Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

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Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by DerbyDan »

One of the cars that I have a lot of affection for is the very simple & basic 'Meteor' from the british manufacturer Mardave. My affection stems from the fact that after a brief period trying to race a Tamiya Hornet (& very quickly realising it wasn't very suitable) A Meteor became my 2nd ever proper hobby-grade R/C car. The 2wd Meteor despite representing a step up in terms of having double wishbone suspension with proper oil filled shocks as each corner & a limited slip differential, the complete kit cost about the same as a Hornet... about £50 - which was very cheap compared with the competition at the time... as such this car became very popular with beginners like myself.

The reason for the Meteor's low cost was partly due to efficient design but also its relative low spec - the original car's plastic shocks were very prone to leaking - relying on PTFE plumbers tape to seal the threaded seal cartridges into the bottom of the shocks, the car came without ballraces (except the main diff outdrives in the gearbox casing) & although the chunky plastic mouldings were strong they were not the last word in precision. One of the main limitations IMO was the lack of ability to run hotter modified motors - to start with the gearing mean't that a standard 27t motor needed one of the smallest 32dp pinions available (About a 12t IIRC) - Also the motor mounted directly into the plastic gearbox housing, which would warp given too much heat, causing the pinion to move out of mesh with the spur gear!

However the car had a strong following & many loyal racers set-about modifying their cars to address its failings - Mardave themselves offered a few upgrades - again at a very minimal cost, such upgrades included parts to allow the fitment of ball races & a LWB chassis, but many modifications were DIY items, the simple nature of the car allowing such home-brewed upgrades to be easily done with a little thought. The modified Meteor became the subject of three articles in the UK magazine Radio Race Car by the racer Greg Halliday - these articles spanned a couple of years & detailed the modifications that Greg had made on his car - the last of these (The MKIII Modified Meteor) is the inspiration for this build-up thread.

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The project to build my own 'Ultimate' Meteor based on the MK3 article started with a request that I put out on Tamiyaclub which resulted in me aquiring the new-built example shown below... which came with the car's standard ABS bodyshell sprayed up (on the outside of the shell moulding) in the box art colours, this demonstrates the original spec of a standard car - including the supplied 'wiper' type mechanical speedo & Mabuchi RS540 motor.

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I soon after aquired a Meteor parts lot which included this new LWB chassis kit (complete with wider front arms)... the 'lot' also included a few other usefull new parts (front wheels & rear hubs) which enables the fitment of ballraces - amongst a number of other new parts. The red spur gear which has the recesses required to accept some small ball races was also another purchase from ebay after a long-long search for that particular ellusive part.

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So the plan was hatched to use the new-built car as a basis to build into it the upgrade parts an gradually develop my own modified Meteor.... the only part I was missing was the 'upgrade' Lexan bodyshell that is specific for use with the LWB chassis... but i've come to the conclusion that i'll never find a new one after a few years searching & putting out requests on various forums etc :(

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by DerbyDan »

...... so, having had a conversation with Steve Haskins of Penguin Custom bodyshells, I came to the conclusion that in order to get a LWB shell for my project I was going to need to find a good 'used' one from which Steve could make a mould & produce a reproduction. Soon after (earlier this year), I spotted this beauty on ebay;

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As luck would have it - it would appear that this ebay car has already had the 'MKIII Modified Meteor' treatment - even the rear shock mount appears to have been copied from the template that was printed in the magazine article! The reciept of this car mean't that I now didn't need to split down the original new-built car - as all the missing parts that I didn't already have in the pile of new items could be taken from this car. The baby-blue shell was duly passed to Steve to work his magic... :wink:

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by Coelacanth »

This looks like an interesting replica project...I like the very simple chassis layout.
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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by DerbyDan »

Getting on for a month ago I got a call from Steve saying that the 'new' shell was ready to trial on my car - & that I could trim the shell to suit the car, he could take it back to mark on these cut lines & tweek the mould to improve the finished article if needed...... this was great news except that the only LWB car I had (the used ebay shell doner car) was partially stripped down & still covered in vintage muck & grime... not really presentable for the 'promo' shots that Steve had asked me take once the trimmed shell had a basic paint job applied to it!!

So its being a bit of a rush putting together a car over the past couple of weekends for the purposes of trial fitting the shell. Generally the car is built up from cleaned parts from the ebay car except for the gearbox & most of its internals, the rear hubs, 4X dished wheels & the front C Hubs - all of which are new items.

So here's some pics from the build;

Polished up some pivot pins;

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Very simple ball diff unit - note the lack of replaceable diff rings - even the thrust race balls run on the inner shoulder of the diff outdrive rather than a seperate washer/plate!

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All the gearbox parts laid out ready for assembly - the course pitch of all the gears is less than ideal for efficiency - but I have a new found appreciation for the design of many of the Meteor's parts - this single gearbox housing does the job that is covered by four/five seperate parts on an RC10! Note how the diff is in the bottom of the gearbox housing - something that is de-rigure now but as the design of this car dates from around 1986-7, pre-dating the likes of the JRX2 which had the LRM & the Stealth equipped RC10s - its quite revolutionary!

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Gearbox assembled along with rest of rear end complete with Option House golds as per the magazine car! & mounted onto the anodised gold chassis (cleaned up nicely from the baby-blue car) The standard red shock tower is being used so that the repro shell can be trimmed/marked with this in-situ' - so that future purchasers of this shell from Penguin can be assured it works with the stock part. I will be replacing this shock tower with a longer GRP one that I am drawing up (like the magazine part) which will make full use of the longer Kyosho shocks.

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Steering bell cranks, with servo saver added to chassis;

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The standard Meteor used e'clips to secure on the wheels - the Ebay LWB car came with the upgrade axles (front & Rear) to use standard M4 wheel nuts - on the front, the hubs need to be clearanced slightly from the e'clip on the inboard end of the axle to allow the steering arms to pivot.

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To Be Continued.....

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by clm »

I have never seen one of those before but I must say you are doing a wonderful job on it! And it rocks that you didn't have to pull the new built one apart to build the mod one, It should make a nice display sitting them next to each other along with the box :)

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by GoMachV »

Agreed, it's a kit we don't see here in the states, but it's very cool to see one! (especially disassembled to see how she works!)

IIRC wasn't Mardave one of the companies that kind of ran with the same design for many years? When did this chassis quit being produced? Is Mardave still around?
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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by terry.sc »

gomachv wrote:IIRC wasn't Mardave one of the companies that kind of ran with the same design for many years? When did this chassis quit being produced? Is Mardave still around?
Mardave was very much a one man business for most of it's life. They produced the first R/C car kit in Europe in 1970, produced the first electric car kits and have created their own class of racing. Currently they make circuit and oval cars based on a very simple chassis design that has been the basis of the rules for our GT12 class. http://www.mardave.co.uk/

The Meteor was a replacement for the Apache, which had a very basic rear suspension but the Apache front end was regularly used on Tamiya SRBs as it was so much better than Tamiyas trailing arm suspension. The Meteor design was originally based on the Kyosho Scorpion, which can still be seen as the gearbox is a direct copy of the Scorpion gearbox. But the development took so long that the RC10 came out before it went into production, so the original design was scrapped and a copy of the RC10s suspension was developed instead. The original Meteor was short wheelbase with short front wishbones, when the RC10 went to long front wishbones, Mardave made their own version to match. It was in production until 1992, when it was replaced by the Cobra, but Mardave did develop it over that time and it was a much better performer at the end of its life.



I raced a Meteor back then, got one of the first cars in my local shop and within a week it had Option House shocks all round with a home made rear shock mount and a PB Mini Mustang wing mount for the rear wing. It was one of the early cars so there was no rear bumper, so made one up and added a motor mount heatsink, mine also bolted to the bumper/chassis, but also went higher so I could bolt an extra heatsink on above the motor. Gear cover was cut in half and an extra screw used to mount the cover, so you could easily adjust gear mesh with the spur gear properly supported, and change motors much easier. Ballraced front wheels weren't available at first, so I used Scorpion front wheels, then later Tamiya Wild One front wheels. I had the original long wheelbase chassis, which had the front suspension mounted at the same width as the short wheelbase one, which meant it was way too wide with the long front wishbones, I drilled the chassis to move the suspension mounts in, the same as the later lwb chassis with narrow front end. http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=32202&id=297
http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=32202&id=297
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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by DerbyDan »

gomachv wrote:Agreed, it's a kit we don't see here in the states, but it's very cool to see one! (especially disassembled to see how she works!)

IIRC wasn't Mardave one of the companies that kind of ran with the same design for many years? When did this chassis quit being produced? Is Mardave still around?
Yes Mardave is still around but has been under new ownership by a chap called Chris Wilkinson for a few years now. Their philosophy is still about producing cheap & durable R/C cars & have been instrumental in bringing the 'GT12' formula into being one of the most popular indoor classes here in the UK - so much so that Schumacher produced the Supastox cars to compete with the Mardaves that had made the class their own.

http://www.mardave.co.uk/

The current Mardave GT12 cars are very simple in design and are still very similar to the car that started it all, the Mardave Ministock car, which proved very popular with oval clubs in the 80s. Mardave was originally based in Leicester & I believe started in the 70s with cars that covered most of the emerging classes of racing. The Meteor was Mardave's 2nd foray into 1/10th electric off road - the even simpler Apache being the first, the Meteor was incredibly popular - a good 1/2 dozen or so of my friends brought them after seeing mine, few actually got raced, but all got 'well' used :mrgreen: The Meteor remained in production from the mid 80s until around 93 when it was replaced with the equally successfully (& simple in design) Cobra, which remained in production until the late 90s. The new owners keep threatening to re-release the Cobra - there are a few spares now available but so far not a full kit.

Mardave have always produced very basic but effective cars that represent very good value but have performance that in the right hands can give the more expensive rivals a good run for their money & here in the UK we all love an 'underdog'!

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by DerbyDan »

Front end completed with gold AE shocks just like the magazine article;

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Chassis ready to accept the new shell;

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Added Demon 'Power King' stock motor that came with the car & is in great condition!

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There's still a long way to go with this chassis - i've been drawing up the rear shock tower for cutting in GRP along with the 'T' brace peice that stiffens up the chassis between the battery holders & the front of the gearbox (another reason for completing a built chassis). Then there's the motor heatsink peice (as described by TerryC) & an angled bracket for the T-Peice bracket which both need fabrication.

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by clm »

Just wondering if you might be willing to post the rest of that article? It's an interesting look at the rc scene in another country... and the first half intrigued me! :lol: \

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by Charlie don't surf »

Looks awesome Dan! It's really special when you get to do something like this, especially when you drool over it a a kid. Neat build too, amazing what was made out of such a simple "toy".

Thanks for the sticker a few months back as well!!!!!!!

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by DennisM »

Cool stuff, Dan.
The wing mount in the mk3 article, is that PB or SG? I think I´ve seen it before in my mess of parts.

We saw a couple of Meteors in Denmark, they did pretty well, their budget philosophy taken into consideration.

The Mardave Mini stock hit us BIG time. Nearly everyone at the races had a Mini Stock´er. All the heat and tension build up in the normal races, were vented here :D I think we had up to 12 cars in the same heat. Fantastic fun and almost impossible to break.

The Demon looks fantastic. If You want to keep it article wise, I have a Kawada MX-1 (like in the article) for it.
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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by DerbyDan »

clm wrote:Just wondering if you might be willing to post the rest of that article? It's an interesting look at the rc scene in another country... and the first half intrigued me! :lol: \

Chris
Here you go :D

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by DerbyDan »

Charlie don't surf wrote:Looks awesome Dan! It's really special when you get to do something like this, especially when you drool over it a a kid. Neat build too, amazing what was made out of such a simple "toy".

Thanks for the sticker a few months back as well!!!!!!!
Glad you got the decal Ok - I wondered if you knew who it had come from :mrgreen:

Yes - I can remember drooling over the article for Masami's 93 Worlds winning Yokomo (which of course became inspiration for a previous build) but that was complete unobtanium for me - this Meteor on the other-hand was the based on the car I was actually racing at the time & alot of the modifications could be made by hand... it was a great inspiration to me - being a cheaper car & often looked down upon by my racing peers.

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Re: Race Modified; Mardave Meteor Project

Post by DerbyDan »

DennisM wrote:Cool stuff, Dan.
The wing mount in the mk3 article, is that PB or SG? I think I´ve seen it before in my mess of parts.

We saw a couple of Meteors in Denmark, they did pretty well, their budget philosophy taken into consideration.

The Mardave Mini stock hit us BIG time. Nearly everyone at the races had a Mini Stock´er. All the heat and tension build up in the normal races, were vented here :D I think we had up to 12 cars in the same heat. Fantastic fun and almost impossible to break.

The Demon looks fantastic. If You want to keep it article wise, I have a Kawada MX-1 (like in the article) for it.
Yes the wing mount is I believe from a PB Maxima - if you have one & feel you can part with it please let me know via PM - like-wise with the motor! 8) I did put a request out in the wanted section some while ago but to no avail... I nearly brought a whole stash of PB parts off ebay just to get the wing mount - but the auction went way higher than I could justify at the time for just one part!

The Ministocks were massive here also - & original ones are still highly prized by Mardave collectors!

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