29 replies to this topic

[Pablo]

This very well designed full plumber left side can drive anglewinder was bought used in Virginia in about 1987.

I am restoring it with all new wires and bits.

 

 

 

"Ts" or "T5" engraving on the nosepiece. I'm wondering if anybody has info on the original builder, please?

 

 

 

[jimht]

If that's a one piece .078" main rail it could be a GRP (Paul Gelman) with floppy pans added later.

[Pablo]

It is single .078 main rails and also uses a combination of .063/.055/.032.

The guy was obviously a master. Not one single piece had stress memory

[MSwiss]

It's not early 70's.

 

Below is a  Billy Steube chassis PDL identified to be 1975 and it's still "earless".

 

It looks like it might be a modified Parma, but more likely, just used the same nose Parma used.

 

Pictured is the chassis I got with a Parma $50 retail RTR I15 car in late '81.

 

It's obviously modified, broken, and missing a rail in the motor box, but it ran well enough new, on stock form, it got me started on 45 years of a 2nd go at slot racing. Lol

 

 

 

 

[Pablo]

Thanks. I fixed my title to "Mid 70's" 

[jimht]

It looks more like a modified International 15 chassis which would move it into the Eighties.

[Bill from NH]

TS or T5 might be the former owner's mark. That's why I always engraved my chassis on the bottom. The design of this chassis looks very much like what Tony P built with .078 rails in the mid-70s. Since it came from VA, it might have been built by someone such as Mitch Kiel of Camen.

[mreibman]

It looks more like a modified International 15 chassis which would move it into the Eighties.

Wasn't I15 limited to single hinge then?

[MSwiss]

If that's a one piece .078" main rail it could be a GRP (Paul Gelman) with floppy pans added later.

I was contacted by a non-Slotblogger friend of Paul and they jointly confirmed it's not a GRP.

 

 

 

 

It looks more like a modified International 15 chassis which would move it into the Eighties.

 

 

Wasn't I15 limited to single hinge then?

It was. Hence the word, "modified" in jimht 's post.
 

[Mr. M]

Tech Inspectors initials?

[Bill Seitz]

Most if not all of the chassis in Mark's photo are from the 80's, and I suspect Pablo's chassis is also. The early days of G15 and its chassis and cost restrictions prompted a bunch of relatively simple production chassis designs, chassis kits, and chassis components. The brass winged nose on Pablo's chassis is the one Parma sold and is on the Parma Monorail chassis that Mike Swiss has shown. Other brands may have sold this nose, too, but I acquired all mine from Parma. I've seen this pre-formed .078 main rail , sure I used a few, but don't recall who was selling it, maybe Parma again. The chassis design features are all pretty common to chassis I remember from the 80's. They may have originated in the 70's, but were clearly used by various people in the 80's. There were more than a few racers building chassis like this in that period including me, so unless someone recognizes the identifying engraving, it'll likely be difficult to make a specific ID.

 

Boxstock 15 came along circa 1990 and continued the production of these simpler mono rail chassis. Another common production chassis was the one sold by ProSlot, Racer-X, and RTR. It has a wider 1-piece pre-formed .078 main rail using a distinctive and wider-between-the-rails nose, around 1.5" wide, and the wider rail spacing required using narrower 5/8" wide pans.

 

The hinged pans have already been identified as not legal for G15. Wire chassis like this were common in lower cost classes in regional and raceway series beyond G15 where the hinged pans may have been allowed. This might not even be a wing car chassis.

 

The front wheels also look very 80-ish.

 

The Parma nose was 1.375" wide between the .078 monorail with full "unclipped" wings. The Camen winged nose chassis with which I'm familiar all used a 1.25" wide nose between their dual rails; an outer 1-piece formed .062 rail with .055 inner rails. The "wings" were "clipped" to reduce weight. I'm only familiar with a single Camen chassis using a 1-piece formed .078 rail, an inside gear G15 that was a very different configuration from this. Yeti was a prolific builder of production chassis in the 80's, and I'm only familiar with a few of them. Those I had all used a 1.25" nose with "clipped" wings . The Camen and Yeti noses were distinctive enough to know Pablo's chassis is neither of those. The chassis in question doesn't look like the examples of those 2 brands I've seen.

[Pablo]

Tech Inspectors initials?

If a tech inspector did that to one of my scratchbuilt cars it would start a fight

[Martin]

Thats a idea I would never of thought off. A pass sticker maybe but never have I seen a tech inspector engrave a chassis. 

Have fun with the restoration Pablo.

Ts would be proud 

[Mike Patterson]

Engraving the chassis was common back in the 70s & 80s, at least in the Tri-State USRA. I'll look to see if I have any examples left.

 

So was a paint dot on the inside of the body, usually with an unusual color that was formulated by the tech inspector right before tech.

[Bill from NH]

Mike, I saw nail polish used to mark the bodies too. It came in all sorts of strange colors.

 

Martin, I had one chassis engraved with "500" during tech. It was for a 500-lap endurance race at Modelville Hobby, Framingham, MA on their Monarch, in the early 70s. We ran our weekly race cars which used Phaze III chassis, Mura pink B-can motors, & sports car bodies by Lancer, Dynamic, & Kirby. I came in second that day. I've since given that chassis away to an Ohio friend because it was the best handling one of several I owned. None of my scratchbuilt chassis have ever been engraved by a tech director.

[Pablo]

The etching in the cross of the "T" are very deep, maybe 10 thou. Almost 1/4 the thickness of the brass !

That's why I like my engraved plaques - no shakey engraver craters 

[MSwiss]

That TS is not a tech inspectors initials.

Wrong spot, no class reference, no entry #.

Shown below is something typical of the engraving of a tech inspector at the USRA Nat's,

It's my 1986 Pro entry #18 and I had to take a flash picture to get where it was visible at all in a pic.

While IMO, most racers don't care about the engraving, I've certainly seen racers ask

the tech director to do it as small and as neat as possible, and on a rare occasion, asking 

them to put it in a particular spot.

 

[Mike Patterson]

Here's examples of tech engraving:

 

This chassis survived 6 races, I see. Pretty good for me.  

 

 

P.S. I see Swiss beat me to it.

[Mr. M]

I saw Csaba about tear the head off a tech inspector at one of the big Midwest USRA races when he wanted to engrave his chassis.

[MSwiss]

Part of that was him not wanting people to get a good look at his car.

 

I'll have a Csaba "you don't need to look at my car to tech it" story in this 

thread. 

 

https://slotblog.net...5745-the-story/

 

It might be a month or two before I get to '84/'85. Lol

[Mr. M]

Mike, Saw that too, but this time it was about the engraving making a weak spot. It was quite a ruckus. In the end, it was not scribed at all.

[Pablo]

All new tinned hardware and bits

 

 

[zipper]

All new tinned hardware and bits

 

 

Almost what I built - brings back memories...

[Martin]

Super clean     

[Bill from NH]

It still appears very much like what I saw Team Tony P. run monthly for open class cars during the mid-70s on the C&C king in Coventry, Ct. after they stopped using ISO's for a while. This was about the same time Parma released the winged front nose piece & their "Wide Finger" pans. Later, Tony modified the ISO design & ran them again. Tony was 18 at the time, I was a few years older.