two Le Mans 480 Gold motors - build-up choice...?

[b027]

I've been thinking about a motor build choice and curious what others here might do. I have two 480 Gold motors I'm building up...

#1 has a very nice can and aluminum front plate, but the label was destroyed (by a wraparound heat sink) so I replaced it with one from Ultrahive. #2 has a beat up and thread-repaired aluminum face (see my post on that here https://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?t=47321), but the original label is still in pretty good shape.

For end bells, I have one gold aluminum Kyosho original (with light marks), and one silver aluminum of unknown origin (somewhat tarnished). They look similar, though I'm pretty sure the silver one is not Kyosho (haven't seen one like that yet). I built up the gold end bell with original Kyosho brush holders and capacitors, and the silver end bell with replacement vintage parts I had in the parts box (unknown origin).

I put the gold end bell on the #2 thread-repaired, all-original can, and the silver end bell on the #1 can with Ultrahive label...

The #2 motor is obviously used, and somewhat beat up, but all original. The only real problem is the front face abuse from previous life. I usually like some wear for the "story" it tells, but that one is a little much for me. When mounted you can't see any of this though...

The #1 motor's Ultrahive label has a very nice bushed-metallic backing, however the gold color looks too saturated and feels off to me (I really do like the label otherwise, including the slight cosmetic differences that would make it easy to tell apart from an OG label). The motor can is very nice.

Am I being too picky about the #1 label color...??? Probably without them side-by-side the differences would be much less noticeable.

II'm undecided whether to keep them as built, or swap the gold end bell over to the #1 can given its nicer overall condition... I'm also not sure what I'm going to eventually do with these motors, which is part of my problem . I have some other 480's for display, so these would probably be destined for mounting and display or running. But I still have work to do on the brushes and armatures for both of these first.

Curious to hear what others think!



side by side (#2 on left, #1 on right):

#1

#2

[coxbros1]

Swap gold endbell to ultrahive motor

[b027]

Yeah, you're right... I swapped the end bells, looked at it some more and on its own the motor looks nice. I was being too picky...!

[Coelacanth]

Swap gold endbell to ultrahive motor

That's exactly what I would've done. The motor with the Ultrahive sticker is the better one, all it needs is the correct gold endbell...making sure the internals are 480 Gold internals in both motors, of course. It's easy to interchange Kyosho internals in same-sized cans. I think someone here ended up buying a LeMans motor that didn't have the correct LeMans internals inside the can and got scammed by an unscrupulous seller.

[Frankentruck]

That Parma endbell is cool. If you decide you don't want it, I know someone who would.

I have a 480 Gold with the Ultrahive label too. I think it makes it a nicely restored motor, even if the gold color is a little darker. Yours is a nice example of a restored motor.