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IMO, the best looking monster truck of the '80s was the Kyosho Double Dare! Not the best at really anything else, but looks wise, the DD does it for me!! So, through horse trading, I have ended up with two semi-crappy Double Dares, so might as well make one out of the best parts. This will be a refresh, and light on new parts, and mostly working with what I got. I was reluctant to start this build as I knew I was missing the radio cover and hadn't been able to find one, but while rearranging vehicles last week, I realized that the cover on my [future project] USA-1 had what I had been looking for, so needed part found, so time to move forward.

Of course, I have learned in the past that building one good vehicle from two crappy ones doesn't really work, and you just end up with twice as many bad parts, but I tend to forget that lesson.

Step 1: parts breakdown. Shockingly, very little in regards to broken parts. I knew I wanted a MSC and didn't have one, so that is on order. I had also already ordered machined aluminum chassis braces because my plastic ones chrome was sad, but as usual, the seller is taking their sweet a$$ time shipping those. I am missing one set of kingpin catches, so I may need to print something up. Step 2: transmissions. All good here; existing parts cleaned up fine and no damage. Bearings added of course, but for no real reason. Step 3: shocks. Shocks are all fine, and this may just be in my head, but they have "pinked" a little over time I think. I am going to get some red dye in the next couple of days and see if the plastic will take it. Will update. Step 4: chassis braces. I don't think I am going to wait for the aluminum ones, so I am just coloring the existing ones with Molotov markers. Not as nice as the original plasti-chrome, but I think good enough at the end of the day. Again, I am a 3' away guy! With a second coat, I think the braces will be fine. Step 5: chassis. Put together the chassis with its internal components. The 4WS setup is weak to say the best, but it is complete. Step 6: outer susp components.

A quick ten second bath in RIT Scarlet Red knocked the pink off the shock plastics. Bottom body for reference.

Some useless knowledge as I put the "shocks" back together. Each wheel has two, one is internally sprung, and the other has a limiting tube.

With sub-assemblies mostly built, progress moves fairly quickly. Waiting on the MSC to show up, and then that and motors will be next in.

Thanks for the tip on dyeing the shocks. I've got a pair of Double Dares and my shocks have "pinked" as well.

I don't know if anyone remembers the movie Money Pit, but there is a great line in that movie where the contractor actually shows up to work on the "the pit," and he announces, "you won the lottery, today we work." That is how I am with my RCs; I work on one until another one wins the lottery, and then I work on that.

Today, and hopefully this weekend, the winner is the Double Dare. I got it to a good point, but lots left to do. #1 is to redo the wiring. I can't remember if I did the electronics and wiring in order of the manual, but it is a mess. I am finding out that it all needs to be "layered" correctly if there is any chance of it looking acceptable. Then the wheels which need to be cleaned up and painted. Then the body and accessories, which is going to be a pain and not really my thing, but this has got to get done.

Save the front strut tower (waiting on the motor), it is a slider. I don't know if Kyosho's plan was just to shove all the wiring under the MSC, but that is what ended up happening to get it all to fit. I have to confess that the MSC that I got was just a generic Kyosho rotary of the era, and not a DD one, so the battery leads are too short to make it out of the electronics box. If I wanted to run this, that would need to be fixed, but for a shelfer, I am calling it good enough. The MSC window is a nice touch! There are quite a few lexan accessories for this rig, and TBG repops them all.