Build Thread My Ultima Pro (re)Build Thread KIT NO.3117 from 1989 ish.

[JRFisher]

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Still waiting on some critical components.

And I have yet to start reassembly of the shocks, I should get to that, I have some shock O rings on order as well though. I have everything (I believe) I need sitting here but I wanted to use some of those X shaped O rings.

I have not attached the speed controller to the chassis. I want to make sure everything is done and in place and I can move that speed control fwd or backward to fine tune the weight distribution. Perhaps that's a bit much but then again, why not.

Key components I'm on hold for:
rear long swing arm rods,
Proper size screws for chassis mounting,
those shock O rings.

That might be it.

I bent the wing more properly than it was. (I must have been drunk, high, both, and couldn't follow directions).
I adjusted the steering linkages much better that I had it before. (Not sure what I thinking there.)
Taped up some of the body cracks.
Got the antenna routed and sized correctly.

Before I boxed it up years ago, the body was cracking on both sides back by the shock towers. I recall applying my crack mitigation procedure to it. (Drill holes at the end of the crack so it doesn't continue to grow.) I recall have to do the same thing on my dirt bike fenders. It works.

I have a new body on order, I certainly don't have to wait on that. I ordered a couple of sticker sets for the Ultima Pro, I can use one of those to apply to this body. Until I really looked it over and compared it to the pictures I didn't realize the stickers I have on there are the stock ones, minus all the logo stuff which I left off for some reason. I recall wondering why I wanted to advertise for anybody. Now I just want it to look like it should.

Kind of funny how much more attention to detail I do now that I clearly didn't do when I first built this thing. If I had just bought this and fixed it up I would have been cussing about the crappy craftmanship by the PO. Primarily the steering linkage and the wing. The instructions are clear, why didn't I follow more precisely then? I forgive myself, I was single minded and eager to get it on the track.

I need to determine how many teeth the pinion should be, nice to be thinking along those lines.

 

[Doom!]

Coming along nicely! When you start getting closer to completion, it gets herder not to rush.

 

[WickedFog]

I've done the drill hole to stop a crack from continuing a number of times on things. To fix the crack, you can apply a little E6000 adhesive around the crack and lay a thin piece of lexan over it, spanning the crack on either side about 3/8". That or use fiberglass mesh drywall tape instead of a piece of lexan. It will hold up pretty good.

 

[JRFisher]

I've done the drill hole to stop a crack from continuing a number of times on things. To fix the crack, you can apply a little E6000 adhesive around the crack and lay a thin piece of lexan over it, spanning the crack on either side about 3/8". That or use fiberglass mesh drywall tape instead of a piece of lexan. It will hold up pretty good.

I have used dry wall tape with shoe goo, works well.

 

[JRFisher]

Still need just a few little bits here and there. But it's almost looking like a race car again. The springs will be changed out when I get one of my orders in, I could potentially keep the rears but the ones I put on front for shits and grins are just as long as the rears, well, I clipped off one loop from each end but really, they are way too stiff to be of use. I was mainly just doing a dry run making sure I had all the correct parts ready to go. The only thing missing is one shock stand off. I dug and dug once again through my parts but to no avail. S steering bushing and some washers will suffice. It's just a tad sloppy but not too bad. I can run like this. Only replacement I have found yet I would have to buy a whole set of shocks. I could potentially use my dremel and drill to turn one out from plastic. Most likely it will run like this for a while. I could use 4 - 4mm screws to replace 4 phillips head screws but those will likely stay as well. At some point, good enough has to be good enough. The shocks have not been finished, I just put them together enough to get some fitment done.

I'll be danged if I can find any front wheels and tires. I have a number of rears. I recall buying this rear set with their special "X" pattern in the center of the tread. I know the stock wheels were yellow and I have two sets of those. But so far in my digging through stuff, no fronts.

There were a lot of different tread patterns. Today, for the clay tracks I've seen, they damn near make em slicks. We must have been racing on much looser stuff back then.

This pic is when I first pulled the box of stuff from my shed, there are two green wheels in there that are front wheels. I can identify a few more fronts. For some reason those wheels have not shown up in my work room, I have a few more boxes to dig through, perhaps I need to revisit the shed?

It's looking much better today then when this pic was taken.

I find it interesting the little star wrench the different companies provide with different vehicles has changed very little in 38 or more years. The one standing alone is the one that came with this Ultima kit back when I bought it. The others came with various other RCs I have obtained over the years. The vintage one does not have size markings on it, the others all do. Clearly there has been no need to change this tool over the years.

 

[CertifiedMike]

https://www.nickhobbies.com/product...ork-kyosho-tamiya?_pos=3&_sid=4c9bb39bc&_ss=r

https://kyoshoamerica.com/shock-plastic-parts-black-optima-ot210bkb.html

https://www.jcracingproducts.co.uk/search/products?keywords=Ultima

Theres a couple leads for you.

The car looks great!!!

Those front springs look like they are ready to pop!!! I have a couple sets of fronts but haven't tried them yet.
I found the springs on the Mid need to be pretty light in order to work correctly.

Its getting close!!! Nice job cleaning everything up and getting it right again!!!
Resto work isn't always easy but it is rewarding!!!

 

[JRFisher]

Everything but the waiting has been a blast.

 

[WickedFog]

Everything but the waiting has been a blast.

The waiting adds to the suspense

 

[JRFisher]

Well, an interesting bit of weirdness has shown up. I was actually just going to do a beak in of the ball diff. All the electronics are in, charged up a battery. Turned it all on and was going to town on the break in.

There was a fairly significant vibration when spinning it up. I pulled the wheels off and the vibration goes away. I can see that the wheels are touching the ball ends of "rear upper rods". One worse than the other. This is the worse one.

This led me to look closer at the axle wheel business. Of significant note is the wheel and axle move a significant amount in and out. So the wheel does not contact at all times, but can move on in to contact it. I put 3 shims in on each axle (5x6x.3) in between the wheel hex and the bearing. This pretty much removed all the in out slop I was seeing and I believe it keeps the wheel away from the ball ends. The vibration is still there however.

Possible causes:
wheel balance issues
axle issues (although with the wheel removed it does not vibrate)

As I type this I realize I have another set of wheels with tires I can throw on and see if I see a difference.

It's late, I B going to bed. Figured I would put this up to see if there were any other thoughts on the matter.

I think I'll put in an order for some new wheel hex nuts as well as new rear axles. Tomorrow I'll put on that other set of wheels and see what comes of that experiment.

 

[CertifiedMike]

Oh oh oh oh OH!!! Pick me, pick me!!!! I have theories!!!!!

Theory 1. You are missing, have missplaced (installed in wrong order) or have the wrong size spacer on the universal. It pushed the joint out of the correct location in the hub. Its pushed outwards into the control arm...

The little red spacers go out here on my car.
See if you have them and are they installed correctly if so.

If you put them on first, then installed the universals, you'll get interference like you have.

Ask me how I found that out.

Theory 2. You have mixed model parts. The Optima Mid hub carriers look pretty similar to Ultima at first glance but the height of the bearings is different. The ball stud mount is 2 ears instead of single.

These are both correct vintage parts. Bagged is Ultima.

If you bought any newer version parts, they could be slightly but very different like these are. The rere Mid parts are different from vintage parts too! Theres a lot of little stuff to watch.

Theory 3. Theory 1 is prob correct.

The car looks GREAT!!! Watch the universals as they spin to see if they are bent. That will get you nasty vibration.
I bet reshimming/replacing spacers fixes this.

Good luck!!!

 

[JRFisher]

I'm just getting back to it. I'll take a much closer look at things. It seems like there is a spacer missing, the shims I put in stopped the in/out movement of the axle but didn't change the vibrations. I have looked at the drawings and have yet to see them mention a shim in there. I will look closer again. Those axles should be refreshed again regardless. I should have just ordered them from the git go.

Troubleshooting is fun, I'll get er done. Thanks for the theories.

 

[JRFisher]

Right off the bat I found out the offset of the white wheels is different. I'm not sure which side they measure offset from but end result is, the silver wheels have much more clearance from the link end., No way these will hit. Both tires are out of balance according to the hold em from a rod method. Very scientific I know. Reading as thouroughly as I am capable, there is no spacer in there. Seems like there should be, I currently have .9mm of shims in each wheel and the large amount of slop is reduced significantly. I couldn't put another .3mm shim in but maybe a .1.

I see they actually sell tires balancers for these things. I wasn't aware of that but it makes sense.

I will run another test when my battery finishes charging.

 

[CertifiedMike]

Make sure the u joints aren't hyper extended. The springs might be so stiff that your car isn't sagging at all. That might be pushing those joints to their extremes. The joints will vibrate and try to lock up if pushed too far.
I am also running into offset issues.
Pain in butt with these cars.

Ballancing is a good idea.

I bought a set of touring car foams just to eliminate this issue from my set up.
They come balanced and trued.

They aren't big enough to run on the track tho.

 

[JRFisher]

Make sure the u joints aren't hyper extended. The springs might be so stiff that your car isn't sagging at all. That might be pushing those joints to their extremes. The joints will vibrate and try to lock up if pushed too far.

I've spun it with the tires on and off, I also unhooked the shocks so they were not pushing to full travel. This go round with the different wheels I can identify that the right side is the worst. I don't see a lot of movement from the axle, but there is just a bit I notice on the right side so a new set is certainly warranted. Hurry up and wait.

 

[JRFisher]

Well, I guess that seals the deal, I swapped axles and the vibration followed. Seems clear that one axle is FUBAR.

Easier to break in the diff with everything else off anyway so I think I have that finished up. Still progressing fwd.

 

[JRFisher]

A sticker pack came in today, gave me something to do. The feller included some tires which look like stock issue. I'm sporting a set of blue tooth front wheels.
I have another body (actually 2, don't ask) and two more full sets of stickers. I may at some point paint the other body white and sticker it the same. I generally don't care for stickers like this, but I wanted to do it up like they show in the manual. I took just a couple liberties and I have not decided on what numbers I want on the side, I'll ponder that for a while.
They show white lettering on the tires, I wonder if that was actually provided? I believe they make ink pens to color tire sidewalls. I just noticed I missed a sticker on the green section of the wing, I'll remedy that.

There, all better now.

 

[WickedFog]

A sticker pack came in today, gave me something to do. The feller included some tires which look like stock issue. I'm sporting a set of blue tooth front wheels.
I have another body (actually 2, don't ask) and two more full sets of stickers. I may at some point paint the other body white and sticker it the same. I generally don't care for stickers like this, but I wanted to do it up like they show in the manual. I took just a couple liberties and I have not decided on what numbers I want on the side, I'll ponder that for a while.
They show white lettering on the tires, I wonder if that was actually provided? I believe they make ink pens to color tire sidewalls.
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That looks SICK bro!

 

[CertifiedMike]

A sticker pack came in today, gave me something to do. The feller included some tires which look like stock issue. I'm sporting a set of blue tooth front wheels.
I have another body (actually 2, don't ask) and two more full sets of stickers. I may at some point paint the other body white and sticker it the same. I generally don't care for stickers like this, but I wanted to do it up like they show in the manual. I took just a couple liberties and I have not decided on what numbers I want on the side, I'll ponder that for a while.
They show white lettering on the tires, I wonder if that was actually provided? I believe they make ink pens to color tire sidewalls. I just noticed I missed a sticker on the green section of the wing, I'll remedy that.
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There, all better now.
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YOU might not like the stickers but WOW!!! I SURE DO LIKE THE STICKERS!!!
Very nice job with the placement. It looks like a proper Ultima now!
Those tires are PERFECT btw!!!

 

[RudyF6]

Love the clear wheels dude!

 

[JRFisher]

Oh, the stickers are growing on me, I am liking them.

Those rear tires resemble a couple sets from back in the day, and they are Bridgestone branded which matches the Bridgestone stickers. The wheels I had to spend some time scraping off the glued on rubber that remained when I pulled the tires off. The body looks a bit rough from the back side, I wonder if it's covered under warranty?

I certainly put some wear on those tires.

I poked around in my shed to see if I could find those elusive front wheels and tires to no avail. I wonder where them buggers went?

I did find a carry case I forgot about. It's a combo carry case/seat branded by Kyosho.

I had also forgotten how long I had had this curved scissor which is also branded Kyosho and I recall buying it back when I was assembling this thing in the first place. I have continued to use these since I bought them. They came in handy today for trimming the stickers.

Apparently I liked Kyosho...