Restored Scorpion

[Nobby]

On my employer's christmas staff party 2009 I talked with my department manager about RC cars and the about 20 years old buggy I recently bought. He said that his brother had a buggy called 'Scorpion or so' back in the days and that it's remains were still in his parent's basement. When he visited his parents for Christmas he searched for the car and gave it to me for free!! (Thanks mate) It was indeed a Scorpion, dull blue with 'Firebird' decals and all over sticking like glue because of a mix of oil from both leaking gearbox and dampers and dust from 20 years. I first tought a good cleaning would do the job but soon I found that the car was actually completely worn. The locked diff (actually just a spur gear), the outdrives, dogbone driveshafts and rear axles couldn't be used any more. The unpainted original wing was still in the box but the mounting wire was missing. The holes for the damper's piston rods became oval and obviously the car's former owner tried to make spiked tires by himself because there were nails and empty holes in the front tires. I cleaned every single part with benzine and obtained NIB spares in between. Unfortunately not every part I bought fits, there seem to be at least minor differences in the gearboxes of the several model years. So I mounted a diff, outdrives and axles from an old Graupner Rallye Renault Alpine I had still laying around. The driveshafts are new and the bearings were replaced by ballraced ones. I 'repaired' the oval holes in the rear dampers with brass tube I soldered into the rebored caps. Now the suspension works again but there is no damping. I removed the old paint from the body shell and re-painted it and also the rims. I shut the 'spike' holes in the front tires with superglue. I made a new wing mount from spring steel and aluminum.

After having finished the restauration I started modifying it in order prepare it for actual offroad use. I fitted Kyosho onroad dampers to both front and rear. I had to make new front damper stays to solve the problem with the ground clearance. My next task was to find tires that would actually work. Since it is almost impossible to find matching tires for the stock rims I went for something else. With some good advice from TC members I'm able to use SRB-type rims or any 12mm hex type rims now. I chose Tamiya rims and tires I already had. I mounted a LRP IPC speedo and an old 17T Keil stock motor and was ready to go. Today I took my chance between two rain showers and went for a test ride. Since there is no offroad track near my hometown I went to the parking lot of a deer park and made me a track with some plastic dishes used as corner markers. I was really amazed how well the car handles on this sand-gravel mix surface. Now I can imagine why those Scorpions were so popular back in the days. Unfortunately a cracking noise from the gearbox ended the test ride. I lost a ball bearing from the gearbox, don't ask me how this is possible.

After having fixed the bearing issue I started the next test ride. This time the plastic diff broke into pieces. So I mounted a Tomahawk diff afterwards. Haven't run it yet, will downgrade the motor before just to make sure not to break anything again.

Thanks for watching
Norbert

[walfre]

Looks awesome with those onroadish dampers!
Welcome to the forum!

[Hcp22]

Hi and welcome to the forum Norbert!
Nice restoration of the Scorpion, and I like when there are a story behind the car!

[Mr. ED]

Real good job on getting that old lady back on her feet. Love the paintwork and decals too