Aristo-Craft Hitec Kangaroo

[Mr. ED]

I have cleaned up some pretty cheap RC cars in my time, but they all ran pretty smooth once you get them figured out. From what I have seen Aristo Craft made some pretty cool stuff in there time. Here is an ad for 3 Aristo Craft RC cars.
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sorry for digging up this oldy, but I got a Dolphin this week and yes: the rear drivetrain is binding terribly. The first gear sits a bit too close to the second and is ever so slightly out of round.
It just struck me the car at the top of the above advertisement is an Academy model. Academy is Korean also and I started wondering if they were affiliated.

[Mr. ED]

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Now...the gearbox. My oh my this gearbox. I read through Lowgear's posts and I feel your pain. I had the exact same problem. I probably spent 15 hours troubleshooting and took it apart at least 50 times.
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The soution:

During assembly, I noticed that if you took the aluminum center piece and pushed it up towards the motor mount (see image), the teeth would mesh a lot better but upon tightening the screws it would get worse. So I took the plate out and redrilled all the screw holes to 9/64ths and filed out both of those hexagonal holes to allow more wiggle room. Once you've done that, upon assembly you can push the aluminum plate upwards and tighten the screws down. This spaces out the two problematic gears and allows for a perfect mesh.




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I guess I was doing pretty good pinpointing the issue in under an hour I did not know the spacing on the gearcasing was good though, so thanks for that valuable bit of info.
Now about the solution: can't i just correct the hole center instead of moving the entire plate?

[Lowgear]

One day I should revisit this to finish what I started, but realistically it'll probably never happen. It doesn't have to though as a little less than 3 years later I scored a new in box one. I also have another I oddly don't remember buying during that time frame that's in excellent shape as well. It doesn't feel like a decades gone by already but it does too!

I have a Dolphin as well. I just looked up when I bought it, and that was also in 2010. I guess I was really on an Aristocraft kick between 10-13. It's in like new condition but two of the decals have started to peel.

I suppose it's possible Academy was the actual manufacturer. Like how Tamiya made the FX10 and FXT for Futaba.

[Mr. ED]

I've taken the gamble and just turned that 4mm hole into a 4mm slot. It sure freed up a lot. Let's see what else can be done to make this a little more usable... like stopping it from bottoming out on the shocks maybe.
I had another look at the ad and it's in french so it's probably the importer to france who put the 3cars together rather than aristocraft and academy being related

[jwscab]

Hey lowgear did I send you a bunch of kangaroo stuff back then? I probably did,. Not sure anyone else would have been chasing parts for this one. Crazy it's been that long

[Lowgear]

Hey lowgear did I send you a bunch of kangaroo stuff back then? I probably did,. Not sure anyone else would have been chasing parts for this one. Crazy it's been that long

Wow, once you mentioned it, it caused me to remember that you did! I went and checked my PMs, just to be certain. I had totally forgotten.

Due to the frustration with the gearbox issues, I took a little break from this project but then ended up moving which put the kibosh on it. I still have the buggy broken down with all the parts carefully laid out in a box, and stored on a shelf in the basement. It was done in a manner where I could pick right back up where I left off. Unfortunately what I assumed would be a short pause, turned into a decade.