Clodbuster Soap Opera

[RC10th]

I finally bought a Clodbuster and this will be the soap opera of a rebuild of said Clodbuster. Once you've seen a stock Clodbuster you've seen them all so this will probably be about as exciting as a soap opera to many. I know nothing of Clods per se but this will be my attempt at making a nice original runner. I have a feeling I will be disappointed with the performance of a stock Clod with stock Tamiya motors, stock pogo shocks and stock style steering set up. I will at least run an ESC as the MSC is just too primitive for a fun reliable truck in my opinion.

I've decided on a vintage truck because I see it as the lesser of two evils in trying to find good used red parts to put on a new truck, plus the used truck was $140 less then a new one. Not to mention pickings here are slim to nonexistent. Tamiya plastic is so so at the best of times so vintage dried out plastic could turn into a crack fest. The guy said nothing was broken so we'll see when it arrives, most vintage Tamiya vehicles seem to have something broken so I'm expecting to have to replace the odd bit here and there.

The guy forgot to put the manual in the box so he shipped it separately which arrived today. The manual is in excellent shape and provides some good reading prior to the truck arriving. Tamiya instructions are always interesting. They are copyright 1987 for which I'm sure they all would have been.

Also in anticipation I ordered a set of MCI Clodbuster decals with the high gloss finish. Still waiting on a bearing set to arrive and some other bits and pieces.

I guess that's it untill the truck arrives, hopefully it's as good as the manual although I'm doubtful.....

Till the next episode.....

[Basher67]

Clodbusters are a ton of fun imo. Bone stock, they are not the best performers, but they have huge potential. Motors aren't really the problem, although better motors do multiply the fun factor. The big issue is the stock steering. Axle mounted servos at each end is the best answer, but if you want to keep it looking as stock as possible, a modern high torque servo will get it done fairly well. I built 3 clods a couple years back. A stock one, a mildly modded one and a full tilt custom based on a Sassy Chassis. They were all fun to build and drive, but the full mod one still gets run regularly and I sold the other two. Clods are big impressive machines that always bring a smile to my face.

[RC10th]

We'll see how it goes stock, slow enough not to damage it or throw rocks all over the driveway. I think I'll stick with the stock steering set up but do the larger servo horn mod and flip the steering rods, the servo I'll be using (or try to use) is a modern digital 220oz-in. Hopefully it makes the steering more positive and precise although it seems Clods have a tendency to steer every which way when bouncing around.

At the end of the day if it ends up being monotonous at least I'll have a nice Clodbuster. I don't see myself modding it but you never know.


Here is the Clodbuster that I bought. At first I was a little dissapointed but the more I look at it the better I think it is. Upon quick inspection nothing seems broken and plastics appear to be in great shape, hopefully everything survives a teardown. I've ordered all new bright work and bearing kit so looking forward to receiving those.

The motors have black stamped steel endbells (Johnson), does this help date the truck as a late Clod as I thought earlier trucks had white endbell motors (Mabuchi)?

Plastics look good, not too many bumps or bruises. It should make for a nice tidy Clod.

[NomadRacer]

Really nice Clod, mate. looking forward to your build

[RC10th]

Really nice Clod, mate. looking forward to your build

Thanks, so am I It won't be a super quick build due to international shipping and lack of parts selection. Everytime I need something it's a minimum 2 week wait

[ChisaiKuso]

"Subscribed..."

I have always loved Tamiya Clod Busters. It probably explains why I own so many of them.

[RC10th]

Bearings came today, old school for an old school build.

The Clod has been reduced to a pile of parts and is in remarkable condition. Nothing broke or cracked and the plastic is still pliable and new looking. There are a few odd bits and pieces that could be replaced such as a bent ball stud, it looks like it came loose and someone crashed the truck. No wonder as it only had a futaba S3003 servo for steering Parts all ready for a bath in warm soapy water.

The only other issue is one of the tires is dry rotted, it's not too bad and a bit of glue would fix it but I'll try and replace them anyways.

[Lonestar]

if you were an RC-kid/teen in the 80's and you didn't have a Clod poster on the bedroom wall, then there was something wrong with you

And if you were lucky to ever test-drive one, then you'd take that poster off the wall right away once back at home

Cool clod stocker

[RC10th]

if you were an RC-kid/teen in the 80's and you didn't have a Clod poster on the bedroom wall, then there was something wrong with you

And if you were lucky to ever test-drive one, then you'd take that poster off the wall right away once back at home

Cool clod stocker

Thanks. My buddy got one for Christmas and it was the coolest thing ever at the time, we went outside to drive it, I got to drive it for maybe 30 seconds out of 4ish minutes total, we went back inside and played super Nintendo and never saw the Clod again, lol.

[jwscab]

My cousin got one back in the day. We rewired the series parallel switch for dual batteries so either 7.2 or 14.4v. very snappy on 14 volts hahaha

[Lowgear]

My first experience seeing a Clod in person was a classmate bringing one to school in 87, and he drove it around the gymnasium during recess. He brought a plastic toy car for it to drive over but it couldn't due to the combination of slick gym floor and open diffs. I remember being blown away by seeing the Clod as I think my other classmates were as well but nobody let it show. Instead we just bullied the crap out of the kid about it not being able to even drive over the small car. We had no idea what a differential was never mind an open one. He wasn't someone that was well liked anyway.

[RC10th]

For the servo horn steering mod does it really make that much of a difference as it seems the horns of choice are only fractionally bigger? I understand the flipping of the steering rods to make the front steer more than the rear.

Moving the gearbox horn to the outer hole would also add a lot more throw or does it throw the geometry out of wack, ie make the truck too twitchy? I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, just trying to grasp the steering idiosyncrasies to make the truck more enjoyable from the start. Most seem to complain the truck doesn't have enough steering, for one I thought you dont need as much steering with 4WS, and two the Clod doesn't seem to have much throw to the steering stops to begin with.

[ChisaiKuso]

For the servo horn steering mod does it really make that much of a difference as it seems the horns of choice are only fractionally bigger? I understand the flipping of the steering rods to make the front steer more than the rear.

Moving the gearbox horn to the outer hole would also add a lot more throw or does it throw the geometry out of wack, ie make the truck too twitchy? I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, just trying to grasp the steering idiosyncrasies to make the truck more enjoyable from the start. Most seem to complain the truck doesn't have enough steering, for one I thought you dont need as much steering with 4WS, and two the Clod doesn't seem to have much throw to the steering stops to begin with.

My advice is that you build the truck in stock form to begin with. Drive it like that for a while and enjoy how awful (yet truly wonderful!) it is. You will have more fun making small changes to things like the steering and suspension as you go.

[RC10th]

Chrome parts came today, kinda sucks having to buy the whole tail gate tree just to get the spotlight faces but it is what it is.

Plastic parts are all cleaned and ready for assembly, they actually came up pretty good. I don't think this Clodbuster had a lot of use.

I've started the arduous task of cleaning the hardware, so far I've only finished the chassis hardware and still have both axles to do. I'll slowly pick away at it till it's done. Probably a bit overkill really but should add to the overall quality of the truck. My crappy photo and quality killing picture resizer don't do the hardware justice.

So far it has been a lot of fun, something completely different. The body I'm not really looking forward to but we'll see how it goes.

[tecnica2001]

For the servo horn steering mod does it really make that much of a difference as it seems the horns of choice are only fractionally bigger? I understand the flipping of the steering rods to make the front steer more than the rear.

Moving the gearbox horn to the outer hole would also add a lot more throw or does it throw the geometry out of wack, ie make the truck too twitchy? I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, just trying to grasp the steering idiosyncrasies to make the truck more enjoyable from the start. Most seem to complain the truck doesn't have enough steering, for one I thought you dont need as much steering with 4WS, and two the Clod doesn't seem to have much throw to the steering stops to begin with.

Adding a bigger horn increases steering dramatically, full lock out, I changed the small servo horn, to a bigger round servo thingy "insert proper name here" and the truck turned surprisingly good, almost too good