918 replies to this topic

[Pablo]

Steve- a roonie, seeing all the damage the cars have, I'm thinking I'll be better off just staying with the stock slow Mabuchi.

Do I get extra points for having a trouble - free car ?
I didn't think so

[Gator Bob]

Marvin got uncovered ready for his new low riding life and unfortunately I found some more body damage that had evaded my notice first time around.



Sigh ...
Pass me the body armour ...

Ouch ...Bummer...that one looks like it could be troublesome. Maybe some clear tape on the outside as well... sigh..

[HarV Wallbanger III]

Hey Joe...... send me a couple drops of the secret sauce!..... I have something I want ta sprinkle it on......

[Lowrider]

Looks to me as if it might burn a bit, Barney. Sure you want to go there?

Status Update.

Miss K's Jupiter has received a new pinion to cure the awful noise Edo complained about in Lugano. It also has new rear tires currently drying on the wheels. The strange thing is that the tires I part removed (the part that hadn't already removed themselves) bear no relation to the tires I mailed it away with. The originals were round at least, which the now departed pair certainly were not. I'll post photos when the work is complete.

Joe Lupo's Titanic had a broken old-style slotted grubscrew in it's gear. The most likely cause was contact between the spinning gear and the tip of the screw.





I removed the broken screw and replaced it with a modern grubscrew when I was taking Joe's rear tires down from 1.03" to 1.015". The freshly exposed rubber seems good enough to race to me. I'll give a definitive answer after track tests on Wednesday week.



Dominic Zimmerman's Aculeus had a chipped tooth on it's Cox gear.



After consultation with Mike it was decided to replace it with a pink version bearing the same number of teeth that the Cox one started life with.



Jens Graf's Needle only needed an oil and that's all. I LIKE that car!

Bob Israelite's Astro V has had it's body patched and it's front wheels taken down from .875" and .865" (yes, one of each thank you!) to a matching pair of .845". This won't magically turn the car into the rocket it resembles, Mr and Mrs Pittman have seen to that, but the guide sits a little better in the slot now and corners might be a slightly less scary prospect for Marvin in future.









Mmm, ribbed for extra pleasure ...



Barney's Orange Crate had the rear tires (1 each at .880" and .865") replaced with a fresh pair from his spare parts stash which matched at .915". The inside of Barney's body seemed to comprise of more tape than plastic but I found a few places to add a bit more.





Ray Fellow's #44 was another car to have a pinion/grubscrew contact problem. I pushed the pinion further up the armature shaft and removed some of the excess shaft end. More body tape was used too.



Can't tell exactly how much brush material is left because the ends of them are obscured by spring insulation and shunt wire. It appears to have around 1/2 - 2/3 left by the position of the spring leg.



Job done.



The REM Raceway Bat Car is currently on the bench. The drooping pan was cured by a gentle massage of the piano wire that the pan hangs from, with the Lowrider thumbs.
The 'before' shot.



The body contact with the wheels at one side of the rear seems worse when viewed from the inside.



Tomorrow I'll replace the clear tape with thin body armour and grind a little rubber from the side of the offending tire. There's also a front axle tweak that I've discussed with Brian that will happen next time the soldering iron is plugged in.

The replacement axle for Jairus' car arrived in the Royal Mail today. He owes Phil Smith a big 'thank you' but, apparently, no money whatsoever. Nice one, Phil.

More news slightly after it happens.
Regards,

[One27ray]

Thanks Steve

I did check that before sending off to the proxy I had thought of soldering the pinion on to keep it away from the crown gear I guess I should oofff
Maybe that would account for the wheel hop in the corners on some tracks Hopefully the brush last a few more races As for bodies? next time a back up body should be sent along too??? Again thanks Steve, for your keen observation on our cars and generious help You are the Man

i-noda

[MSwiss]

Steve,
Great job with all of this.

I'm nominating you for the "Slot Car Maintenance/Repair Hall-of-Fame".

[Lone Wolf]

Barn, No can do on the secret sauce. I don't think it's legal to transport it over state lines. Perhaps you should see a doctor about "your friend" Steve, Great job on the screw, not an easy fix. Rear tires look great, Probably what they looked like 40 years ago when new. Great work,photos and info. Oh, And I got that "ribbed" joke too. It's nice to know there are deranged minds worldwide

[Gator Bob]

Great repair work and reporting...report. "Bravo Steve and Thank You"

The cars look to have had a bit of a rough go of it. Marvin must have never lifted at the end of that super long straight.

. . . . . . . . . . .

http://www.gargaro.c...Vs/specimen.wav

[One_Track_Mind]

Steve asked me to post this bit of information from Facebook

's Derriere has been freshly oiled so it ought to be nice and smooth now.
Bob Steere's Roadkill's body is now as thick as a brick with body armour and reinforcing tape now. Give Roadkill a wide, wide berth if you happen to meet. It's tough ...
Brian McPherson's REM car has absorbed as much time as anything else over the last few days. Front axle is now braced to offer a bit more support to the guide tongue and, hopefully, a nicer driving experience. One rear tire has been re-profiled to get it away from the side of the body.

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[HarV Wallbanger III]

Well Steve-a-roonie 'yer right it may burn'z a little bit.... but hey if'in I could'z grows me 2 tallywackers with just a couple drops....

"The inside of Barney's body seemed to comprise of more tape than plastic but I found a few places to add a bit more."

Ya, most of that tape and bullet proofing I put in just ta make that PETG body last through all the "WallBang'in" fun that poor car was going ta see in this event!

Thanks!

[Jairus]

One week from now (7 days) I will be wearing my Dynamic Challenge shirt and crossing my fingers ol'Repelatron-Dynaslider is still holding together. GO RACERS!

[Lowrider]

Only the one T-shirt, Mr Watson? I'm thinking you might need two or three. Simultaneously.

Update time, and sorry for a couple of days of silence. Work and guitar business have been keeping me occupied.
Oscar's car is still in pole position on my work bench and has been giving me old-fashioned looks every time I've walked past it.

A couple of notes I omitted last time around.
One27Ray should contact Brian McPherson who has some replacement rear tires with his name on them. You'll be fine at North London, Ray, but once speeds pick up you'll soon be riding low. (And not in that good way!)



The eagle-eyed amongst you might have spotted the wonky pinion tooth (BRIAN!) on Dominic Z's Aculeus. It's safely beyond the reach of the crown gear's teeth.

On to the new stuff.
Kathryn's 6e Jupiter has a new pinion and rear tires.



It's tight in there!



32 Deuce's Scorpion has been cleaned and freshly oiled inside. Your brushes are concealed behind spring insulation and shunt wires, Mike, so I can't give you an estimate of their condition.
Love that idler gear. It's brilliant.





Manta Ray's car has been oiled too. His front axle assembly and the add-on weight behind it were both a bit loose, allowing them to swivel sideways, but that was quickly sorted out.



Ray P., your pinion was another one coming very, very close to the crown gear's grub screw. There was no evidence of it coming into contact yet but I took the precaution of machining a few thou from the bottom of the grub screw just in case. This is the way it was.



It was then time to tackle Bob Steere's slightly used looking Roadkill. I thought at first that the chassis had been twisted when the body was pranged but when I measured the rear tires one was at .926" and the other was .909". I replaced both with your spare tires which were a uniform .950" and everything was fine again.



On to that body. Someone had applied reinforcing tape but I think we'd kinda gone past that point.
I carefully removed it and trimmed some strips of body armour to fit in the area not covered by Bob's own reinforcement. That was then covered by strong tape and Roadkill is now ready again to inflict maximum damage to any car foolish enough to get in it's way.







That guy gets everywhere!



I was going to reset Don Siegel's gear mesh but found he'd set his own with spacers in an effectively idiot-proof way so I decided to let it be. There was one thing on Don's Derrière though that I simply couldn't pass by without comment.



Brian McPherson was joking when he asked me to 'fix' his car but there was one step I decided to take in the dual interests of car safety and, hopefully, improved driver comfort. A while back I mended Ray Fellow's car between the Melbourne and Lugano rounds after it had broken it's guide tongue. My diagnosis was that the tongue had snapped because the Dynamic sprung front stub axles hadn't provided enough support to a heavy (in '60s terms) car and this had placed undue stress on the tongue when the guide had, in consequence, been twisted sideways in corners.
The REM Bat Car had the same arrangement in that the car's weight was totally unsupported by the front wheels. I don't think this is an ideal situation with these cars at all. The pans and the front of the body had plainly been dragging on track surfaces for a while.

I made up an axle support and soldered it in place in a way that can easily be undone and the parts returned to stock should Brian ever desire.





I also re-profiled one of Brian's rear tires that had been rubbing on the body work, as shown earlier.





With a little help from the scissors, REM Raceway's body is sitting level and true again.



Back at the work bench tomorrow. Oscar, you're up first.
Regards,

[One_Track_Mind]

My name is Brian, and I approve these repairs.

Thank You, Steve
REM entry has received a royal treatment.


(null)

[don.siegel]

Thanks Steve, what a great report and meticulous work! Hope the family forgives you for taking care of us guys!

The gear mesh is probably a bit tight on Le Derrière, but I figured the Cox gear would loosen up a bit over time, and with the actual working Dynaflex chassis, it would be better to keep it tight! (in fact, I don't quite remember now: did I leave the Flex Dynamic?)

Also, a big thanks to Jens for his DVD on the Minerva round in Germany: Vielen Danke (if I remember my yiddish...).

Onward to North London! (a bear of a track for those of you who've never driven it - not really something you learn in an afternoon, unless you're name is John Cukras...)

Don

[Jencar17]

Don,
you are welcome (Gern geschehen)!

Best, Jens

[Jairus]

Well Steve, your post is further proof to me that 10 races are just too many for vintage cars to survive without major attention. I hope this is a lesson we can all learn from when we make attempts in the future to organize more of these proxy races.

Thank you again Steve! Brilliant repairs and excellent reports. I too approve.

Wish I could be on the forums more but work load here in the Pacific Northwest is severe with today being the second full day spent at a car show selling t-shirts to the masses when I should be home working.

[32Deuce]

Thanks for the attention Stevie, I guess it's peddle to the metal with fingers crossed that I have some brush meat left. I know I didn't use a heavy spring so, hopefully I'm OK. It's Mario & Michael now, dog it 'til it quits!
Cheers Buddy,
Z

[Pablo]

Thanks, Jens, for the DVD !

[HarV Wallbanger III]

Thanks Steve for all your hard work! I thought the 16D brushes would be a problem and this is why I changed my 26D's over to 36D brushes.

[Lowrider]

No problem, Barney and guys. It's been fun so far.
Jens, your DVD arrived a couple of days ago but I haven't had time to view it yet. Thank you.

The North London round is getting closer and organization is now ramping up accordingly. A tickle of the lash has been applied to the driver's backs to try to ensure they turn up punctually and sober for the bash ... err, EVENT on Saturday.
Servicing is complete as far as is within my control and here are the final lot of photos. The cars are due to be track tested in a few hours and any issues that arise will be taken care of before the main race. Fingers crossed for everybody.

Oscar Morales: your loose motor screw was tightened up and a dab of Serious Glue was applied along the motor's sides to help keep the screw from vibrating loose again. The clear, flexible glue is what I've used on Kate's Jupiter and it's working well there. It cuts easily with a scalpel when you want to remove the motor. Your front axle was oiled and everything else I could find was running on ball bearings so I cleaned them out and left them alone. The missing body pin was replaced.





Mopar Rob: is another user of big brushes on his motor and, as you might expect, they're doing just fine. Rob, your spare tires are at .885"/.890" and the ones on the Cuc are .975"/.980". Ground clearance at the rear seems okay at .063" so I turned them around so the larger diameter tire was on the 'outside' and put a small patch on the body damage. Race detritus shown here is typical of what I found on all the cars.





Sydney Steve King: I found an extra body crack that I hadn't noticed before, along with the probable reason for it, and put a patch on it.





Here's the mangled rear tire. Notice that the body mount on this side has been distorted backwards? This, along with your extra body mounting screws in front of the rear wheels has caused the split as far as I can see. I put this mount back where it should be and opened up the wheel arch a little bit. Because the chassis and the tire are in such close proximity here, I machined a little extra off the pan and it's mounting strut. Barring a second big wall shot, we should be good to go now.







John Austin: you've got .047" ground clearance at the rear and no spare tires. It won't be a problem at NL but something might need doing once the cars get back to the big raceways. Current tires are .980"/.985" and 1/2" wide on threaded wheels, by the way. There are no bushings or bearings on John's motor bracket and the rear axle seemed to be running very dry in the chassis. They've been oiled now and a little slop has been taken out of the wobbly guide. Another loose motor mounting screw tightened. The body seems to sit on the chassis very skewed but I can't see any obvious damage anywhere and everything turns freely. Another cracked body patched.





To be continued.

[Jairus]

Anyone wishing to send brushes, wheels, motors and other repair parts to Brian prior to the Route 93 memorial race, please contact me. I will send you Brian's mailing address. Also, best to wait until the cars are in the mail after North London before sending replacement parts so they all arrive about the same time.

Steve, you must have put in about 20 hours making repairs by now. At least a couple of those hours taking and posting great forensic photos!

[Lowrider]

On to Our Stern and Fearless Leader's Slider-mobile: the rear tires stood at .850"/.865" and the spares were a whopping 1" dead. I turned them down to .950" and put them on the car. This leaves .063" under the crown gear and slightly more under the chassis which seems adequate to me. The motor brushes were good and I cut some new solid spacers for the rear axle. Braids were replaced with GENUINE VINTAGE items that were given to me many years ago by Don Siegel when I bought a Cox Cucaracha from him. Thanks, Don. Their time has now come!
Jairus front wheels seemed to have picked up an inordinate amount of track dirt.





The slightly used rear axle.



Size discrepancy between the race tires and the spares.



Rear end with tires replaced and freshly spaced.



Fresh braids courtesy of the Viscount of Vintage.





Pablo: has good sized motor brushes. I took a little slop out of the rear axle and set things up again. Rear tires don't have a lot of depth left but rear clearance is still good at .063".





John Havlicek: had a problem. Can you tell what it might be?



Here's a further clue.



I immediately pulled the motor and took it over to Engineer Secchi's house along with all the 26D spares I could muster. Not having heard from John in the meantime, I'm assuming that the endbell replacement will have gone ahead without too much difficulty and the motor will be back in the car tonight.
The front of the chassis contacting the track was remarked on earlier when I first examined the cars. Here's the reason.



A gentle Kiwi Thumb Massage has everything straight again now (it'll do that y'know?) and the chassis rides safely on the front wheels again.
Speaking of the front wheels ...



O-ring conspicuously absent here. Let's look at the other side, shall we?



Hmmm, hard to tell. Wait a moment.



Ah, yes. There it is!
As the car rides on the steel edges of the front wheels, the missing tire will make no difference whatsoever. I just thought you might like to know.

To be continued further,

[Lowrider]

Thank you, Jairus. It's been fun.
I think the racers need to know how their rides currently stand in order to make plans for the remaining races. Not too much bad news considering the distance they've already traveled. I'm hoping that the North London Society of Model Engineers can get the limping up running again, run the round quickly and successfully then move the cars on to Ohio in good time. That's when I'll be happy.

I forgot to mention that John Havlicek's rear ball bearings were turning very lumpily indeed. I re-aligned them and flushed them out with lighter fluid a couple of times and they seemed much better.
Onwards.

The Kingie's dragging pan foolishly resisted the Kiwi Thumbs and I had to resort to two pairs of pliers to get it right. It's not dragging on the track any longer.
Edo's current rear tires are .872"/.880" and his spares are at .815"/.820". There's a bit less than .047" clearance at the moment which will be a problem later if not addressed. I'm currently mounting fresh donuts on to his spare wheels which will be fitted to the car before it's mailed out. Those nice red (soft) front tires were cleaned as much as possible and the one badly fitted braid was settled properly.
The final problem I found was a pinched rear axle spacer that had developed inner threads on it's own. This almost immediately wound itself on to the bearings when I put the car on the power supply and this tightened up the rear axle enough to stop it turning. No, thank you.
I cut a replacement spacer and everything seems harmonious again.





When I delivered John Havlicek's motor to the safe hands of John Secchi I was able to collect Ralph Klose's repaired motor at the same time. John replaced the melted endbell with one kindly supplied by Phil Smith (thanks again, Phil.) and replaced the previous weak magnets with a pair more in keeping with Ralph's hot armature. It runs very strongly now on the power supply and may just surprise a few people in the races to come.
There's slightly under .063" clearance at the rear and, sadly, no spare wheels. Were these ones supplied by Barney by any chance?



The new endbell.



Lastly we have Mr Al Bond's Blacklight.
Another loose motor was tightened up and helped with a dab of Serious Glue. Al's current tires were .865"/.870" and his spares, which I remember from the SunChaser series back in '09, were .980". I took them down to .900"+ and mounted them on the car.
As a final touch I got out the Humbrol Matt Black paint and returned Blacklight back to stealth mode.





Al's guide has cracked a bit but this doesn't seem to compromise it's ability to do it's job.



Missing from this list is Dyna Rigg. Her servicing was sub-contracted to the Bodies For Beer Corporation and she should rejoin the flock this evening. Photos will be produced as soon as possible.

Servicing is now complete and the real fun begins.
Gentlemen start your motors!

Regards,

[HarV Wallbanger III]

As far as Rob's motor .... it was replaced by me when his motor did a melt down at BPR and why his has 36D brushes. The car with the Pro Track tires.... somebody must have used my spares on it but that's OK I should have enough to last. Thanks for all the work on our Slabs Steve-a-roonie!

[havlicek]

Whoah Steve...that endbell bushing "el destructo" looks like it might have affected my car's performance just a wee bit (I've been called a master at understatement...and much worse)! Only the lord knows what that did to the com...and everything else on that motor Thanks for catching that, and thanks in advance to Mr Secchi in advance for sorting it out. I have to assume I owe John or you or ...somebody something, let me know who, how much, and where to send it. At least let me wind an arm or build a motor or something in payment if money isn't required!

-john