101 replies to this topic

[Bill from NH]

Brandon Kaaron from Brooklyn, NY was building this style of up-stop on his chassis in 1970. This was a feature I noted when I looked over his chassis while at my first CT wing car race. Both he & Tony P. were teenagers then & were two of the top East coast chassis builders. The last I knew; Branden was selling & repairing guitars at his Brooklyn shop.

[dc-65x]

Here's the NOS Steube drop arm for that rock and roll front end Bill:

 

 

 

The plumber hinge tubes and the first "bumper" going on:

 

 

The finished arm. I used the Steube RTR article as a guide:

 

 

 

Time to work on the plumber rails and decide on what to do for pans.

[dc-65x]

L-arms with a little kink so they'll lay flat attach the drop arm:

 

 

 

The .032" wire drop arm springs aren't placed in their hanger yet:

 

 

The wider 3/4" pans (top) worked great for this chassis. 1/16" was cut off the inside for my 3.125" wide chassis. This also narrowed up the pan fingers to fit the wide MESAC style front tires and I cut the hinge tube notch where I wanted it:

 

 

Soldering in the pan hinge tubes:

 

 

The plumber rails are ready and it's time to hang the pans:

 

[dc-65x]

Pan hinge wires and pin tube body mounts ready to mount the pans:

 

 

All soldered up.........

 

 

...........and cleaned up:

 

 

[Mark Onofri]

The drop arm hinge detail definitely was a very much needed piece of the double hinge MESAC chassis I've been trying to build since 75!

[Mark Onofri]

Infact, even the pan hinges are starting to become clearer.
The way you left the wires long , made it apparent that they were flipped to the opposite pan on the cross hinge MESAC chassis!!!
Only a few more great areas to go!

[dc-65x]

Thanks Mark.

 

I'm glad the photos helped. I know I refer to photos any chance I get.

[Bill from NH]

Lee Gilbert used that type of drop arm hinge on his chassis during the '70s. 

[Mark Onofri]

Typo: gray areas, not great areas.

[dc-65x]

I decided to add 2 other features to the plans before mounting them to the center section. First is a little wire stop to the front to help support the pan as used on the Steube RTR chassis. 

 

I used this setup to align and hold the little stop. This took me over an hour to figure out but made the final outcome easy breezy.

 

 

I did make me think of something TonyP told me. He could simply place a part on the chassis, align it by eye, solder it and the part would be within .005" of perfect.

 

I need the chassis jig!          But it did turn out nicely:

 

 

I also added an L-brace to hopefully keep the body off the rear tires which sit up partially inside the body:

 

 

So now the pans are really ready to install:

 

 

All the little wire gizmos needed for the install:

 

 

Ready to go:

 

[dc-65x]

The chassis in the jig and all soldered together.  

 

Note the little pieces of high temperature Kapton tape near the areas that were soldered. It's insurance to keep solder off where I don't want it in case I slip or make some boo boo:

 

 

After a good scrub with Dawn and high pressure air dry, it's into an overnight soak in WD40:

 

[Mark Onofri]

I am in awe.
If it's not too inconvenient, would you please post another angle(s) of the spring mechanism? I backtracked to the other pics but,a front shot would be 👍

[dc-65x]

Does this help Mark:

 

 

I plan on posting more pics of the finished chassis later.

[Mark Onofri]

Yes, it's very much appreciated.
I'm sure I'm not alone in saying this, please keep building the MESCA cars. I've been trying since 75!
Was this group (MESAC) well known?

[Martin]

Check this out Mark,

https://www.facebook...15796222316064/

 

Thanks to Victor for saving this amazing slice of slot car club history.

 

Of course building MESAC inspired cars is another way to honor the club. You go Rick

[Mark Onofri]

Always a fountain of knowledge Martin, thanks

[Bill from NH]

Mark, when are you starting your MESAC build?

[dc-65x]

The chassis is finished except for adding a motor brace:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I need to put together a home for this:

 

[Bill from NH]

In the day, I bought two Steube Grp. 22s that both ran very well. Last year I found a new Steube Grp. 20 arm I never knew I had. Bill Steube wound some great arms. He first wrapped his comms with white thread but switched to black in the early '70s after having gotten a bad batch of comms. I had a 24S wrapped with white that didn't last two laps on a king before it blew.

[dc-65x]

Here are a few more shots of that Steube NCC20 arm Bill:

 

 

Note how nice and clean the windings are:

 

 

The arm is going in a good old Mura 2-hole C-can. it got those holes chamfered, the mounting surface milled flat with the screw holes tapped 2-56, a notch cut to clear a motor bracket brace and the axle clearance slot opened up:

 

 

 

In keeping with a Steube theme I chose green to paint the can with. I spiced things up a bit with a "texture" paint from Rust-Oieum:

 

 

The can is tinned and masked off for soldering the motor brace:

 

 

[Bill from NH]

Many of these two-hole cans come so straight from the factory that a C-can straightening mandrel slides right into them without  needing any forming with a hammer. Some of Mura's last version C-cans are just as straight. The formed Champion C-cans & others require a lot of work to make them right,

[dc-65x]

In my last build (a MESAC Porsche RSR) I dug up some loose green dot magnets and we weren't sure who made them. That mystery is now solved with an eBay purchase I made and forgot about. I was digging up some magnets for this build when I ran across these.

 

The original eBay listing photo:

 

 

Here's what was in the factory packaging:

 

 

Champion ARCO "Blueprint magnets" with those green dots.

[dc-65x]

The Mura endbell with stainless steel fasteners:

 

 

Yes, I know an NCC20 probably won't benefit from those Parma style "elephant ear" heat sinks like an open motor might. But I went through the trouble of cloning some, I like them, so I'm using them:

 

 

[Bill from NH]

Parma was the first to sell that style heatsink. Heatsinks on a Grp. 20 motor is not overkill, particularly on battery powered tracks. I always used heatsinks on my own Grp. 20 motors.

[dc-65x]

Cool Bill.