Mister 4x4's Kyosho PureTen FW-05

[Mister 4x4]

So, I poked around on eBay several weeks ago and found this car with a description of 'Needs Servicing.'

Looking through the few pics that were available, the chassis looked good, the body looks as nice as it does in the pic, and it comes with a radio, servos, an ignitor, and a couple baggies of small parts (washers, shock dampeners, shock oil, etc.). Hmmm... "Needs Service." Well, if it looks that nice, how bad could it be? Click - bought it.

Here we are today, and I'm seeing a super-nice chassis, tires have hardly any wear on them, it has not been bashed, only a few very minor splits in the front end, and everything seems to be there (except the driver side rear wing outer panel, which the passenger side was loose in the box - oh well... don't need 'em anyway). I don't think this one's been on its lid before, either - no major scuffs... just the weird clouding in the body, which I'm hoping I can clean up and buff out.

I'm not seeing any kind of 'venting' for the engine (I normally punch a hole in the windshield and rear window ahead/behind the engine head to help with cooling).

Everything looks great under the lid. All of the bearings seem to have minimal wear as it rolls freely forward and back, the two-speed and disc brake assembly seems butter-smooth, and aside from being too low for my liking, the suspension cycles smoothly with no binding or weirdness.

The engine however - seized up like a big dawg. Not surprised, as I'm sure this is how/why most people get away from Nitro. I'd be willing to bet the previous owner brought this one to his local hobby shop and wanted to either just get rid of it or trade for an electric Traxxas something-or-other. As clean as everything else is, I wouldn't be surprised if the P.O. just ran this car a few times, put it away for awhile (without After-Run Oil) and came back to a seized engine. Oh well - their loss.

First things first - pulled the glow plug and it's almost as nice as any of mine with some use on them. No weird burnt smells or abnormal soot or anything... but, dry as a bone. Tried to tug on the pull-start and nope - not a budge. I grabbed the flywheel and tried to see if it would move at all and got nothing there. OK - ten drops of After-Run Oil down the throat, and 10 drops down the cylinder... put the glow plug back on, toss it back in the box and check on things tomorrow.

Next, downloaded everything I could find from Kyosho (maintenance manual, parts list, assembly instructions, quick-start guide, exploded view, etc.). I haven't figured out what vintage this one is yet, but I'm guessing at least 10 years old.

This fits into my quest to bring back on-road GP racing - or at least for me. I already have some McLaren F1 bodies for this scale so I can recapture a bit of the old days with my SuperTen (but not have to pay through the nose for Road Hawg I & III tires just to keep running, since 1/10 scale wheels and tires seem to be plentiful). I'm hoping to bring this all back and get some more and better pics.

 

[BustedAw11]

Awesome car!
I have serious problems with ebay and purchasing random vehicles.

I've had very good luck dumping a little nitro down the carb and cylinders with old stuck motors. Just take your time working the flywheel back and forth. It'll free up (pull the starter/one way) so you can go back and forth).
Worst case is usually just bearings if they won't come out of it.

 

[Mister 4x4]

Thanks! I've had very good luck, actually. Even though it's been 15-ish years, I snagged a couple of HPI NRS4s and a Super NRS4 in awesome shape for not very much money. As much as I love those cars, they're belt drive. I was spoiled with my Kyosho SuperTen GP (which I bought NIB in 1998) - very similar configuration as the Serpent Vector [of the time] with its all-shaft drive AWD w/central disc brake & 2-sp transmission. The only gripe was it was more of a 1/9th scale - so, it didn't really fit in anywhere, especially with aftermarket parts support. I was running 1/10th buggy on-road tires (Road Hawgs and Speed Hawgs) and that's about all I could find. After a few years of that, I was trying to 'upgrade' to a 1/10 AWD (shaft) car, and the only thing around was an OFNA Pirate10 GP (JL10, I believe)... which quickly wound up discontinued. Even Kyosho's PureTen GPs wound up being belt-drive. No offense to belt drives, I just hate picking pebbles out of the driveline, hopefully before the belt(s) get shredded.

I was getting ready to pull the trigger on a NIB Kyosho PureTen FW-06, but the stock ran dry last spring and now Kyosho's probably discontinuing them thanks to the tariff wars driving prices up - that, and hardly anybody is racing on-road GP (let alone Nitro) - it's all about electrics and drifting (boo...). So, until the FW-06 comes back, or something with the same config comes along, I'm going to run this FW-05 to get my on-road chops back. I've got a couple of buddies who I think I could convince to come run with me, but they'll be tearing up my stuff, so I guess I need to be picky about who I let run what - I want to go racing after all, not just burn through Nitro and tires doing donuts in a random parking lot somewhere.

The After-Run Oil works wonders, and within a few days of soaking actually freed-up the TRX.15 in my Nitro Hawk that had been sitting since at least 2000. Its carb was gummed-up as well, but soaking it in Nitro for a day or so got things back to good. I still need to install the new fuel lines and fire that sucker up after having gotten it all cleaned-up and back together. Maybe next weekend...

Sorry for getting so off-track. Nothing new to report on the FW-05 - engine's still soaking. I'm reading up on the Kyosho PERFEX KT-3DX radio that came with it - looks like I'll be swapping that into one of the older cars, since I'm no longer interested in running AM crystals - I've had too many runaways with my old 27MHz radios - the harmonics from the Nitro engine vibrations would hit a certain frequency and interfere with the signal - next thing I know, the car's heading for a curb at WOT and my day is done. I discovered that glitch by holding the car and running up the throttle until the steering servo started 'wigging out' around 9-10K rpms, jerking side-to-side randomly. I'm thankful for the new 2.4GHz technology - so far, so good on that front. Now, I just need a second radio set-up to go along with my FlySky 5GT - I don't know if I want to run 2 of those radios at the same time, but I suppose with the new 'pairing' technology, it shouldn't be a problem.