not mounted them on my Blizzard yet, but I predict that they will work great.  If you are in the market for replacement original Blizzard tracks for your own restoration, these are worth a look.  Please note that the site is in German, so you may need to use Google translate to help navigate the site.
I ordered via email and used Paypal for payment.  It took almost a week for Pistenking to reply to my request for an order, and then another week for the tracks to arrive here in the US.  Not bad at all.

Pistenking website:  http://www.pistenking.com