My new Baja Champ!

[Aaron]

Just had to post and jump up and down a w00t a bit about the New Tamiya baja Champ I ve just finished! Finally a nice cross-over car!

Aaron!

—-
Moderator, Admin, and all that 🙂

--
Site Owner Guy.

[Shypo]

can i please see it

—-
Go Fast, Be Free with Low CC

Undisputed Post Pimp

[Aaron]

I’ll see if I can stick some good pics online… 🙂

—-
Moderator, Admin, and all that 🙂

--
Site Owner Guy.

[PandaBear]

If someone’s built it exactly as per instructions, it should look something like this! 🙂 :-

Or if not, it’ll be something like this :D:-
What bits make up a Baja Champ!

[Aaron]

Yeah mines very similar to the pic barring different paint colours (Daytona Yellow, Grape Pearl) with different decals layouts in places.

—-
Moderator, Admin, and all that 🙂

--
Site Owner Guy.

[PandaBear]

As a Tamiya historian (sort of :)), the Baja Champ is a significant piece of work as I’m sure you’ll have noted: the sticker sheet even contains the logo for (1) our dear friends Toy Traders 😯 the local Tamiya importers and (2) RIKO, same for UK but since died.

No other sticker sheet will have these two logos together again.

Just received delivery of a #58291 myself… 🙂 but its one earmarked for the shelf.

[Aaron]

Yeah the sticker sheet is historic in that area 😉

The rest of the car is _way_ better than what people tried to tell me. Considering the price I paid for it was about 30% less than the cars that were thrown up as alternatives I’m very happy with my choice!

—-
Moderator, Admin, and all that 🙂

--
Site Owner Guy.

[PandaBear]

TL01B isn’t a bad car… its one solid creature too. Parts are cheap and plentiful, and parts count is pretty low anyway – not much to go wrong.

You have bearings so this shouldn’t be a problem, but main hassle has been ppl either over/under lubricating the bronze bushes near the motor. This can create enough heat on the shaft to melt the chassis plastic.

[PandaBear]

Warning! Resist all desire to hop up this vehicle. If you do start bolting option parts onto this thing, you’ll spend lots-n-lots of $$$ for very little gain! 🙁

Main things to consider are bearings & ESC (got them), and perhaps some oil shocks and hotter motors.

Enjoy it for what it is, there is no need for hopups.

[Aaron]

*nods* basically my plan.

Oil shocks of some kind – Possibly I may buy a new set of Super Low Frictiosn for the TA03 and migrate the current ’03 oilers to the TL01

Some more “roady” (Road Hawgs or whatever they’re called) tires instead of the spikes

Hotter motor 😉

More than enough to have some fun with.

Only other stuff I’d considered was the weightweight shafts (driveshafts etc)

—-
Moderator, Admin, and all that 🙂

--
Site Owner Guy.

[PandaBear]

Quote:

Oil shocks of some kind – Possibly I may buy a new set of Super Low Frictiosn for the TA03 and migrate the current ’03 oilers to the TL01

No good, tourers use shortie 2.5″ thingies. Buggy needs 3-4″ shockers. TA03 ones won’t have enough volume, you’re better off just sticking with the frictions.

Quote:

Some more “roady” (Road Hawgs or whatever they’re called) tires instead of the spikes

Dunno where you can find them here, and Proline stuff ain’t cheap. But yeah, running those step spikes on tarmac will bald them quicksmart.

Quote:

Only other stuff I’d considered was the weightweight shafts (driveshafts etc)

Std dogbones work well, don’t bother changing. Don’t lube them either, except with graphite powder. Better off ungreased VS grease with grit in it.

[Aaron]

mmmm interesting on the shocks front as the Frictions are a dead set match in length/travel for the ones currently on my TA03…

Ahhh yeah, mean the propellor shaft (as already mentioned over a TC) not the universals. I know what you mean about the grease. It’s due for it’s first strip and clean so I may see about getting hold of some graphite instead of the very light greasing I’ve done in the past.

And few of the LHSs here have them. Not hugely cheap, about $25 a pair IIRC. Still that’s on par with some tourer tires 😉

—-
Moderator, Admin, and all that 🙂

--
Site Owner Guy.

[PandaBear]

Quote:

mmmm interesting on the shocks front as the Frictions are a dead set match in length/travel for the ones currently on my TA03…

ya, you can space them out and use the ‘long’ bottom link… but the excess movement is gonna quickly bust your seals and you’ll soon find oil leaking from top and bottom.

Better to just find the longer (non “mini”) CVAs or some other company’s shockers made for buggy. You want more than 1cm travel anyway… check how much your shocks limit the suspension travel now.

[KittyKatSmack]

Dunno if I should brag or not, but I have driven Aaron’s Baja recently….

w00t!!!!!!

I WANT ONE!!!!!!!!!!

Please, someone help me, buying too much stuff…..

aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh

Oh, the baja did awesome doughies and slides on the dirt carpark nearby. Also takes jumps very nicely, very stable!

We were having such a great time, we had some blokes pull up and have a watch, then have a go, they lurved it!!!!!

Did the sales pitch for ausmicro.com and trading direct, of course!!!

Keep eyes open for new Canberran members to site, LOL

And I want commission so I can buy a Baja!!!!!
:p

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*purr purr*
😀

Z Blue Skyline
Z Silver Mazda
BitCharG Hummer

[PandaBear]

Acquired its predecessor “Blazing Star” last week.
Real Doughboy central.

[daviej37]

It seems a lot of us are getting into 1/10 rc’s these days. I just aquired a tamiya dirt thrasher which is the same chassis as your car panda,just different shell and knobby wheels.I hopped it up with ball bearings and a sport tuned 540, its a dirt hill climbing demon

[PandaBear]

Quote:

It seems a lot of us are getting into 1/10 rc’s these days. I just aquired a tamiya dirt thrasher which is the same chassis as your car panda,just different shell and knobby wheels.I hopped it up with ball bearings and a sport tuned 540, its a dirt hill climbing demon

Nah, been playing RC for yonks… 25+ yrs now. 😀
Took the HORNET racing on Sunday too… :blush:

Ambivalent thoughts on the old TA01/DT02 chassis Tamiyas… parts for these are getting very hard to find these days, just about no hobbyshop keeps stock of them anymore. So be a bit careful with it, don’t break any gearcases or chassis parts.

[daviej37]

Yeah panda I knew you played with r/c’s for while from your banter with everyones favourite twit lancer_evo. BTW Mr toys toyworld near me has a great RC section and I checked before I bought and they have one or two of every spare so I am safe 4 NOW:smiley2:

[KittyKatSmack]

*Kitty Streaks into Thread*

5 SHIRT SALES REQUIRED BY COB WEDNESDAY!!!

*Kitty Streaks out of Thread*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*purr purr*
😀

Z Blue Skyline
Z Silver Mazda
BitCharG Hummer
BitCharG GTR ~ arriving soon!

[PandaBear]

Quote:

Yeah panda I knew you played with r/c’s for while from your banter with everyones favourite twit lancer_evo. BTW Mr toys toyworld near me has a great RC section and I checked before I bought and they have one or two of every spare so I am safe 4 NOW:smiley2:

Haha, that’s what YOU THINK… but noooo, Mr Murphy will still get ya!!!

There was this one time I went racing.
Brand new, perfectly good HPI car. Just in case I needed spares I carted along another whole identical chassis, plus another electric HPI which used the same parts etc etc. That’ll last me a while, right??

But in 1st heat I broke something…

… the ONE thing I didn’t bring spare for …

…. can you GUESS which one???! 🙁

The @@*#$$&@# RX Xtal!!!

Ya, I got lots of xtals, but very seldom multiples of the same freq. Unfortunately all of the other channels were already taken, so couldn’t change freq.

Let that be a lesson…! 😀

[Shypo]

how in gods name did u break a crystal. my crystal is indistructable….

—-
Go Fast, Be Free with Low CC

Undisputed Post Pimp

[Aaron]

Usually the legs fatigue off. HardCore racers like Pada change them for each meet usually so they cop a lot of stress.

I’ve had to replace one or two in my time becuase of this…

—-
Moderator, Admin, and all that 🙂

--
Site Owner Guy.

[DaveF]

It’s a cool feature really, being able to change crystals. That sounds better than having to change the whole chassis in BCGs.

---

👿 DaveF!
My track – http://community.webshots.com/album/58669595eliwuK

[PandaBear]

Quote:

how in gods name did u break a crystal. my crystal is indistructable….

Haha, that’s what you think… but no, those things are simple little slivers of quartz crystal (aha!) in that little can. They can break; my dad used to wrap his spares in cotton wool (might be because they were also very expensive in the 1970s!).

I think it had something to do with running full tilt (nitro car, remember?) into a blue stone curb. Had a loose RX battery, so the car just took off with WOT… I think it does about 60km/h (only single speed) heading towards a busy city street. 😯

Luckily (?!) it veered off slightly and hit a road divider kerby thing instead… crunch, the wreck flew back about 10 feet, ripped whole RHS front suspension off, broke a shockshaft, smacked a few teeth off the servo gears, ripped the ears off the servo. Ooh, and it creased the body.

Some of you guys would know its not easy to pull the xtal out from the RX… well the impact was hard enough to throw the xtal out; it was found about 20 feet further on from the scene. :shock::shock::shock:

Silly me actually bothered testing the xtal, found that it worked and so kept it… but didn’t know it only worked intermittantly.

[Aaron]

Quote:

Quote:

mmmm interesting on the shocks front as the Frictions are a dead set match in length/travel for the ones currently on my TA03…

Better to just find the longer (non “mini”) CVAs or some other company’s shockers made for buggy. You want more than 1cm travel anyway… check how much your shocks limit the suspension travel now.

Well as of today I did the deed with the oil shockers. Using a set of 4 OP519 oilers. I built them in 70mm length configuration and they have a full 16mm of travel as per the tamiya guide. I’m running the stocker Baja Champ springs as the road car springs I had spare (all these where knocked up from parts off the ’03) and the car sits nice and high on them and it has excellent travel – to bottoming out the chassis pretty much.

If the seals have a finite life that’s OK they’re fairly cheap and considering it cost about $10 in parts to make a set of 4 oilers from my ‘junk’ it seems like a good deal.

The interesting thing was that when I was gutting the used ones I already had was noticing that they all had different vavling fitted … Guess when I get back from holidays I’m rebuiling the set on the ’03 to make sure the previous owner didn’t stuff them up 😉 (I never stripped them down when I rebuilt it)

I think I have to clean up the gearboxes in teh Baja too, but that can wait until after it gets cained on holidays 😉

—-
Moderator, Admin, and all that 🙂

--
Site Owner Guy.

[Shypo]

i understand now…. yeah i just changed Xtals… not becos it broke but cos the person i race with has the same frequency lol.
who wouldve thought out of the 12 frequencys i wouldnt get the same but i did:angry:

—-
Go Fast, Be Free with Low CC

Undisputed Post Pimp

[PandaBear]

Quote:

If the seals have a finite life that’s OK they’re fairly cheap and considering it cost about $10 in parts to make a set of 4 oilers from my ‘junk’ it seems like a good deal.

You mean the rubber o-rings? They last quite a long time.
I only bother changing them when I need some o-rings for usage
under a screw elsewhere, so I put the new ones in the shocks.

Quote:

The interesting thing was that when I was gutting the used ones I already had was noticing that they all had different vavling fitted … Guess when I get back from holidays I’m rebuiling the set on the ’03 to make sure the previous owner didn’t stuff them up 😉 (I never stripped them down when I rebuilt it)

I usually don’t run any acquisition until I’ve stripped it
and cleaned everything, then rebuilt to manual’s specs.
Its amazing how many previous-owner “innovations” there are. blackeye:

Quote:

I think I have to clean up the gearboxes in teh Baja too, but that can wait until after it gets cained on holidays 😉

I don’t think dust actually makes any difference to its performance, but water can seep in and turn it into mud.

When rebuilding a TL01 I’d prefer to apply a little silicone sealant between the chassis halves, especially on the bottom.

[Aaron]

*nods* after ausmicro.com moves into its new premises (read Aaron is moving house) I’ll strip the Baja down. On the beach run it borker a drive shaft and los t a drive cup so it’s a little worse for wear.

But hey that’s why I bought it! *grins*

--
Site Owner Guy.

[PandaBear]

If the Baja Champ comes with those white-tipped dogbones,
I’d say lose them quick!! (as in… on Purpose)

Replace them all with the same all-metal parts from the
nitro equivalent, Wild Dagger I think its called.

[Aaron]

yup the shoddy white plastic ended ones….

They’re just not up to the task…

--
Site Owner Guy.

[PandaBear]

Have no idea what Tamiya was thinking, but yeah
those white things don’t rate highly at all.
The shorter “touring car” ones have been long
discontinued too… but I still have 1 pair NIB.
(I can smell… “collectors’ item”!!:))

But don’t throw them away though… have found a
use for the broken ones too! When you’ve got the
metal ones and have used them for a while… the
crosspins usually get worn away.

Tip is to grab your vise and rig up a way to press
the worn pins out (use a bronze PC’s m/b spacer),
then either turn them 90degs and reinsert, or
replace with less-worn ones. The white dogbones
have the same-sized pins.

btw I run dogbones *dry*.
Putting grease on them will only pickup dirt,
which makes a great grinding paste. Running them
dry probably causes less wear than otherwise.

[jamiekulhanek]

Aaron, what motor are you running??

I can guarantee my car does better doughies than all of urs, cuz its 2wd and has a 14×2 motor.

Sadly, with all that power and no traction it is a bit of a biatch to keep in a straight line, and it just cant resist wrapping itself around hard objects :sad::sad:

[Aaron]

I’m running a stock Tamiya Mabunchi in it… I have a 16turn Kyosho in my TA03 which is pretty sexy when not sripping pinion gears 😉

A.

--
Site Owner Guy.

[Aaron]

Oh well I just ordered all the parts to fix the Baja up… Ordered a standard set of dogbones becuase they were seriously cheap….

--
Site Owner Guy.

[jamiekulhanek]

Id love a baja…….

[Aaron]

Do eeeet!

$190ish + about $20 for bearings 😉

Ohh and the radio gear bits and pieces…..

--
Site Owner Guy.

[Author]

Posts