138 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

One other thing I noticed from the picture - the outboard frame rail angled outward and up, the bend being just at the rear edge of the body, and joined to the axle tubes out near where the tubes terminated................

Hi Fred,

That's what I thought from the only picture we have of your car:



Like a bonehead I forgot to angle the outer rails when I soldered them up. That's why I cut my finished chassis apart and reworked it. The sometimes angled rails and lighter drop arms are what set these early cars apart from their later and heavier brothers.





I angled the outer rails at the front too, I think it looks cool :



I used a center rail on the drop arm (like Don Peter's Ferrari) to add a little more support to the guide tube.



Not having a picture of your original chassis to go by I hope I've done justice to your beautiful car and kept things period "Korrect" :









Time to put that rewound Russkit 23 together ..........

Thanks again Fred,

Rick

[havlicek]

Looks great Rick and I gotta say that it was REALLY bothering me to see it torn apart at such a young age. I feel much better now. Are you going to use that 29 triple? If so, do you have a license for that thing? That should be a pretty darned hot wind!

-john

[dc-65x]

Thanks John.

For an arm I'm going to try the vintage "Mystery" rewind I showed at the begining of this thread:



I'm using an old Revell SP500 can:



I cut off the blind bearing.........



..........reamed out the hole and soldered in an end bell bearing:



I drilled and taped all the screw holes in the end bell for stainless steel machine screws. The brush holders were soldered to the brush hoods. The brush springs are period "Mystery" silver plated copper jobs:



I had a real problem fitting the arms big honk'n comm wires into the Mabuchi end bell. I think the arm may have been setup for a Simco or Ram end bell that takes the Pittman style brush arms. I ended up boring the end bell out with a 3/8" end mill to get the clearance I needed:





This is probably not the best thing to do but I really want to see that armature run. Here is a comparo with a stock end bell on the left and my modified one on the right:



The finished "Team Russkit" motor:





During break in it never got hot and only drew about .5 amp . How can a .4 ohm arm with 10 to 15 degrees of timing draw so few amps . Maybe it's just a dog . It buzzes up nicely so I'll be interested to "see it move" on the track .

Oh, I want to show what my Rick's jig looks like after building and then rebuilding the chassis........it looks like new . When my wife wasn't looking I scrubbed it in the kitchen sink with a brush and Clorox "Clean Up" spray cleaner with bleach. After rinsing I scrubbed it again with lemon dish soap. I know I'll have to have it resurfaced at some point but for now she's still a beauty



Onward to wheel and tire land...............

[havlicek]

That's one smokin' Mabuchi Rick! Reserve judgement on that old arm until you see it run...some arms just sound OK on a PS but are really zippy when you get them on the track. You just might have lightning in a bottle there The only thing I might worry about is those spring posts. Beautiful motor, I doubt anyone on Team Russkit had one that looked like that one!

-john

[TSR]

Rick,
You did exactly what we used to do in the day on that endbell. Difference? We hacked it, you made it art.

[flarimer]

Without question, both the chassis and the motor are works of art. Certainly nicer than what we were doing back then. Not unlike restoring a vintage racecar, many times there isn't any real good documentation nor photos to go by so you do your best. And, imho, you are doing it wonderfully. Probably a natural evolution of what we would have done back then.

I like the way you've run the third bar on the drop arm as well as the outboard rails. Kudos to you on re-creating a car that I enjoyed then and raced frequently. Wish I still had that and many others..

BTW, on the body, I believe it was a Lancer and in trying to replicate the real cars (from photos in Road & Track and Car & Driver), I cut away the windscreen and vacu-formed the piece that blended to the dashboard.

From the photos, I remember we used clear nail-polish on the front tires thinking that would help them roll rather than actually have any grip. Who knows if it made any difference...

Have fun with it and race it!

[TSR]

Fred,
It is grand time that you join us and race D3 with us and the other loons.

[dc-65x]

Thanks John. I worry about the spring posts too. So far I haven't see spring post protectors used before 1967 (Dyna Rewind???). I'd love to use them, I'd put them on NOW if they were "Korrect"???

Philippe. That's cool that hacking up the Mabuchi end bell was done "back in the day" for clearance. I was worried I was going over the top. Thanks!

Thanks Fred. I know what you mean about the restoration of vintage race cars and my current building of your Team Russkit slot race car. You do the best you can with the information available and while you are at it, make it as nice as possible.....why not have it look nice too? For me it's honoring the past as best I can. However, "vacu-formed the piece that blended to the dashboard" . I think I'm in trouble with that one .

[Tex]

From the photos, I remember we used clear nail-polish on the front tires thinking that would help them roll rather than actually have any grip. Who knows if it made any difference...

Have fun with it and race it!

Fred,

That very thing is done today. Some use nail polish, others use CA(superglue).

[flarimer]

Rick - hey, if it works, use the different spring posts... A friend of mine used to own a restoration shop in Long Beach and did a bunch of pre-war BMW racecars, on the surface they looked period-correct however inside, where the eyes couldn't see, he used parts that functioned better given newer and improved techniques and technology.

The vac-u-formed piece. Really, I did it on one of the Mattel vac-u-forms, fashioned a piece of balsa wood till it looked right and then pulled it in plastic. Seems simple now but then it took a bit of work to get it right.

I can hardly wait to see how your's looks and runs. Way cool in my eyes.

[Howmet TX]

If it helps at all, I have repops of the Lancer Lotus 25, and I made a vacform driver & interior incorporating the 'aero' dashboard just as Mr Larimer describes. In clear PETG, you can paint it on the inside and match it perfectly to the finish of the rest of the car. Yours for the asking. Or available from Noose, I think.
But as you can see in the original photos, the Lancer body doesn't actually have the aero screen, which is more appropriate for the Lotus 33 which I also make. You'll have to cut the front of the 25's screen away to fit the custom interior, as in the old photos.



Here's my 33 with the aero interior fitted.

Great build as per usual, Dcx! Following it all with awe, and especially interested to hear Mr Larimer's own comments.

[don.siegel]

Rick, Fred, et al:

One question on this build: you seem to be using brass rod, Rick, but weren't they still using tubing at the time?

It seems we were reading about brass tube chassis for a long time, but did the SoCal pros and others actually switch to rod pretty quickly?

Great build and article by the way Rick - thanks!

Don

[flarimer]

Don, good to see you again! You're right, back when the original was made it would have been with tubing. I recall some were switching over to rod inplace of tube by then. I did make some of my own cars using combinations of tube and rod. Not sure about the others, maybe MikeS, BrianW and others can comment?

[dc-65x]

Thanks Don,

As far as the tube vs. rod chassis, I started building this car as what I call a "shop car". That is, a car to take to Eddie's and run and have fun with. So I approached this build as I would have after reading the race report back in 1966. I picked the features I liked from the cars pictured and went to town:

Since there is no picture of Ken's chassis I'll just make up a two rail per side similar to Dave Grant's Brabham chassis but with a 3-rail drop arm and all brass rod construction like Don Peters Ferrari.

I knew that Fred's chassis might very well have been tube but there was at least one competitor using brass rod. I thought that rod might help the handling with today’s tires and sticky spray glued tracks while still being period "Korrect". As far as what body to use I knew I wanted to make a Lotus "inspired" by Fred's beauty. It's one of my all time favorite cars.

In the future, with Fred's help, perhaps we could build what I call a "Magazine Car". That is, as exact a replica of his pictured racer as possible. I take Magazine Cars to the track to tune them but then it back to the display case. I enjoy building both and it gives me an excuse to build twice as many cars .

Hi John,

You really do beautiful work . Thanks for the offer of the interior. Let me check with Noose. If he doesn't have one I'll PM you. THANKS! .

Thanks again for you insights Fred. It really makes this whole process come alive. I know what you mean about:

... A friend of mine used to own a restoration shop in Long Beach and did a bunch of pre-war BMW racecars, on the surface they looked period-correct however inside, where the eyes couldn't see, he used parts that functioned better given newer and improved techniques and technology.

You are absolutely Korrect. That really works well for slots too. I used to do lot of that and showed people how they could make vintage motors with all new and modern internals. You can modify a modern and much better performing guide flag to look like a vintage Cox piece. There are lots of reproduction parts out there too.

Speaking of guides, this car is getting a Russkit Slant Guide . In an April 1966 magazine article Mike Morrissey was using combed out braid so I will be too, REHco's version of Cox Superflex braid. Here's the stock braid on top and the modified on the bottom:



It makes a clean setup:



For front wheels and tires I'm using our repoped Russkit wheels and some tires from Bill Sipple's (Mr. Auto Hobbies) estate. I don't know if they are Auto Hobbies but they look the part. The wheel inserts shown are repop Russkit's by BWA but I've decided to use some chrome NOS Russkit's instead:



For the rear I'm again using our Russkit repop wheels. I cut the inside flange off the wheel for shop cars:



One Alpha Super Natural Humongous donut cut in half works for tires. The modified rim is on the left:





Assembly time

[Tex]

Man, those fronts are beauties. Finding actual front "tires"(with some tread pattern and sidewall markings) and wheels to mate them up with is tough.

[havlicek]

...what Tex said! Actually, the "naked" wheels are too. I like the bead/recess at the front edge. It almost (but not really) seems a shame to cover them up with inserts. No doubt the whole thing will add-up to a car that's a good representation of the 1:1 AND the slot car.

-john

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

I have surviving 36ds from 64 and 65 with post protectors, as well as more 'modern"motors. Not in the mags? Dunno'. I used them, my survivors still have them.

In my case, my old 22s and 510s also have little plates on the face of the brush mounts, all to spread the heat.

Fate

[don.siegel]

Thanks for the explanation Rick - I kinda figured it was something like that. The couple tube cars I've built or restored have been way too light for good handling - don't know if it's the track, tires, better motors or what, but in our vintage classes weight is very important! (we don't use any glue, and spongies are banned too, in general).

Good to know that there were rod chassis already being built. I remember when Morrissey wrote that they were replacing tube with rod (have to find the exact month....), but that means it was probably happening a lot earlier than he wrote it...

Don

[dc-65x]

I think the "mystery" vintage tires I used might actually be 1st generation Strombecker. They do have a groove on their inside diameter. The K&B vinil front tires that were also used in the R&C series are really cool:



Available today are EJ's replica 1/32 Revell tires, here mounted on Russit front wheels:

[flarimer]

You know, one of the coolest things to have happen is to have someone want to build a up-to-date version of something you once built. Trust me, I'm honored and excited to see this car being built. Whether it's made with tube or rod doesn't really matter - it's just so neat to see the sano work Rick is doing. You get my vote, I'm liking this a lot!

[dc-65x]

Thanks Fred . Say, I'm not sure if you see this posting yet. It has scans of all 6 R&C race reports. Here's the link just in case:

Rod & Custom Race Reports, All Six Races In One Place

From the picture it looks like you ran a white plastic gear (maybe a Tradeship or Wilson??) amongst a sea of Cox gears in the race. I thought I'd run something different than a Cox gear too. I've been wanting to try the short lived Weldun aluminum crown gear. They showed up on Mike Steube's car in the 5th R&C race report and on the Team Russkit GP cars in the 6th:





The finished roller:







Body time..............

[endbelldrive]

Great build Rick! It's a reminder of what got me into this scratchbuilding thing in the first place. I remember coming back from shopping trips with a paper bag full of comic books and brass tubing...back in the spring of 1966. I think I used the same Russkit motor bracket for quite a few frames...before it broke.

Fred L..how in the heck did you bend tubing back then? I couldn't afford one of those fancy K&S tube bending kits back then so I used to stick straight pins into the ends...crank a 90º...and just leave 'em in there.

[Tex]

(spoken in my best Homer Simpson "drool" voice)

MMMmmm.............. shiny metal!

[flarimer]

...hmmm...how did we bend tubing...I remember using a variety of things, from screwdriver handles to the handle of my dad's vise, pretty much anything that I could hold on to and that was round. Don't remember having or using one of the K&B tools. Probably explains why so many of the cars didn't hve curved drop arm's like this one. Sure became a lot easier when the use of brass rod came into play. I don't remember using pins in the tubing (well, other than to mount bodies with...)

Rick - yep, have seen the scans from the R&C races. Re-reading them was good fun and brought back a bunch of memories.

Whatever gear I used I honestly don't remember the mfg. The Weldun gears, I remember trying them but most of us favored the Cox gears for the inline cars. Sidewinders, the only gears I remember using were the Weldun gears. All the drag racers used them and they worked really well for our applications as well.

The finished roller just looks so sweet!

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Then and now, I have white gears on a metal hub from Revell. Aftermarket, I don't think they came with a rtr(wouldn't really know as I didn't own anything after first series Cobra!). But they were TOUGH. I liked em.

My single "tube" "space frame" didn't survive. Neither did the second, both in 64, which had 1/32 pianowire inside the tube. I first read about it in one of the east coast magazines whose name I don't remember off hand, and only were around for a short time. So, survivors I have from 64 with 36ds are 3/32 ROD or 1/16th pianwire.

When I got my first slant guides from Jim Russell, he recommended using the Dubro set screw collets from my model airplanes to hold the shaft. I wonder about the O-ring thing. I never tried it!

I have NOS russkits from the day which survived from when I switched to wider rims. Glad I never used them. But I must say, I like the repops a lot.

Too much fun, here.

Fate