664 replies to this topic

[Dave Crevie]

The bars over the windshield were installed after Hans Klink hit a vulture during a race. So Martin, you weren't far off.

[TSR]

Nice model of the 300SL/R.
There were 3 official Mercedes-Benz entries for the 1952 "PanAmerican" race ran from Ciudad Juarez in Mexico to Ocotal in south Guatemala. Two coupes and a Spyder. They were the very same alloy-body cars entered at Le Mans that year, and which oh-so luckily won after the leading Talbot-Lago, driven by Pierre Levegh, dropped a valve in its engine less that 30 minutes before the end. Levegh was 2 laps ahead of the German cars, but had driven 23 hours and 30 minutes, and almost exhausted, likely missed a shift and over revved the engine.
I was a 9-year old little boy and watched that race with my dad, and I cried when the Talbot broke, because the "Boches" who had made our lives difficult just a few years before, had won, a sort of revenge over their defeat inflicted by the Brits and the Americans. 

In Mexico, Karl Kling and his navigator Hans Klenk obliterated the opposition using one of the two coupes.
After a vulture hit and destroyed the windshield of Kling's car at over 150 mph, the solid steel bar were hastily fabricated with welded "bolt-on" ends and installed on the car in record time between two stages. The second coupe driven by Herman Lang, navigated by Erwin Grupp right behind. The spider was disqualified after John Fitch attempted an unauthorized repair.

Interestingly, all 3 cars returned to Germany and were converted into regular, road going "300SL" cars with new steel bodies and all standard amenities, and sold to customers. Almost 30 years ago, the former Spyder came up at auction in Long Beach, CA, and since then has been "restored" (recreated) with an alloy body copied from pictures and factory prints.

Regarding the Japanese chassis, while it is labeled "International", it is likely as I wrote in "Slot Car Dreams", that this entity was a distributor in the manner of RiKo in the UK or Cragstan in the United States. After so many years, it is almost impossible to ascertain which actual shops produced this or that marketed by "International".
We are simply lucky that some of the product survived for our enjoyment today.



Photo copyright LASCM.com

[Martin]

Good info Dave and Philippe, and I should of covered my bases by saying wild life in general. But never the less a good idea that could save your day and face .

[Slot Car Rod]

I ran the Mercedes with the International chassis today.  It was easy to drive.  With the spring-loaded drop arm, with no up stop and narrow Monogram guide flag, the car wandered a little down the straight, and the car reacted to every bump in the track.  The car needs a guide flag up stop to firmly plant the guide in the slot.  I have previously wrapped electrical tape around a narrow guide flag blade to widen it with good results.  This trick may be needed also.

 

With the leaf spring rear suspension, there was some axle tramp when full power was applied.  A more gradual application of power on straights resulted in smoother runs.

The spring rate is probably too light, and there are no dampers.

 

 

Performance left to right, fastest to slowest. 

[Isaac S.]

Wow, this is very helpful. I really like that Adams and Sons MK2, very rare. 

[don.siegel]

That's a very impressive lineup Rod, thanks for showing. 

 

I don't think I've noticed your Dynamic/Ulrich hybrid before, have you shown it here? I've got a half-dozen Ulrich hybrids, but nothing like that! 

 

Don 

[Isaac S.]

It was on Page 8 or 9 I think. 

[Bill from NH]

Don. check post #183.

[Slot Car Rod]

Thanks everyone.

Mercedes 300SL Slot Car Testing and Modifications

 

The following modifications were made to tame the Mercedes 300SL.  The goal was to rid the car of tire chatter in the turns and have the car to not wander when going down the straights.  I like building and then testing and developing slot cars.

 

A drop arm up stop was screwed to the drop arm.  This firmly plants the guide flag into the track slot.  The front tires are barely off the surface of a recessed braid test bock.  The springy stiff guide braid keeps the front tires slightly off of the track.

 

I noticed Don Siegal's car and Phillipe's International chassis parts picture had open differentials, so one was added to the Mercedes. Thanks, Don and Phillipe, for the pictures and information.  A Tradeship brand differential unit was narrowed to fit in the car.  A steel pinion was also added.  Reducing the spring tension on the drop arm downward movement would also have helped reduce chatter.  The spring tension does help when running on bumpy tracks, though.

 

The guide lead is very short with this car, so an independent rotating axle was used up front.  The axle was widened for use on the Mercedes.

 

The hard compound Cartronic tires were replaced with Ortmann brand tires. 

 

One layer of 3M electrical tape is wrapped around the Monogram guide to make it slightly wider.

 

With the modifications, the car now glides around the track with almost no chatter or wander.  With the leaf spring rear suspension, there is still body movement, which is fine.  The movement is kind of like a real car with suspension.

 

 

 

[Slot Car Rod]

Decades ago, Victor Ferguson was kind enough to give me this MESAC Cobra to restore.  The Cobra body was built by MESAC member number 9, Ron Von Klein.

 

The car body as found was flat as a pancake.  It took quite a bit of work to restore the body.  MESAC ran cars with battery-powered lights.  This car has lights and brake lights triggered by a mercury bulb switch.

 

I ran the restored car in a vintage slot car race in the '90s and won the concours with it.

 

Truly a beautiful slot car by Von Klein.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TSR]

His name was actually "Ron Klein". He used the particle "von" (non capitalized) as a pun, to imitate Ken Howard, who named himself Von Dutch (capitalized because he was not aware that a "von" or "van" in German or Dutch simply means "from", as in "Werner von Braun" which means "Werner from Braun" ("Braun" could be a location, a city, a village of a bush!).

Ron Klein was a mold maker for slot car bodies and was one of the first to produce vac formed bodies in the USA, under the name "Knight Bodies" (I explain this in detail in "Slot Car Dreams" in the Slot Car Bodies sub-chapter). It is likely the the Lancer name was chosen as a competition to Knight. After his partner left for France, Klein started a new company, "Shark", then made molds for various entities: Russkit, Select, and of course some quick and dirty ones for MESAC as he was a club member and could hack a wooden mold very quickly on which a few bodies could be made for that week's event.

The chassis on that Cobra is a Kal-Kar and the motor a Cox "NASCAR 3500" (the big one), an odd choice for a performance oriented slot car, but it is likely that all he wanted was to win Concours and who cared what the performance would have been!
The body appears to be the Shark version of the Daytona coupe.
 

[Slot Car Rod]

Thanks for the information Philippe.  The rewound motor was replaced with a stock 36D motor to comply with the rules for a vintage race held at Slot Car Junction in the mid 90's.  Here are some pictures from the race.  The Cobra roadster shown with the coupe was entered by Eric.

 

[Martin]

Good memories from Slot Car Junction.

[Slot Car Rod]

Martin, yes good memories.

 

I installed the rewound motor back in the Cobra.  Here is a top view of the chassis.  The upper chassis structure tilts up for motor changes.

[Slot Car Rod]

Production anglewinder frames started to appear around 1968-69.  I remember going to Oakland Speedway in 1969, and they had International anglewinder frames for sale.  They looked a little odd in that they looked like inline frames that were converted for sidewinder use.  The chassis ad below is from a 1969 Auto World catalog.

 

I built up a Lola T70 with an International chassis I recently acquired.  The chassis is strong and well-built.  The chassis design is still odd-looking though.

 

A Mura A-can motor, Dynamic spur gear, Cox wheels and tires, and a Dynamic guide are used.  The Cox rear tires are their soft compound ones.  The body was sold by a local raceway under the Electra brand.

 

The car handles very well and is drives very smoothly.  Like most A-can anglewinder powered cars, handling is neutral to a point, then oversteer kicks in due to the weight of the motor.  

 

 

 

[Bill from NH]

I hadn't seen these International chassis before your post.. But they do remind me of an early inline frame converted to anglewinder use. Except  the International inlines I saw had dropped front axles, not front axle tubes & brass rod built drop arms rather than solid brass strips. Both anglewinders & inlines have had three  brass rods per side for main rails. This particular chassis built into a beautiful slot car & you used one of my favorite bodies to ride on it. International was also making two-piece stamped steel anglewinders with interchangable motor pods in the late 60s. I bought one in1968 with a motor pod that fit 26Ds & Pittman 6001 cans. I've since reused this pod in a tire truer build.

[Martin]

Rodney can I save this pic on my O.W.A.W post?

I too have never seen these before, good find.

[Slot Car Rod]

Martin, yes that would be nice.

[Isaac S.]

A lot like the Associated frames. I hadn't seen Anglewinder International frames until they came up on Ebay but had seen the inlines' Bill describes. I knew it was an International because of the build style and little washers on drop arm hinge. Cool car, thanks for showing. 

[Bill from NH]

The inlines had the reinforcing washers on  the dropped axle/main rail joints. I hadn't even noticed them on the drop arm hinge of this chassis.. See what happens when you turn 15?

 

These hinge washers were apparently only used with solid drop arms. I found an International inline with a solid drop arm, photo below. It has the hinge washers, that with the brass rod built drop arm doesn't.

 

[Slot Car Rod]

Here is an International frame for a 26D motor I just completed.  Beautiful Noose Eagle body with Russkit exhaust pipes added.  Rewound 26D from a Northern California racer that ran races on a banked oval track.  New Riggen wheels/tires.  Body mounting tubes added to the chassis.

 

[Isaac S.]

Great looking car. Love the body. 

[Bill from NH]

Nice car Rodney! International sure has gotten a lot of mileage out of that basic chassis. With droparm & adding pan changes, they've sold more than half a dozen different F1 & sportscar chassis using this one basic 3-rail chassis. Since the Eagle came from Noose, I'll assume John Dilworth actually pulled it. I have a couple similar looking Eagles pulled by Tom Andersen in Ft. Wayne.

[Slot Car Rod]

Thanks for the chassis pictures Bill.  Thanks Isaac.

 

Here is a Matra slot car from 1969-70.  The Lancer brand body is patterned after a 1967-68 Matra MS630.  Lancer called it a Matra GT.  The Matra was not the best looking car.  I painted the fantasy paint scheme with TCL paint back then.

 

The chrome-plated chassis was made by an Oakland Speedway local builder.  The pans, drop arm, and motor mount are handmade out of mild steel.  The chassis is brazed together!   The local builder was a prolific builder, and as I observed, no two chassis were alike.  Chassis built by this builder looked cool, but were not the most precisely built.  I had to twist the plumber mounts on this chassis to make the chassis level.  Also, the brazing and plating makes the chassis almost impossible to repair.  I added the front body mounts because the ones on the chassis are positioned too far forward.  Grinding down through the plating allows soldering.  The solder does not flow well on the steel, though.

 

I rebuilt the Mura A-can with a new end-bell.  The original one had 16D brush holders.  The armature in the motor is an NCC20.  I used Riggen wheels and tires back then because they were the lowest priced and looked nice.  The orange tires are new.

 

The car drives better than an NCC20 car, and performance falls below a Riggen Group 22 chassis.

 

[Bill from NH]

That's an interesting body Rodney, not a Lancer I had seen before. Its front fenders & nose look similar to a Porsche 906. Have you any idea how the chassis parts were cut from the steel? They look too precise to have been cut by hand. He obviously had some kind of a cutting jig that worked well. I too detest plated vintage chassis because they all can't easily be re-soldered & repaired. I did buy a Champion NCC20  chassis in 1970. I had no choice, if I wanted to race that class.. But I never bought anything brass/wire or jail door style that had been plated.

 

Is the TLC on this car still rubbery? As I recall, only the TLC thinner, whatever it was, worked well with this paint. I had lacquer thinner for other brands, such as Ulrich & International, but it never worked with TLC. I'm thinking this was the days before Parma had a line of lacquers.