Splitting the two halves

Spent a greasy evening on the dining room table breaking down the last remaining whole (well semi-whole) part. The bumper mount was the last obstacle to splitting the gearbox. 20 year old locktight was partly to blame and the screws just didn't want to budge. Finally got one off with lots of wriggling but the second took a lot more effort. Another 10 screws later and the only thing holding the two halves together was some silicone sealant. Greasy/oily gears landed on the clean dining room table and I had one half in easy hand. Yuck - quite messy inside and lots of cleaning needed to get all the remains of congealed white stuff removed. Did some by hand but got a dremel drill thing with a polishing and cleaning set on the way from Amazon. Should help get the gearbox and the rest of the metal parts shiney and sparkly in no time.

The aim here is to return the parts as much as possible to the state they were in the day I built it. Obviously there is some cosmetic wear and tear to patch up and I don't want to replace original parts just for the sake of a few minor dents and scratches.

I will not be re-building it - that's my son's job. He's around the same age as I was when I first got this awesome kit. My job is just the cleaning and making sure everything is there and usable. He'll even use my original tatty and paint/oil/grease stained instruction manual.

Project Resurrected - yes wheely!

After getting fed up of staring at a blue plastic project box in the corner of the bedroom, I decided that it was time to sink some time into the superchamp restoration project this weekend. I popped the new plastic wheel parts out of the frame, grabbed the polished aluminium covered and decided to see how cool the new wheels looked. I'd forgotten how much effort is required to get the wheel into the rubber, but after a few minutes of pushing and swearing it finally popped in. After I'd gently pushed the outer parts on I admired my handywork and then remembered that I really should have painted the white plastic first so pulled it all apart again. Going to try with a silver paint pen to get a nice smooth finish. Also need to get a stupidly fine paint pen in white or yellow for the lettering on the wheels.

Roof Roof

Ordered a bunch of vintage parts on e-bay - mainly 2 SC roofs and 2 packaged steering upright sets, plus a bunch of other SC specific parts - rear bumper stay and rear suspension arms.

Also noticed while on ebay that the company that make the nice skid pans with the gearbox cover had some for sale so ordered one from the USA.

Bearing up

I ball race bearings arrived today. Nice and fast delivery.

What a load of balls!

Bought a set of 12 ballrace bearings today. 6 for the gearbox, 2 for the back and 4 for the front.

Wing wing .... wing wing

Found someone selling a superchamp roof wing part on tamiyaclub.com and he still has it for sale. Looks pretty beat up and scratched in the pics, but much better condition than mine which I recall snapping off after too many attempts to bend it back after rolls and crashes. Should polish up and buff out nicely.

Not sure if I'll go for it as he wants around £10 plus shipping and I can get a complete Sand Scorcher body set for around £20.

My original Superchamp shell has 2 or 3 snapped pieces of plastic held together with masking tape. (Don't ask!)

Local Model Shop lucky dip

Jumped in the car after a quick pizza in the canteen at work, and headed out to the neighboring village Chandlers Ford with a work mate to check out a small model shop called "Mostly plans and trains". Bet you can't guess from the title what they specialise in! :-)

However after getting distracted by the Hornby and Scelextric, we noticed a few RC cars at the back. I spotted an identical model to my Mini Cooper, and then got chatting with the guy behind the desk. He pulled out a box of various Tamiya parts, and luckily he had a complete set of wheels for the Boomerang which I think are Identical to the Superchamp ones. Modern part numbers 0555066 and 67. Anyhow I bought them as they were only £4.50 each and have ordered a set of tyres. Hopefully be in stock at the end of the week. Looks like I could get my ESC, battery, motor, and wheel/gearbox bearings from there as well as other bits and pieces.