Newbie's Turbo Ultima Restoration

[FasterLouder]

First,I'd like to thank MaruiHunter73 for telling me about this incredible website-Thanks,Gary!
I thought as my first post I'd tell anyone who's interested about my Turbo Ultima restoration...
I owned one of these way back in 1989 and it was the fastest thing around (here,anyway!).
All was well and good,until some heel driving a red MG MGBGT took it upon himself to run my pride and joy over,when I was running it on the street out front of my house.
The car was as crushed as I was
After a long hiatus,I jumped back into RC again by buying a well used RC10 T2...But,that's another story.
Things,as they do,got out of hand at a surprising rate...I decided that I 'needed' a Turbo Ultima.
It was a US$50 eBay score,very rough but complete,apart from a body.
I managed to actually find a new chassis-I didn't think I'd ever get that lucky!
The car is 95% completed,I still need some new rear wheels.
Since these photos were taken,I went ahead last night and installed the new in packet front wheels (anybody got some rears?!).
The only used,but thoroghly cleaned parts left are the shock towers (a new rear is in the post),the shocks,the sway bars and the bulkheads.
I need to find a new screw set,I came across a Trinity light weight screw set for a Turbo Ultima,but they were slot headed screws and would look plain wrong.
I was adament that it HAD to have an origional mechanical speed control,managed to find a brand new one...Behold-the 'Spot Welder'!
Here it is...

[Mr. ED]

welcome to the forum,

well done on the resto, and a screw set is avalable from tower hobbies: check the spare parts list for the ST-15

[RichieRich]

Great work! You did a fantastic job. This car is one of my all-time favorites.

[FasterLouder]

Thanks for the kind remarks and the info regarding the screws,that's great news!
Richierich-I saw your Turbo Ultima on Tamiya Club and it was your car that inspired me to buy and restore a Turbo Ultima,your car looks great.
I wish I'd driven it before I restored it,though!
There's just no way in hell I'm ever going to drive it,one scratch on that new chassis or those new front wheels would make me cry all day and all night *sob*.

[RichieRich]

Well, thank you for the kind words.

I ran mine like crazy. In fact, I had totally worked off the majority of the plating on the wheels and the original chassis was scratched so much, it was a different color and thinner!! I replaced the suspension arms and steering knuckes several times over and after wearing out 2 final pinions, I finally upgraded to the hardened final pinion.

Mine has a couple of option house modifications including the motor guard, turnbuckles and the final pinion that weren't standard. It has been totally restored including the MSC like yours. I currently don't have mine mounted and I didn't want to cut the notch in the rear of the body.

[FasterLouder]

Yeah,cutting the notch for the resistor wasn't the most pleasant thing to do to a brand new body!
Had to be done,though...
My car has the motor guard,too.Also found new in packet.
I'm still looking for some new rear wheels-I bought some off a guy on eBay and they never arrived...Now he has another new set for sale...Hmmm.

[GJW]

great to have you here brendan!, that T ultima certainly looks a treat hey fella's?, a lot of money invested and from the condition you bought it in to now, certainly looks the part. enjoy the forum it really is the place to be share that knowledge my friend

[bdrmbully]

nice job on restoring it to its original state!!looks awesome .big fan of the ultima.was my 1st rc buggy

[Brandon G]

Great work! Nice Ultima! Need to finish mine.......

A note on the screws... HPI makes a large variety of phillips head screws in lots of sizes and thread patterns. They are also the closest in terms of color too! Tower has them all if you do not have an HPI stocked Hobby Store close by...