# Tyco Jam Car 2 direct drive U-Turn conversion



## clausheupel (Jan 27, 2005)

Hi folks,

hopefully everyone´s successfully digested their X-Mas turkey! :drunk:

I just wanted to show off the results of a little, cheap and dirty Sunday afternoon quickie. I´m quite sure I´m not the only one who has one (or more) of those useless Tyco Jam Cars laying around wondering what to do with them. 

I received mine as part of a nice transatlantic transaction a couple of years ago from one of my HT buddies :wave:. What I did back then was an instant conversion to a slotted Jam Car by simply glueing a T-Jet guidepin to her bottom. Never thought she was suitable for anything more than this due to the really slow worm gear drive, so the car didn´t see much tracktime.

Direct drive cars always fascinated me and I wanted to build one for years, but never thought I´d be able to get my hands on one of these long-shaft engines needed for that project. Now when inspecting that weird yellow monster once again I realised she had all that was needed!!! 

So off I went with the cutting wheel in my Dremel and removed the rear axle bearings as well as the rear engine mount. Pressing the motor shaft through the comm assembly was easily done with a few gentle strokes of a hammer and the use fo my trusty old vise. Then I CA-glued the original wheels onto the now centered motor shaft and had a perfect direct drive unit!

For mounting that drive unit to the chassis I simply took a piece of sheet aluminium and bent it to an L-shape. A little CA-superglue, 2 wires and she was ready for some quite promising test laps.

Funny thing is that these Jam Car chassis already have a built-in U-turn diode wiring - you can run them either direction on your track!

So I didn´t mount slip-on silicones, but some lead weight to prevent the car front from hopping out of the slot all the time - works great!

Then I finally felt the need to add some LED lights, too:

Laying around 1.8 mm white LED´s as front lights seemed just fine, so I installed 4 of them. Unfortunately 1 didn´t work (should have tested them before adding that drop of CA glue...), so I soldered a bypass to the other side ending up with only 2 working headlights instead of 3. Then I mounted 2 of those cool red/blue blinking LED´s as roof lights (drilling 3 mm holes into the original red plastic dummies worked fine!) and a little capacitor for smoothing out the current.

The result looks like that:





































Still a butt ugly car (just like the other U-turn Mustangs I have), but kind of funny on the track - just take a look at this short video clip I just did with my son as the camera guy:

http://www.aus-dem-rahmen-gefallen.de/slotcars/ch_tyco_jamcar_2_u-turn.mpg

Back to the track now - it´s getting dark outside, so it´s about time for a U-turn car duel!

Greetings from Germany,

Claus


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## sethndaddy (Dec 4, 2004)

leave it to a German to make a car look like a nuclear power plant. Amazing work Claus.


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## hojoe (Dec 1, 2004)

Very innovative! And your track looks great. I've seen close-ups, but never the whole thing. Nice job on both.
hojoe


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## bobhch (Apr 22, 2007)

*It's not Jelly it's JAM...*

Claus that video showed some neat rear sliding and fast running fun man!

Bob...Jam on...zilla


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## tjd241 (Jan 25, 2004)

Great job on the video fellas!!!... :thumbsup: Nice re-work on the chassis Claus!!! :thumbsup: nd


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## WesJY (Mar 4, 2004)

thats so cool!! I ll have to try it myself! awesome work Claus!! :thumbsup:

Wes


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## noddaz (Aug 6, 1999)

*nice job!*

But just what I needed... Another project! :lol:
I have a box of these previously useless cars laying around somewhere....


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

Darn!!! The vid won't work on my kids computer!!!  Good to see you lighting again!!! Inspirational, for sure..:thumbsup::thumbsup: Me sooo bad letting my LED lighting abilities fritter and waste. I started cleaning up the cave so I can get back to work and got side tracked by warm weather and the one chance to get the driveway cleaned up of all the snow and ice we got. I must procure a couple of these chassis and experiment with them in slow mode..


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## grungerockjeepe (Jan 8, 2007)

interesting stuff, as always!


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## XracerHO (Feb 6, 2008)

Great work for a little Sunday afternoon project & one very nice layout! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: ..RL


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