53 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

I owe our friend Ron Hershman big time for some absolutely killer S24 arms. When I received the PM below...

Hi Rick,

Wondering if you would be interested in doing a project for me? Back in '91 or '92 Gugu and I won the Eurosport 1/24 team enduro race at the World Championships in Chicago.

I worked at Parma at the time and Gugu built a chassis using the spring steel Parma Euro24 kit. He cut and used brass pans instead of the steel pans that came with the kit.

Of course it was his chassis and he kept it and I have pics of the car and always wanted a copy for my museum.

I have a kit or two and was wondering if you would be interested possibly building a replica for me??

... the answer was an instant “Okie Dokie”. Sorry, it’s taken me so long to get to the project Ron but here we go.

Ron sent me some original pictures he took of the car after the win:







I’m going to leave it to Ron to tell the tale of the car and his World Championship win. In fact, the only knowledge I have about these cars is a Eurosport I built from a JK chassis kit almost 20 years ago:







I had no idea of the ”trick” way to build it so I just followed the kit instructions. With this project all I have to go by are the pictures above.

So, I got together with the SHPBAPSCR Historian (Society for the Historical Preservation of Bay Area Pro Slot Car Racing) Eric and we made some notes about possible chassis construction:



I think I know the answer to the "Iso or not" question in the picture. I believe what I have circled is the corner of the guide tongue spacer that is positioned to stop the center section from dropping down Iso style like I the way I built my chassis shown here:



Here's the kit and front wheels Ron sent:



I know I'll have lots of questions I hope you guys can help me with...

[endbelldrive]

Yowza, that race was almost 20 years ago!

[dc-65x]

Hey Bob, for me this is modern stuff.

[Dominator]

I can help with the bodies pictured. The red one is a Spice and the Valvoline body is an Intrepid.

[TSR]

Ron built me a similar car for my return to this crazy hobby in 1994, I still have it and will take pics of it if it can help. But I think it was stock and did not have brass pans.

[dc-65x]

I can help with the bodies pictured. The red one is a Spice and the Valvoline body is an Intrepid.

Thanks, Dominic. Parma Intrepid, that's what my car has. It was THE body in my area. Hopefully Ron has the Spice for his recreation.

Thanks, Philippe. I have some questions about exactly how Gugu built certain parts of the chassis. I'm pretty sure I've answered my question if the center section pivoted downward like and Iso... it didn't. But I'll have more questions I'll need help with as the build progresses.

For now, here's where I'm at:



Gugu did a lot of cutting on the stock chassis. I still have more to do in the motor box area. I decided to get the pillow blocks and motor mount installed first before I weaken it with the final cutting.

The outside corners of the motor box are rounded.
The gizmo with the front bumper had the pan down stops cut off
Front bumper was narrowed flush with the pans, shortened to only 3/16" long and the outside corners rounded.

Time to think about how to solder this thing together...

[Ron Hershman]

I can help with the bodies pictured. The red one is a Spice and the Valvoline body is an Intrepid.

Actually, the body we used is the Parma Toyota body....not a Spice.

Ron built me a similar car for my return to this crazy hobby in 1994, I still have it and will take pics of it if it can help. But I think it was stock and did not have brass pans.

Yes Philippe, your car was made from the same kit, but built totally different from how Gugu built this chassis.

I will add some more info to this thread in the next day or so.

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Rick, when the chassis kit was "new state of the art". locals bought several, got confused and paid me to build them for them.

I found it useful to leave the bits in place on the cuts, solder things like the bite and stops and THEN do the final cut away.

One of my few projects where I didn't keep one for me. Grin.

Fun stuff.

Fate

[dc-65x]

PLEASE HELP!



I've been looking at this picture and trying to figure out the wire sizes used. Here are my guesses, please give me your opinions too:

#1: If we ASSume #8 is .030" wire going through #7 1/16" square tube then is #1 smaller stuff? Say .020" or .025"?

#2: Same as #1, .020" or .025"?

#3: What the heck is this? Is this a U-shaped wire the same size as the one next to it (#6)? Does the "U" fit under that 3/32" brass tube to take up the gap between the tube and the frame?

#4: .030" pan down stops

#5: 3/32" tube with a 1/16" wire inside?

#6: Does this look larger than #8 or is it .030" too?

#7: 1/16" square tube

#8: .030" wire

[Gary Bluestone]

You may try using a known size as a starting point and deduce the unknown sizes. Take the print out of the chassis and measure the rear axle diameter in the photo. With my caliper on the screen , I got 3/8" for the axle , which is likely actually 1/8" so that means all the other dimentions can be divided by 3 to get the actual dimentions. Gb

[Ron Hershman]

The axle in this car was 3/32"

[Gary Bluestone]

If the known dimention is 3/32" = .0937" and the measurement in the photo is 3/8"= .375, then divide .375 by .0937 = 4.0021344. Use this # to divide the photograpic dimentions(converted to decimals, thousands of an inch) to get actual dimentions. Gb

[Guardrail]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!!! All them numbers make my head spin.

[dc-65x]

Thanks Gary.

I did establish a ratio or a "magic number" by measuring a known distance in the picture. I used the center section which is 1" wide. The problem is the picture wasn't taken exactly dead on from the top. If you measure the center section the measurement varies top to bottom. The other problem is the filet of solder that can obscure the edges of the wire or tube I'm trying to measure.

With this method I pretty sure I'm "Korrect" with #5, #7 and #8. They pretty much have to be either 1/16" tube with .030" wire or 3/32" tube with 1/16" wire. But for the others I can't tell .025" wire from .030" or .047" from .055".

For the little pan and center section stops #1, #2 and #4 I've decided not to worry about and just use some fine wire.

BUT, what the heck is going on with #3 and #6 the center section reinforcement wires and whatever goes beside and/or under that 3/32" tube cross piece .

I did get something done. I added the 3/32" hinge tubes to the center section and cut out the frames hinge tubes mounting tang that extended into the motor box:



Pillow blocks and guide tongue are next..........

[dc-65x]

I found some old Boothe jig wheels the Korrect size. I believe you are supposed to insert them into the pillow block's bearing hole and lock them in place with a nut. I felt that blocked Mr. Ungar's access for soldering so I set it up like so:



That worked out:



The guide tongue and spacer were next:



All spiffed up:



My Rick's jig is working perfectly on yet another type of chassis :



I'm going to make the pans next. I thought I was done modifying the "pan mount-bumper thingie" (has this thing got a name ) but.....



.....Gugu rounded the inside corners so it could be slid back as close as possible to the center section. This is one reason I couldn't follow Rocky's sage advice:

I found it useful to leave the bits in place on the cuts, solder things like the bite and stops and THEN do the final cut away.

There is another reason I cut all the pieces apart first. If my plan comes together Korrectly .



Gugu also took off the radius (bottom of the picture) so the pan hinge tube could butt up against the bumper:



Time to cut some brass pans and start on a concurrent project:

THE PITTMAN 703 THRU 706 TOP SPEED CHALLANGE!

[Pablo]

What kind of H2O are you going to use to tumble that ?

I can send some Mississippi water, but it's real heavy

[dc-65x]

Hi Pablo,

There's no way I'll risk this chassis with anything other than a time consuming hand polish. I've got new ceramic media and the polishing solution you sent me (THANK YOU! )
but I don't want to experiment with this one!

[dc-65x]

Soldering the pan hinge tubes in my "Rick's Jig":



Using the jig to keep the body mounting pin tubes perfectly aligned with each other:



Todays progress:

[dc-65x]

I'm trying to do something every night on this project. Not only because I've kept Ron waiting over 6 months but I need to build a car for the THE PITTMAN 703 THRU 706 TOP SPEED CHALLANGE event.

This seemed like a good idea at the time. I tack soldered the two square tube in place in my Rick's jig. Then I slipped a .007" shim under the inner piece to raise it up out of harms way. It worked as I didn't solder the whole mess up solid .



A razor saw cut the nifty cuts into the square tube:



Next up are the .047" wire stiffeners.....

[Ron Hershman]

Hi Pablo,

There's no way I'll risk this chassis with anything other than a time consuming hand polish. I've got new ceramic media and the polishing solution you sent me (THANK YOU! )
but I don't want to experiment with this one!

Hey Rick,

You could experiment with the steel pans you cut off the kit and won't use ...... might learn if the media works on not on steel.

Looking good!!!!

[dc-65x]

Here the .047" piano wire reinforcement rails are soldered in place:



Now we're at the part where I just had to take a guess at how this chassis was built. Eric felt the pictures showed a U-brace was used under the brass tube that holds the pan up stop. I ended up using a .030" wire U-brace and notching the .047" wire next to it for the tube to nest into...



.....and then soldered the 3/32" tube to the whole mess:



All cleaned up it looks like so:



The center section is complete....except for anything I've forgotten!

[dc-65x]

Here is what I think the front axle arrangement was built like:



The two little angled pieces of wire are stops for the center sections upward travel. I spaced the center section with a .005” shim to allow a little “wiggle room” before soldering the stops:



The V-shaped front pan stops are in place:



Here the pans are in temporarily in place with their rear down stops:



I still need to attach the front wheels and permanently join the center section to the “pan hanger goodie”. But first:

PABLO…..I scrubbed out my tumblers drum and added fresh media and distilled water until it’s half full (I don’t have any Mississippi water to use!). How much of the Buffalo Arms polish do you add???? A cap full?????

[Mopar Rob]

COOL

[dc-65x]

Hey thanks Rob.

I put "the buff" to this chassis by hand..."Rub-A-Dub-Dub" style for hours. It look pretty good but I know what tumbling a chassis can do. I'm still amazed at the first chassis I did in my thread "Holy Smokes A Tumbling We Will Go!"

So when Pablo said.....

What kind of H2O are you going to use to tumble that ?

I can send some Mississippi water, but it's real heavy

.....then I said.....

Hi Pablo,

There's no way I'll risk this chassis with anything other than a time consuming hand polish. I've got new ceramic media and the polishing solution you sent me (THANK YOU! )
but I don't want to experiment with this one!

......then Ron said.....

Hey Rick,

You could experiment with the steel pans you cut off the kit and won't use ...... might learn if the media works on not on steel.

Looking good!!!!

.....well, I just gotsa ta know if I can lick my tumbling steel jinx.

I've had steel rust in seconds after being removed from tumbling in plain tap water . So for this chassis I went with distilled water and a cap full of Pablo's favorite, Buffalo Arms polishing liquid (thanks Pablo ). After 4 hours I removed the parts and they absolutely SPARKLED .

I quickly washed them off in Dawn and blew them dry with my Metro Data Duster that blows hot air at about a million miles an hour.

Then into a WD-40 soak....



.....in my neato liquid tight glass container:





So far so good........

[Pablo]

What did the foam look like ?
Was it right up to the top ?