Build Thread King Cab Resto Mod

[tgpkine]

Without any doubt—one of my all-time most-prized possessions.

Come along and ride on a fantastic (restomod) voyage. I am excited to share with people who get it. If I have to move into my car, this is going in the trunk.

I bought it with the first paycheck from my first real job. August 1991. From a family-owned LHS in Minnesota. They shipped it to an APO address in Germany. I had to get a ride to the post office on base to collect the massive box. Here's some cool, what's in the box shots. I might have opened the box half a dozen times since 1995. Managed to track down a guy who's family used to run R/C International. Remember the special offers advertised in the back of RCCA back in the day?

Okay. Let's dig in. I remember being so embarrassed by the paint job. I was barely a month out of 8th grade. And yet, such a lovely patina. Wish I'd kept the old Tyco Bandits my brother and I had just prior to my stepping up into the big leagues. Final setup was a Reedy Mr. X + Tekin ESC + Airtronics + Victor Engineering "burp" charger.

More detailed shots follow. I like this one big so you can easily see the reason Tamiya hasn't re-released this kit yet. They're waiting for Associated to come out with the Emperor Cab or something. Also, who else quickly found themselves with a set of MIP turnbuckles in one of these?

Also rocking HPI gold plastic under OE tires which still appear to have a bit of dogsh*t on them. #timecapsule

The First Repair! Will you just look at this filthy, ham-fisted situation. Just look at that dastardly slotted screw. And those nuts. I mean, at least whatever little scrap of hose I used to try and prevent something from happening did something. I cleaned it up and reinforced the JB weld repair with metal screen material top and bottom. Is there a new replacement available? Probably, but we'll get there.

Some more detail shots. All the loose OE hardware. Bronze Age Leftovers. My first RC repair--MIP front hubs.

I'm not sure how many pictures I can do in a single post, so let's call this a start, shall we? More to follow.

 

[Ritz413]

If this special is still going.....

 

[tgpkine]

After we clean, we can begeen. Some of us grew up with MRC Tamiya. There are models. And then there are Tamiya models. The grease was still good. And there was more than enough left to do the freshly polished hinge pins.

In retrospect, not the best job of cleaning, but this thing was made to be dirty. I'm making excuses. I ordered some crawler wheels to lower CG and introduce potential gearing/heat issues to a chassis renowned for melting its own rear diff. Because of course I did. Which then meant I had to prioritize reassembly into some kind of rolling chassis to see just how ridiculous they were going to look.

I love you, Tamiya, but the yellow, Ronald McDonald shocks are going back in the box. We're running modern, metal hotness these days.

Turns out those wheels don't look too bad...

From the Haste Makes Waste Department comes these pictures of an uninformed purchase made in haste. I've since picked up another, used unit for the truck. I'll explain after the pictures.

So I guess the Stealth X trans is meant to be an overdrive setup for 1/10 scale crawlers or something? It's been about six months since I sorted it out. It looks almost identical to the used Stealth trans I bought after, so maybe I just swap the clever bits or something. I dunno. There's a reason why this unit was $50 less than every other Stealth Trans I was finding.

The used Stealth is complete. I've just never had a used car part smell like cigarette smoke before. Literally worse than an ashtray. I mean--how?

Anyway, we're rocking a full set of bearings now. And there's another wheel peeking...

 

[Suburban_Hooligan]

still waiting for the rerelease. ...although i want the Toyota...

 

[tgpkine]

We're almost caught up. The bulk of this activity took place between December 25 and March 26.

Here's how we roll right now.

Now this is where I feel like quoting Johnny Tran. A couple of Nissan SR20 motors would fetch a premium, wouldn't they, Ted? Which just about brings us to the current day. I need to get an Associated Stealth trans installed to handle modern power. (Nothing crazy. Planning 2S-powered Tamiya Torque Tuned 540.) YES. I know about the guy who 3D prints the entire setup, including improved rear arms--but where's the fun in that?

I remembered I had a piece of carbon fiber left over from another project. It was too short, but helped me prove my idea. I ordered another sheet that was big enough to make a replacement. I then got hasty again and cut that center hole out of the new, custom piece. Which was really stupid, since I was making the piece to have a plate without that hole in it.

I ordered another sheet of carbon fiber big enough to do four more plates. I was successful. I'm ready to start futzing things back together. I know there's another spacer above the transmission, and I might have to get clever with the LCAs and/or driveshafts, but we'll get there. We have the tooling and technology.

Note: The diamond blade makes short work of the carbon fiber. And you bet I hand cut and drilled this thing. I think I want to weld and run a lathe before I bother with 3D printing. Something about the layer lines makes me go OCD crazy inside.

Which brings me to these shots of the ProLine body I am excited to paint once this thing is back up and running.

You are now, officially, caught up. I've got three transmissions, two carbon fiber replacement plates, and one stock, graphite piece. I've got the original, box-stock transmission for my reference, and I'm about to set off down a path of plenty, as I see about coming full circle with this thing before I turn 50. Figure, if I can get this thing capable of holding its own at the local BMX park or hiking trail, I'm going to be feeling like a kid again.

If you have any thoughts or advice, I'm all ears. But I do need to step away for dinner and family time for the night. I'll be back. Goonies never say die.

 

[C life]

Looks great man.