Early Nodis gearbox (Pre-Stealth)

[dinglem]

I have seen this mag clipping posted up in the 'Rarest Part' thread on here, and am now trying to find out the date of this article. Does anybody happen to have the mag with this in, or any other information on the Nodis RC10 gearbox please?

[Phin]

I believe I posted that after seeing it in one of the magazines the_perfect_pickle_sales had listed on eBay a while back. It's from the Aug. '86 ish of RC Model Cars.

Also, OverRC.com has a scan of the prototype 4wd Nodis was working on: https://www.overrc.com/vintage/documentation/archives-de-mike/Nodis%20RC10%204wd%20from%20June%20'87%20issue%20of%20Model%20Cars.jpg

[dinglem]

Thanks for that info mate. I spoke to Richard Isherwood about that 4wd car and he told me that Nodis never completed it, which is a shame. I have a gearbox at the moment which is why I am trying to date it.

[Phin]

Heh. I had a feeling you were going to end up finding one...but that was quicker than I expected.

I wonder if the 4wd didn't work out because it would only drive backwards.

[jwscab]

Man. I dunno how you do it but you find some of the neatest stuff.

[coxbros1]

Man. I dunno how you do it but you find some of the neatest stuff.

He has very deep pockets!

[tuna.Rc]

That sucks. I had a gear box like that. I didnt know what it was for and got rid of it.

[XLR8]

I'm curious; why doesn't the idler gear shaft pass through both sides of the case?

[dinglem]

It looks to be just a pinion gear on a stubby shaft on the one side. Easy to replace, i guess. Reminds me a lot of the Brimod car set up.

[Phin]

So I was rereading the ad and this line clicked for the first time:

The top gear is hardened and a small bearing block is fitted to the box which carries a contrate gear coupled to a shaft which in turn connected to a differential.

That sounds like, instead of a simple idler gear, there should be a shaft drive between the top gear and diff. Weird thing to do for a 2wd trans but it could be a real slick way to run a shaft to a front gear box for a 4wd conversion. Maybe that was an earlier prototype before Nodis switched to the belt drive shown in the OverRC article. A crown gear as an idler could explain why the belt driven spur is on the right side of the case on the 4wd car....it'd need to be on the left side for a typical 3 gear trans. Though my guess is Nodis dropped the idler completely and the 4wd car has only 2 gears in that trans.

[Jeffrey]

Wow, just wandering through this site and reminding myself of things years ago and what a surprise. I hold my hand up to sribbling that short piece on the Nodis gearbox. The name "Geoff Driver" was chosen for me by the mag. editor Alan Harman. The truth is I have no recollection of writing that piece. I like to think that Don Ison and I were good friends, we chatted a lot together, back then it was all phone calls, although I never met him face to face. If you have not realised just mix D Ison in reverse and you can see where the name came from. I still have the odd gearbox and a collection of Tufnol bits that he gave me and the basis of another chassis he was deigning but eventually abandoned. I think somewhere I have some photo's of some of Don's other projects, he was a very prolific, talented engineer and just a really nice guy.

[dinglem]

Jeffrey, i will send you a private message - fascinating stuff!