"Red Tide": Lucas Agitator Pro 10 Restoration

[Coelacanth]

With my builds, I feel that every great car starts out with a great set of wheels...something distinctive and different, if possible. I acquired 2 full sets of Sees wheels for this car; 4 rears and a pair of fronts that were NIP and 2 gently used fronts. I know most vintage purists would cry "Sacrilege!" at the very thought of deanodizing the gold off of these wheels, but even as decent as they look, brand-new, right out of the bags, they just don't "pop". I don't like the time and elbow grease needed to polish aluminum bits, but you can't beat the look; it's classy without having that cheap chrome "bling". So I rolled up my sleeves--right up to the elbows. I chose the lightly-used fronts for the deanodize/polish job, they had a few very small, barely visible rim scuffs. I left the NIP fronts with the gold anodize alone.

Original NIP Sees wheels, just as a memento in case disaster struck...

After my usual deanodizing method, a light spray & soak in Easy Off HD Oven Cleaner, then brushing off with a toothbrush.

And voilà, after a good 3 hours or so of light wet-sanding with 1000-grit followed by polishing compound, and after I felt everything was quite consistent, a final work-over with a soft polishing wheel drill-bit and Nu-Finish Scratch & Swirl Remover. I'll be honest - the fronts were a pain in the ass, trying to figure out ways to polish the 5 divots representing the lug nuts, and even worse--the little recesses they were in. At first, I wasn't planning to do that, but it just looked like a half-assed lazy job with part of the wheel inners not shiny like the faces & rims. But if you're gonna spend hours doing something, might as well do it right.

With original NIP front wheels for a comparison of the end results:

Now, work begins on the rears, but their faces are flat, no recesses, so it should be a breeze compared to the fronts.

[Coelacanth]

Finished the work on the wheels tonight. Next up are the rest of the aluminum bits.

[Lonestar]

I love long-forgotten projects Nice to see this one come back to life!

[Coelacanth]

I didn't have the budget for anodizing a handful of the parts, so I put this on the back shelf...but I figured it was time to kick my own ass in gear and work on this build, because it's going to be a beauty. Over the past months, I acquired some essential parts and an upgrade fiberglass T-bar...caught them cheap on eBay. I just need to finish some polishing and get the anodizing done, then the build should come along pretty quickly.

[Phin]

Did you ever find the small t-bar pivots that you were missing? I spotted this Tech Racing "Perfect Center" kit on eBay, that's for Tamiya F1 cars, and the pivots look very similar to the small pivots that the Agitator used. Could be worth a try if you're still looking for some.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/182383275273?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

[Coelacanth]

Did you ever find the small t-bar pivots that you were missing? I spotted this Tech Racing "Perfect Center" kit on eBay, that's for Tamiya F1 cars, and the pivots look very similar to the small pivots that the Agitator used. Could be worth a try if you're still looking for some.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/182383275273?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

No I didn't, but I found something that will hopefully work. That item you linked looks like it would work, but that seller is notorious for his ridiculous prices. No way in hell I'm paying over $21 after exchange for 3 of those and a few O-rings.

[Coelacanth]

I finished polishing the rest of the aluminum parts, these are going to the anodizer.

[Coelacanth]

I finally got the front end built. It took a lot of measuring, cutting, filing, and re-measuring to within two or three hundredths of a millimeter. I actually messed up one of the spanner tubes, filing it too short...so I had to correct the mistake by re-filing all the tubes to ~8.15 mm and add a 1 mm washer, to match the original aluminum tubes' length of 9.15 mm. The length has to be pretty exact because the top and bottom of the kingpins are captured by plastic cups, with grooves in the ends for rubber O-rings. The O-ring grooves must line up exactly with the top & bottom of the horizontal plates; if the spanner tubes are even a half-millimeter too long or short, the grooves won't line up for the O-rings. There's no room for error.

I'm glad I'm past this part of the build!

[Lonestar]

I finally got the front end built. It took a lot of measuring, cutting, filing, and re-measuring to within two or three hundredths of a millimeter. I actually messed up one of the spanner tubes, filing it too short...so I had to correct the mistake by re-filing all the tubes to ~8.15 mm and add a 1 mm washer, to match the original aluminum tubes' length of 9.15 mm. The length has to be pretty exact because the top and bottom of the kingpins are captured by plastic cups, with grooves in the ends for rubber O-rings. The O-ring grooves must line up exactly with the top & bottom of the horizontal plates; if the spanner tubes are even a half-millimeter too long or short, the grooves won't line up for the O-rings. There's no room for error.

I'm glad I'm past this part of the build!


FrontEnd2.jpg

FrontEnd1.jpg

Looking good indeed

[Coelacanth]

My work got sidelined for 2 weeks because I couldn't find the tiny little 2-56 screws to mount the pivots...nobody had them! I couldn't re-use the old ones because they were all badly scratched and rounded-out, I actually had to cut two off just to free up the T-bar. So, I had to special-order a pack of 2-56 screws just to proceed, and they finally arrived today. So the resto can continue!

I had to substitute 4-40 blind nuts because I couldn't find the original cone nuts anywhere, either...but they should work fine. I just broke off the bent-up little triangular teeth and filed them smooth before threadlocking them on. The original T-bar was the only part on the underside of the chassis that was scuffed up, but I acquired a couple new fiberglass T-bars and swapped one in.

The chassis upper surface looks worn because it had the battery slots originally filed and coated with CA cement to make the slots non-conductive. I previously removed the CA residue to clean up the chassis plate.

[Coelacanth]

Made a little progress tonight...got the radio plate mounted to the chassis with 8mm aluminum standoffs and installed a cheap aluminum servo mount. The standoffs are just inexpensive anodized 6mm O.D. spacers with 3mm threads. I bored out the threads with a rat-tail file so the 4-40 screws would slip through easily. It's such a cheap parts swap but changes the look so much. Of course I kept all the original parts should I ever want to go "meh" and revert back to a bone-stock resto...but going that route just doesn't intrigue me.

I hit a bit of a roadblock because I can't for the life of me find red aluminum 5-40 nylon locknuts! I may have to use black instead...

[Coelacanth]

A few months ago, I picked up a cheap red short-length aluminum servo horn & saver, some red 4-40 Calandra ball studs (had to pay too much for them but red 4-40 ball studs are practically unobtainium) and a pair of cheap 3 x 60mm turnbuckles to suit this build's color scheme, but because of 1:1 car projects (replaced fuel pump in the Charger; hotwire kit and fuel pump upgrade in the GN, and currently wiring in fuel pressure and boost gauges for the GN), I haven't had time to even look at RC car stuff. I got the 3mm turnbuckles installed with AE 4-40 ball-cups. Fortunately the fit wasn't too tight and the cups didn't crack or split. Mounted the polished Sees wheels with flanged bearings so I could adjust toe-in.

Now I'm pretty much at a halt in progress until I can get my other polished parts anodized red.

[Speed Chaser]

Man that red is looking pretty good on that car.

[Lonestar]

yep - gonna look good when done

[DropDeadKustoms]

Wow this is amazing! And these are the wheels for sure!