10L project’S

[treystoys]

Added a second project to the post!

Hey guys, got my racing roots from racing onroad cars in a big parking lot club back in the 80s and 90s. While the 10L wasn’t my first pan car (Bolink Eliminator “sport” earned that spot the 10L came a few years after and after all these years it’s the only of my original cars that I managed to hang on to. My 11 year old has always asked about some of the beat up old cars and parts I have stored or hidden away. So with my latest off-road builds wrapped up, I decided to pull the trigger on the small list of items I needed to get my og 10L pieced back together.

Bought new, it was the #8001 basic fiberglass kit but somewhere along the line it was first upgraded to the reactive caster front end (preordered when associated first announced them!) then to a graphite chassis.

Its last run was probably mid to late 90ish when I got the bright idea to throw in a mod motor and an 8 cell 3/4 sub C pack I used in one of my fast electric boats. Plan was to hop in the bed of my truck, have a buddy drive, and see just how fast it could go lol. If you can’t guess, this did not end well

So slowly creeping up to speed, in the truck we were doing in the upper 40 mph range (did I mention it was dark out yet?!?) car was along side of us so only I could see it of course, me standing in the bed of the truck leaning half on the cab, looking sideways, and finally getting near wot, I juiced it past the truck, hit an unanticipated reflector on the blacktop, launched the car out ahead and 10ft above my in the truck eye level! It lands on its feet unbelievably but angled at the truck, me still shocked and holding full throttle, it shoots under the truck stopping basically in unison with us between the rear wheel and the curb that we also almost hit trying to avoid it we gathered our wits and my 10L and high tailed back to my house! I was never 100% known for my cautious nature back then, but looking back now there were a handful of things I did not even think about going wrong there but hey, we needed an accurate way to see how fast it was! Boy boy…

Anyhow, the car surprisingly only had a broken t plate, some heavy grind marks on the front of the chassis and the IROC Daytona body got smushed where the rear truck wheel must have partially run it over. It has lived the last 30ish years in various boxes and storage containers till a few weeks ago.

In my truest fashion even after waiting weeks for the small list of parts to arrive I failed to take a picture of it in all its broken glory right out the box!!

In the posts that follow I’ll show pictures and describe what I did. The idea now was to show my son what I used to race, and how too, that a very basic mod motor in one of these could easily be faster than his favorite brushless 1/14 truggy!!….

[treystoys]

So first as I said in the original post, no pictures of the thing as it sat for 30 years neglected I have notoriously forgotten to take a picture of nearly every project, be it rc, real car, household or the so many structures I’ve built or rebuilt for myself or others over time lol pictures were always an afterthought. So I’ll share what I took and you guys can fill in the blanks!

First thing I did was disassemble and bag everything according to steps as I thought, rear pod, diff, t plate and hardware, front end, shock… then soaked all the nylon/plastics in simple green and scrubbed them after.

While some of the hardware wasn’t the best, I was able to clean up all but a small potion and reuse it. I blasted all the bearings with parts cleaner and soaked them in silicone lubricant for a few days.

Another thing I did do, which I have never attempted on my own up until now was to dye all the dingy plastics. I used Rit black liquid dye and it took about an hour right under boiling while stirring the parts most of that hour to get a solid black. What I ended up with is pictured. I also dyed a new set of peanuts for a nice runner rc10 project we are playing with.

Anyhow, here we go, that’s parts after dye, and out of order, but the front end example and apart so I remembered on reassembly.

[treystoys]

The cf chassis was pretty chewed up near the front, from the crash, and from running it w/o a bumper on my expansion jointed street as a kid. So to start, I cleaned it and lightly polished it with marginal results (it’s to be a runner anyway) then using a flat piece of plastic under the front, I masked up the front of the chassis to be slightly larger than what I thought its original shape was, and filled the missing areas in with CA glue and soda ash. Once it set, I sanded and shaped it and re drilled and countersunk the two bumper/body mount holes. Then I used a sharpie to dye the lighter glued area to better match the chassis color. I wiped it down and called it good. You can see the top of the chassis near the front where it’s not fully cloth, that’s where it was filled in, it’s not a museum piece but it filled in and solid.

[treystoys]

The next pictures will just be as it progressed through the build. I used a JG rear pod plate, it at one time had an HPI cf lower plate but it was removed sometime along the line. Other than that, a new t plate and spacer, some misc hardware along the way and assembling I went…

[treystoys]

The tires are what was on the car from way back, they were cheap green dots and are intact (mostly) and not much else, but it completed the roller. The servo is just a generic Amazon digital/metal gear. They work is all I’ll say. It’s a terrible onroad servo, but I have a bag of them for misc use and didn’t feel like hunting a proper replacement yet. I picked up a new Kimbrough servo saver and the linkage is from a bag of Schumacher off-road parts I had, they were a perfect fit. The motor in the second pic is the 16 double that it crashed with. I opened it, cleaned the dust out and called it good. The last pic was a stopping point that night and the newly dyed black peanuts on the other rc10 project.

[treystoys]

I had this older, probably hardly used reedy vmx 4200 pack on my shelf, not realizing the difference in cell sizes, I decided if not for anything other than to show my son what type of battery it’s “supposed” to use, I broke it down into saddle configuration and found out the cells are slightly larger they also will not come up more than 4.2 volts as a pack, so taped in as display they will be ok. I also picked up these bumpers from RClabznmore on eBay cause they looked cool and were less than original parts. I did light colors to offset the carbon and mimic the white plastic front bumper, plus it’s got a fiberglass lower pod plate now so gotta tie that fiberglass in right?!

[treystoys]

More to come…

[marty slater]

looks like it should run again to me good luck keep us posted
Oh ya welcome aboard

[treystoys]

Thanks Marty! I’ve actually been around quite a while, but only recently began being active again. The more I’m here the more I keep coming back though!

So here’s the completed car minus a body, the Novak 4 was on the bench when I was picking stuff to use, not 100% period correct, but neither are the servo and receivers. I’d have had a T4 in it back in the day and Novak just looks cool regardless

I also put a shot of the bottom front of the chassis, you can see the repair better there.

I did run it, or try to while my son was running his LC Truggy, but I can’t go past 1/4 throttle without losing all traction. I don’t have a body for it right now, or a wing even, to aid in traction, and the tires are toast, so bad it will leave marks when it spins out, never seen foams do that, but they’re nearing 30 years old

For the run I just used a 2s lipo, not intending to run it down on voltage at all, but the esc got uncomfortably hot, even just attempting a few passes. Anyone try lipos on one of the vintage esc’s? Barring the voltage cut off if I had run it that long, I don’t see why I would have had any issues with it unless it was damaged before. It was sitting in a display car for a long time, and had only been bench tested by me prior to the run. All the fwd FETs were extremely hot though, enough that it smelled burnt, but still worked. I’m going to remove it and look it over tomorrow. When I got it way back, it needed new motor leads which is why they are not blue red, but other than that and trying to run the lipo, not sure. More than likely I’ll just install something else and put the 4 back in a display only car.

Anyhow, thanks to anyone who read this far! I will update with info and pictures as I go.

Trey

[Frankentruck]

The Novak 4 wasn't meant for the most powerful modified motors, it also should be run with a heat sink, and doesn't have thermal overload protection so also should have an inline fuse added (mine would sometimes blow the 25A or 30A fuse). Running with a powerful mod motor for more than 5 min is risking a burnout of the Novak 4. Or putting it in a display would be another good option.

The 10L looks like a nice runner. I also struggle with rear traction with mine. The rear is just so light.

[treystoys]

The Novak 4 wasn't meant for the most powerful modified motors, it also should be run with a heat sink, and doesn't have thermal overload protection so also should have an inline fuse added (mine would sometimes blow the 25A or 30A fuse). Running with a powerful mod motor for more than 5 min is risking a burnout of the Novak 4. Or putting it in a display would be another good option.

The 10L looks like a nice runner. I also struggle with rear traction with mine. The rear is just so light.

That makes sense then, back in the day I would have been running what we called “pro-stock” pan cars with Tamiya silver can motors, so way less amp draw there, and in all likely hood, by the time I got into the Novak phase T4’s were out. But yeah, this one is going to get pulled out for a display car.

I’m trying to decide on a body for it, just so few 235mm bodies to choose from. I ran the TOJ quite a bit back then, but I remember the MOD guys always ran one that was slightly different, similar to the Fantoms body I think.

[treystoys]

Arrived today! $100 shipped from eBay, pretty happy about the purchase! Will be made into a mock up of what my original 10L started out as. Closed end bell 540 pan car class racer.

Not bad right out the box!

[treystoys]

After some clean up…

[treystoys]

The body is in excellent shape, I thought it was going to be a throw away. With a wing it’ll look pretty good. Not sure what model it is though.

[treystoys]

Arundel c200 and some Jay Halsey left over colors! Sprayed by little Trey Waiting on new body mounts.