At last, a TopCat for Dan!

[DerbyDan]

I 'won' this on old evil-bay last week & it arrived in the post on Friday so thought i'd share a few pre-rebuild pictures with you before I begin.





Check out the incorrectly installed layshaft/spur gear! How can you get it THAT wrong.... I have removed the gear cover to reveal the plain bearing holder


U/Side of chassis - the car looks like its never been run, but does have various scuffs & scratches that it has accumulated through the years in storage, only the front bumper oddly seems to have scuffs that would suggest that, that part may have come from a used car?


This car completes the missing link in my collection, which now means I have(in one form or another) the first 5 R/C cars that I ever owned (in order; Tamiya Hornet, Mardave Meteor, TopCat, Mardave Cobra & Losi XX) - & it is on these cars that I learn't so much - the TopCat was the 3rd car I owned but was my first true competition chassis, despite already being out-of-date when I recieved mine - as the Cougar had already been released!

It makes me wonder how this TopCat seems to have been built yet never had electric fitted or ran in anger - I wondered if perhaps after being built incorrectly the owner lost interest as its obvious that a motor cannot be fitted with the spur gear in the way..... but closer inspection of the motor plate reveals score marks from motor screws, so at some point perhaps the gearbox at least had been built correctly? The car has a few other missing/broken parts that i'm hoping to find/replace - including various screws & fixings.

[Jay Dub]

I would have to say that that is one of the most awesome assembly fails ever . -Jeff

[8rad]

hahaha.....no wonder it was never run!

[Ivan Dobsky]

Cool, nice find. I can actually understand the layshaft being on the wrong way. Now I'm not saying that the instructions are incorrect at that point in the build, but Schumacher's manuals were badly written back in the day. I think I threw the manual in the bin partway through building my Bosscat, that one definitely had some errors in the way it was written.

[CAT3K]

That chassis looks in great condition Dan, the gearbox made me laugh though

Paul.

[Bormac]

Bring on the Topcat Dan

Great find thats for certain. It's funny how these old cars seem more popular now than they did even 7 or 8 years ago. There must be a good 20-30 of these floating around amongst us now.

[DerbyDan]

Cool, nice find. I can actually understand the layshaft being on the wrong way. Now I'm not saying that the instructions are incorrect at that point in the build, but Schumacher's manuals were badly written back in the day. I think I threw the manual in the bin partway through building my Bosscat, that one definitely had some errors in the way it was written.

Thanks for the comments guys.... I must admit that I made some mistakes when I built my original TopCat - probably in part to the less than comprehensive instructions & due to the fact that I was only about 14 yrs old - my errors included over-tightening the diff which resulted in a crushed thrust race - & I left out the small spacers that lift the spring seats on the front shocks, which mean't that the steering binded on them, this caused the biggest headache when I came to first running the car

I soon rectified these problems - & it actually mean't that I ended-up with a full hex diff & an upgraded thrust race - which ensured a more robust & reliable diff action

Jason - on these shores at least, the TopCat was quite a popular car - I can think of at least 5 or 6 (including mine) that were racing at my local club. I guess many of those would have been converted into Cougars (like mine did) but I guess quite a few people may have moved on to other brands instead of staying with Schumacher & upgrading the troubled inboard front suspension - so I guess this would explain the fairly high numbers of these cars appearing?

Considering the fairly short production run of the TopCat - there's a fair few NIB cars around it seems (certainly more than Mk1 Cougars) - I know that my original car was brought just after the release of the Cougar, as such the local model shop was selling off the old kit cheap (& it therefore fell under the budget that I was allowed to spend on my Christmas present ) - but I can remember seeing TopCat kits hanging around in the less popular shops for quite a while - these are probably the kits that remain NIB to this day?

[Bormac]

I won my NIB Topcat kit from a seller out of the USA years back. I was stoked becuase I won it for around $360.

I lurve the topcat.

[DerbyDan]

Finally done something on this;

Chassis now polished!!!



U/Side;


Mirror finish


My only reservation is whether or not it is too shiney??

[Groomi]

Wow! That looks great - but now you need all the aluminium extras and they'll all need polishing the same.

[CAT3K]

Awesome job Dan But now you'll have to polish everything to match

[DerbyDan]

Awesome job Dan But now you'll have to polish everything to match

Yes this is the problem - the polishing 'dubs' the edges, so I can't use the same process/tools to polish the shocks or the gearbox side plates or i'll loose the definition. I will try my best with to get a decent shine on the parts but using less abrasive polish etc.

[Groomi]

So what process did you use? When I've tried polishing a chassis I found the inside to have a harder surface (anodised?) which wouldn't polish unless it was sanded through first.

[DerbyDan]

I used a DA sander first to remove the silver anodising, which on this chassis is very thin/soft.... I would imagine that the anodising on the coloured chassis is harder?

Luckily where I work we have a polishing shop - so I took direction from the guys that work in there with what polishing mop to use, I couldn't tell you the grade or exact spec of the mop I used.... I just used the one they rigged up for me

[Coelacanth]

Another way you can remove anodizing is to spray on some Easy-Off oven cleaner (the aerosol can with the yellow cap). Let it sit for a couple minutes, and brush it right off (toothbrush or paintbrush helps to get into nooks & crannies). That's how I removed anodizing from some well-worn Kyosho Gold shocks and some cheap blue GPM control arms that I polished and had re-anodized purple. My first post in my Barney build thread shows some before/after. I removed the anodizing, then did a bunch of wet-sanding and polishing to prep it for re-anodizing. If you just want to polish and you're not re-anodizing, you could protect the polished surface with some clearcoat or even car wax.

http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=21530