# If you build it, they will come...



## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

Building our track this year, Redline Raceway, a.k.a Insane with the 4-lane, continues to be a great experience for the kids and me. If you've seen my ancient archive pic of my childhood track, you can see some continuity between some of its features and the new track.



You can also see a Green Nomad in the lower left corner of the pic, one of the early AFX cars with the short, flat guide flag. What you can't see is my other favorite car, the yellow-purple Willys tuffy. These two cars were my absolute favorites. Bought both of these myself at age 11 and loved them. Both super fast runners, too, with excellent handling - best of breed examples of Aurora's ultimate development of the t-jet and hot new A|FX. As a kid I always thought of these two cars as good friends who enjoyed fierce competition on the track. 

Well they're long gone now, and missed. And I learned they also happen to be kind of spendy to replace these days. Orange Nomad, Blue Nomad - easy. Green striped, not so much. Willys - well it's hard to find one with its glass and bumper in tact and whenever I do, it's too expensive to feel good about racing or even buying, and I'm no collector. I've bid on 30 or 40 of these in 2010 and I'd all but given up. Plan B was to paint up an MM or AW Willys and maybe one of the plentiful orange Nomads, or maybe get the pullback JL version.

But not too long ago I saw both the tuffy Willys and the green Nomad on ebay from the same seller. Also their auction ended at like 2:30 am Pacfic time - not many bidders awake and shopping in any US timezone then. So, almost out of duty, I put my modest bid in at nearly 1 am and fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning I made coffee and wondered how high past my limit they went for this time. So I popped up the screen and you guessed it - I won both! Amazing, as I've seen just the Willys body in fair shape, not good, go for over $25. 

So long story long... cue the Thin Lizzy... because the "boys" are back in town! 

P.S. Now these cars are far from perfect, but good enough for me to work on, share with my kids, nurse back to life, and race the heck out of. Guilt-free, to boot! 

Hootie-hoo!
:hat::hat:


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

great story! congrats! :thumbsup:

--rick


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

Awesome rolls!!!! Some people have no clue how to list stuff on the bay. It could have had a sad ending if someone used a sniper program. I'm happy you found _the ones_ that can turn back time for you! :thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

*The boys are back in town...*

Thanks Rick and SCMan! I fully expected a sniper to grab these out from under me. And how lucky was it to find both cars from one seller?!? 

Yeah, I'm pretty psyched. We built it, and they came. 

Anywho, what started as a test and tune for the track, where these guys were supposed to slide around and find problems with borders, quickly turned into a neck & neck competition as the old competitors tipped open the throttles and swapped paint. 

A track worker whipped out his Instamatic and snapped some pics I'll post in a moment, where the old timers are shown in all their glory and with all their accumulated flaws - err... character. You can almost see the heat coming off the Tuffy.


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## DesertSlot (May 8, 2009)

You're havin' a great day Rolls! Can't wait to see the pics. Keep that fire extinguisher handy! LOL


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

*The boys are back in town...*























































































Welcome home, boys!


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## DesertSlot (May 8, 2009)

They look good! Glad you got them. I would love to get a few cars that I had as a kid but they are too rich for my blood right now.


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## kiwidave (Jul 20, 2009)

Well done Rolls. Very cool!


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

I hear ya, Desert. Very tough economic times. I can't believe I need to watch money down to the level of buying a used HO car, but that's how it is at the moment. It would've actually made more sense to spend a little more and get better ones, but it was these or nothing as far as originals. 

The Nomad's pretty good. Lots of bumper and stripe wear, but no biggie. I rebuilt the chassis and it now runs a little better than average for an early AFX. It has a plastic idler gear, which is seems wrong for its era. It will need front wheels. It's pickups are dirty in this pic:











The Willys has a lot going for it, but both screw posts are shot; the back is one is sheared clear off at the body. It's chassis is well used. It has been soldered a bit on the bottom, has a loose armature pinion gear and runs fair. It looks like it might have a bushing in the bottom arm hole. I like its aluminum wheels. I doubt it's a real Tuff Ones chassis, but I'm not sure how to really check it's authenticity. Arm, magnets and one of the gears, I think are the "tells," but I'm not sure what to look for yet. 











They both have very good glass and window pillars. 


Way I look at it, I adopted these old dogs and I aim to have fun with 'em & nurse 'em back to good health the best I know how.


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## resinmonger (Mar 5, 2008)

Rolls, the Willis is rolling fat on a T-Jet chassis. A Tough Ones would have all silver plated electrical parts like an AFX. You can also see the crown gear is T-Jet (for a 9 tooth pinion) versus Tuffy (for a 14 tooth pinion). Most of us T-Jet heads prefer the original gearing to the Tuffy set up anyway. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

Rolls said:


> (snip)
> Way I look at it, I adopted these old dogs and I aim to have fun with 'em & nurse 'em back to good health the best I know how.


Dontcha just love getting dirty with these things? I am totally with you on this. I spent this afternoon scrounging through parts and rebuilding a couple of grotty old seized-up Tjets I acquired recently. Nothing like touching the shoes to the rails and squeezing the trigger and hearing it cough and squeal to life after sitting in the bottom of a dusty box for a couple decades...

--rick


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

Yup, I agree with Resin 100%. That there's a T jet chassis. The solder on it is probably making up for slightly loose rivets, and should make for better electrical flow. That chassis was clearly tweaked and I too can see the arm hole has been sleeved. I'd tinker with the gearing to get the slop tightened up, but would stay with the 9 tooth. Looks like you have snagged an awesome pair of nostalgia... Definitely worth what you spent, but not so much that you can't enjoy them for what they were made to do. I'd say it's time to tinker with some goop and get them posts fixed up!! :thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## kiwidave (Jul 20, 2009)

What a great shot!!


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

*Kiwi *- Out of ALL of them, and there are about 40 more than those I posted, that is my single favorite, too! 

The gray blur in the front is a gray guardrail. The blur seems to put all the focus on the cars. And with those radical but awesome colors, it's hard to go wrong. Makes a good wallpaper, too. Here is a link to it at original (big!) size. I really like to take pics of these little cars that try to capture the thrill of racing them. I didn't know if anyone else would enjoy them, too. Hope it gave you grin.

*Resin, SCman & Rick* - Yeah, I love it when a little clean and tune brings out a screamer from a long-neglected chassis. 

And thanks for the chassis ID info - I really appreciate it. :thumbsup::thumbsup: It was the lack of silver plate on the electrical bits that first triggered my doubt. I _thought _I remembered all the Tuff Ones had silver. I like the alum wheels and it sounds like I don't need to worry about the crown gear - probably won't be missed. 

Is solder the best choice for locking down the slipping the arm pinion gear? If so, doesn't the heat fry the windings? Maybe I'll tear into it tonight. 

Thanks!!

Rolls


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

Rolls said:


> Is solder the best choice for locking down the slipping the arm pinion gear? If so, doesn't the heat fry the windings? Maybe I'll tear into it tonight.
> 
> Thanks!!
> 
> Rolls


That would be best answered by Tjetsgrig, if he happen by here. He's an arm genius, and would know the best approach to dealing with a loose arm gear problem. I've heard of a ball press contraption ( a BB and a vice basically) being used to compress the hole diameter of a gear to make it a tighter fit, but never had a chance to experiment with it. I have extra gears lying around that could use a bit of tightening up, so I hope an answer magically appears while I'm sleeping...


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

Rolls said:


> Is solder the best choice for locking down the slipping the arm pinion gear? If so, doesn't the heat fry the windings? Maybe I'll tear into it tonight.
> 
> Rolls


I actually found a tip for this years ago that has worked for me every time I've tried it, though I know it's not the most scientific thing...

Go here and scroll about halfway down to the orange type that says *What can be done to make my gears stay on the armatures and rear drive shaft?*

To sum it up, essentially, you find a pair of pliers that has very fine "teeth" for gripping whatever you are grabbing. The article says you're better off finding cheap pliers, but I have a Leatherman tool which wasn't exactly cheap that works well. Grab the arm shaft at the very end with the toothed part of the pliers and squeeze hard. If you do it right, you will cut little makeshift splines in the shaft and they will grab the brass gear when you put it on. The article says to make sure you don't make the splines so far down the shaft that they extend into the arm hole in the gearplate, which makes sense--splines + friction surface = bad. I also figure you have to squeeze really hard, but not TOO hard... if you truly put the Kung-Fu Grip on it, I suppose it's possible to flatten the shaft, but I've never had that problem yet.

Something about the whole idea bugged me a little, since you're cutting grooves in the brass gears that now can't be used on any other shaft (I guess). But RRR is a pretty well respected name in the hobby, and this is his FAQ/Hop-Up Hints page, so I gave it a shot and I've been happy with the results several times that I used it. Besides, for me, I usually make repairs like this to be permanent... I don't plan on doing a lot of swapping arm gears around, and if I put a new pinion gear on, I plan for it to stay on...

hope this helps, and if anyone has opinions about this method, please post...

--rick


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

This might be just the ticket. I'm sure I read that page sometime last winter, but I'm equally sure I was thinking, "I'm not going to be swapping arms/pinions," so it lacked the impact to stick in my coconut. Thanks a billion for finding that, Rick. 

I hope it's not too late for this arm, though. I gave soldering a shot last night, put it on the track and got nothing. Nothing. I put it aside in disappointment. 

I'm hoping when I take it apart next (hopefully today), I'll find something other than a fried arm as the culprit, but we'll see. 

Even if this arm turns out to have died by my own hands, I'll be using the pliers technique soon to on this or another car. Again, thanks a billion for finding the technique!


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

heh heh. ive killed a couple arms myself trying to pry the gear off without the proper tools...

--rick


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## resinmonger (Mar 5, 2008)

The slot tard gravely holds the pancake armature in his hands. It's frayed wires unravel as he watches. He is heard to say:

Alas, poor Armature! I knew him... to be fast and brutal. But now he falls into a slumber eternal. No more to spin at the magnets pull. No more to lighten the slot tard's soul. Here stands Armature, once proud and brave. Now cast into the broke parts grave... :freak:


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

The old bard... William Slotspeare, eh? 

Freakin' hilarious, Resin!!!!! Really funny!!!

Maybe I should quit foruming and start doing my stupid chores so I can have some time and energy to take that car apart later today.


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## resinmonger (Mar 5, 2008)

Rolls said:


> The old bard... William Slotspeare, eh?
> 
> Freakin' hilarious, Resin!!!!! Really funny!!!
> 
> Maybe I should quit foruming and start doing my stupid chores so I can have some time and energy to take that car apart later today.


One part inspiration from William of Slotspeareshire. :freak:

Three parts permanent brain damage from HS English. :freak:

Six parts testors 3502 fumes!!! :drunk:

I don't always make goop. But when I do, I use 3502...


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

*It lives!*

Well, I did get around to pulling the Gasser chassis apart to look into the no-go situation. Arm wires seemed to all be intact, but the geartrain was definitely bound up and the comm brushes were sitting mighty low. Maybe I melted the arm hole in the gearplate a little? I jiggled it and pried under the pinion gear just a little and it loosened up considerably. Still wouldn't run, though. So I pushed the brush springs up to increase comm pressure and -- it lives! 

It's not a healthy patient, though. I can give it full throttle (18-20V) around the whole Redline Raceway circuit. The metal arms that support the comm brushes are pretty limp. And I think I did impart some permanent arm-gearplate friction with my solder job. And the magnets seem incredibly weak. Maybe I'll swap out a few things, but maybe I need to take this patient off life support.


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## roadrner (Jul 21, 1999)

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: rr


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

Down at the local Humane Society, if those two cars were mutts they would say that they have found their 'forever home.'

Cool stuff dude.


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