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Hi, like a lot of people I’m returning to the long lost hobby of model cars. I’m trying to nurse a neglected Mardave Meteor back to life, so far it’s going well and I’ve found spares for broken parts and fabricated others. Currently I’ve a few issues I’m hoping someone can kindly help with:
1. Does anyone have accurate measurements of the SWB chassis including location and angles of the bends, the one I have is a wreck someone’s hacked at for some unknown reason!?
2. Any recommendations for the best aluminium grade to use to to replace the chassis?
3. The ball diff is really tight, so holding in hand I can turn it but under normal use it simply wouldn’t shift. Any advice on how to adjust this, looks like there’s just one screw holding it together.
4. What should I lubricate the gears and bearings, oil/grease what specific type? Also is cleaning the open bearings with an ultrasonic cleaner going to do more harm than good?
5. The wheels have what look like small brass bushes instead of bearings, I’d like to replace with sealed bearings if I can any gotchas in this space!?
6. Shocks, pretty sure the answer is no as there aren’t seals but should the shocks be oil filled? If not should they be lubricated at all and if so with what? Before thoroughly cleaning they added zero resistance as they’re very oily so all the energy went into the springs and boinged back, after cleaning there is a smooth resistance behaving more like you’d expect a shock to but the return seems too slow - thoughts on this?
7. Finally, motors, batteries and ESCs have moved on leaps and bounds in the last 30 years. I have no idea what motor would have been advised for this car in its day so I’m not sure what the brushless equivalent and appropriate pinion gear would be, any thoughts on this? Conscious I don’t want to wreck old gears wreck the old gears!? I’m hoping now batteries also last longer than about 7 minutes

I’d really appreciate any advice anyone has to share, apologies if the above is answered elsewhere in the forum but I couldn’t find specific details if it is.

Thanks for taking the time to read, hope you can help!!

Firstly, welcome to the forum. I am not familiar with the Mardave vehicles but I am sure you will get your answers.

With Yokomo’s, the differentials are adjusted with a screw that sounds similar in order to loosen it you might want to try turning it about a quarter turn and see if she loosens up a bit (also taking it apart and giving it a good clean if possible is always a good idea).

I am not sure this is sound advice so take it with a grain of salt but I just tend to soak my bearings in wd-40, give them a spin, rinse and repeat.

Perhaps there is stuff available via 3d printing services as well to replace parts or if you need spares?

Welcome to the forum .
Surprisingly Mardave are selling parts again for the Meteor so it might be worth looking on their site , the parts are very cheap too .
The shocks should be oil filled but I'm afraid it's been 30+ years since I've looked at them , Dinglem a forum member will hopefully chime in as he's restored one recently and used to race one back in the day as did I .
Modern Brushless motors are like magic compared to the old motors , I'd recommend a 17.5turn sensored motor and esc combo if you want to be sympathetic to the gears , if you run that on a modern lipo battery you'll get 30+ min run time as well .
A lot of people favour sticking with a vintage brushed motor and NiMH battery's for the period feel though .
Don't try brushed motors on lipo batteries though ! A 2 cell lipo can kill old brushed motors in as little as ten minutes brushed motors just get too hot too fast and with a battery that can run for over 30 min it just roasts them unless you discipline yourself to 3 or 4 min run times .

Thanks for the replies.

Dadio wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 1:51 am Surprisingly Mardave are selling parts again for the Meteor so it might be worth looking on their site , the parts are very cheap too .
The shocks should be oil filled but I'm afraid it's been 30+ years since I've looked at them ,

Mardave still selling parts was partly the reason for deciding to go ahead with the project as the on upright is cracked and poorly repaired along with the one front wishbone.
Interesting you say the shocks were oil filled, I’ll wait to see if someone chips in with more info on that one as I’m not clear how they’d have been sealed with there being no obvious space for any o-rings etc.

Dadio wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 1:51 am Modern Brushless motors are like magic compared to the old motors , I'd recommend a 17.5turn sensored motor and esc combo if you want to be sympathetic to the gears , if you run that on a modern lipo battery you'll get 30+ min run time as well .

Thanks for the suggestion, in terms of the pinion gear that’d go on the motor would a 26 tooth one be sensible do you think?

Toaster wrote: ↑Tue Aug 22, 2023 6:51 pm …the differentials are adjusted with a screw that sounds similar in order to loosen it you might want to try turning it about a quarter turn and see if she loosens up a bit (also taking it apart and giving it a good clean if possible is always a good idea).

The screw was really tight which was partly why I asked as I don’t want to wreck it. I found another post on here showing it in pieces though so clearly it’s just been over tightened.

Ok so it turned out the diff was both over tightened and quite dry. Also turned out there is a tiny grub screw in the other half that the main screw tightens against. So to loosen the diff just undid the main one, wound the opposing grub screw in a smidge (technical term) and then tightened the main screw back to up to it so it’s now actually functional.

The counter gear/spur gear I posted about elsewhere is now my only issue!!

Ok so it turned out the diff was both over tightened and quite dry. Also turned out there is a tiny grub screw in the other half that the main screw tightens against. So to loosen the diff just undid the main one, wound the opposing grub screw in a smidge (technical term) and then tightened the main screw back to up to it so it’s now actually functional.

The counter gear/spur gear I posted about elsewhere is now my only issue!!