Early Tamiya Wheels and Acetone

[mrlexan]

Note to self and others, DO NOT use Acetone to removed glue from early Tamiya wheels, the greyish colored wheels. Specifically I tried the 1/12 on road wheels, but I believe based on color this would include Rough Rider and Holiday Buggy. Not sure about the early SS, SC wheels.

Overnight they completely broke down into a pile goo.

[Mr. ED]

On a similar line: don't run grasshopper or frog rims. They're made of ABS (I think) instead of nylon.

Afer about 5 packs off-road I discovered today the walls around the front bearings have cracked
Pretty disappointing as the concept will loose all its charme with modern wheels.

Anybody know of better rims to take the good-as-new tires

[murphy3428]

The srb aluminum hubs work well but they are not cheap and not readily available

[highwayracer]

On a similar line: don't run grasshopper or frog rims. They're made of ABS (I think) instead of nylon.

Afer about 5 packs off-road I discovered today the walls around the front bearings have cracked
Pretty disappointing as the concept will loose all its charme with modern wheels.

Anybody know of better rims to take the good-as-new tires

Hello Erik,

Look for the 1 piece panda wheels...they come in white or yellow. The wheels are also ABS, but much more durable since there's more material. The wheels have a hub cap that can be places to cover the wheel nut.

Regards,
highwayracer

[MelvinsArmy]

What happened to boiling old tires off wheels? I've never had a problem doing that. It turns only the glue to goo that you can then just scrape off.

[mrlexan]

That doesn't work as well as the Acetone....... some are good and some are bad, usually takes two or three bouts in the oven for that to work and you don't get all the rubber off the wheels. Schumacher tires specifically break down in the oven. You put them in, try to muscle them off and it just tears like paper. The acetone works the best, the eco-friendly guy in me does really like it too much.

[bearrickster]

I soak them in Castrol Super Clean removes everything including your skin be careful but works great

[MelvinsArmy]

That doesn't work as well as the Acetone....... some are good and some are bad, usually takes two or three bouts in the oven for that to work and you don't get all the rubber off the wheels. Schumacher tires specifically break down in the oven. You put them in, try to muscle them off and it just tears like paper. The acetone works the best, the eco-friendly guy in me does really like it too much.

I don't put them in the oven. I get an old pot, fill it with water, drop the wheels/tires in and put it on top of the stove and let it boil. Of course some of the goo gets left on the wheel, but most of the sticky stuff usually breaks down pretty good and you can scrape whatever is left off with an xacto knife. I've never done it with really old tires, but I've done it with Clod tires and newer buggy tires without any damage to the tires or the wheel.

I would think acetone would be harmful to any plastic, new or old. If it melts nail polish, it seems like it would melt plastic.

The wiki page on acetone is pretty good. I had no idea that we had it in our bodies. If you scroll down to the "Solvent" section, it says it can be used to dissolve many plastics, including polystyrene, polycarbonate and polypropylene. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone

[mrlexan]

The boiling thing never worked for me. Not sure why, seems straight forward. I have only had success with the oven.

[ROH73]

Acetone is fine for nylon wheels like all of the RC10s, but you'll always get the same gooey result as Mr. Lexan with older Tamiya wheels, which are mostly polystyrene and some ABS.

I've also found that boiling works well for Tamiya wheels.

Robert

[bearrickster]

soak the Wheel in Castrol it removes all of the goo with out touching them. Once try it you wont go back!

[Mr. ED]

Hello Erik,
Look for the 1 piece panda wheels...they come in white or yellow. The wheels are also ABS, but much more durable since there's more material.

Thanks for the tip roger,
ABS was my first guess, but on reading the posts here, I think my second guess is closer to the truth: PP (Poly-prop) for the grasshopper wheels. Luckily those are 3-pieces; so I won't have a problem with removing glue form the tires when the wheels go complete bust.

Cracked is only half-way-broke, let's see how much more they can take

[Brandon G]

Careful about dying Tamiya plastic as well. I got the great idea of dying my Frog chassis black only to find the plastic does NOT like heat. Shrunk, warped, cracked.... Trifecta.

[highwayracer]

Brandon is correct. You can not heat up plastics like abs and others. If look at masami's 89 yokomo, the reason the bulkheads were painted was because the dye will shrink / warp them. I personally experienced this This has been mentioned several times in RCCA, but they don't mention this anymore is because most cars no longer use ABS...except for tamiya.

I would suggest only using acetone and dying parts only if you know that they are nylon.

As for acetone as a solvent for CA, I wish I'd joined the forun sooner. I've always heard that acetone disolves CA, but I've never had the confidence to do this until I joined the forum. I've ruined so many tires using the boil and pull technique. I've also made a mess of different wheels and parts trying to scrape off the CA with a dremel or exacto.

I wish I had a before and after pic of the things I've dipped in acetone. I had a Losi pro SE that was covered in CA (previous owner ran out of servo tape). I soaked it in acetone for a little bit over a day and it came out perfect. Removing tires has also become a piece of cake.

Regards,
highwayracer

[bearrickster]

Thats how I do it soak them in Acetone then soak the rims in Castrol super clean to remove the glue from the wheel it makes them look new good stuff