AYK Radiant - Mid Conversion

[dinglem]

From what i gather from speaking to Steve Dunn, fewer than 50 of these Mid conversion kits were sold before they started churning out the official Pro Radiant kits. I have been on the hunt for an original one for aaagggessssss.... so was really chuffed when this one miraculously came my way. The condition is fantastic too

The orange ballraced sprocket is something i haven't seen previously. It also has a slipper and three orange-ball dogbones (anybody got one spare?!) Front upper wishbones have been trimmed for more lock and the steering bellcrank mod is from an RC10. Rear tie rods join to the rear of the rear hubs too, rather than in the middle. Just begging to be thrown back onto the track!

[dinglem]

[TheDiamondOne]

Wow, thats so cool! Will u going with a full resto? The pro radiant is probably my favorite 4wd car of all time. Following.

[dinglem]

Sympathetic clean up and light resto to maintain originality and for track use!

[TheDiamondOne]

Martin, if your ever in Southern Illinois, my brother and me would like to race you with one of our vintage buggies, heads up. Derek will race his vintage 4wd 4:10 concept, i will run our Factory Works Supershot.

[dinglem]

I am about to start the strip and clean-up on this car.... but one thing i have noticed is that is also has the rather unusual front one-way wide rims as per the Maverick, prior to the later one-way hex hubs which followed on the Pro Radiant. I have checked with Steve Dunn and having seen an early AYK Radiant advert detailing a list of planned upgrades (including the mid conversion, slipper clutch, front one way rims and the 2-speed gearbox) he has confirmed that these upgrades were actually developed for the Mid conversion and were then adopted and combined by AYK and released as the Maverick model.

I have also now sourced the missing 4th orange ended dogbone so have the complete set of four for this car. With the slipper clutch, optional dogbones and front one-ways it is actually a really nicely spec'd car as it stands.

I have managed to source a TBG bodyshell for it as i prefer the rear-end on that shell compared to the later offerings with the square-ended rear wing portions and so that has been trimmed to my tastes (lowered front and rear) and the rear wing sides shaped to be a little easier on the eye (well my eye anyway)... and that is currently being painted. I also have and original flat red bumper for it, which really sets it off.

Full strip and clean-up coming up in the coming days...

[dinglem]

Another thing I have spotted whilst cleaning the Radiant Mid is that the original owner has added a pair of extra upper shock mount holes at the front end. Using the lower holes certainly looks pretty good but will require a bit of testing to see how it changes the handling. I kinda like it... as it lowers the entire look of the front end. With the mods and hop-ups evident on this car i am guessing the original owner was a real racer.

[dinglem]

For reference here is a cool period shot of Steve Dunn's AYK Radiant Mid from the Reedy Race at Hot Trax in January '88.

[dinglem]

I also just spotted the 7 cell stick pack configuration on the battery pack at the bottom of the photo; i had been wondering why the battery cut-outs were so large on my car..... i hadn't given the US 7 cell format a second thought until seeing this!

[dinglem]

Nice little detail from Steve Dunn himself '...the Radiant Mid conversion had two holes in the front shock tower for the associated .56 or .71 length shocks...'

[dinglem]

Next up, I noticed on the Hot Trax '88 photo posted above that the gold rear bumper plate was in straight format, as per the later Pro Radiant, so i quizzed Steve Dunn about it pointing out that the mag review car still retained the rounded-off gold motor guard of the original Radiant.

Steve told me that the instructions for the Radiant Mid conversion actually detailed how to flatten out the original curved gold guard to fit the revised rear chassis profile. He joked that the lazy mag article writer didn't have access to a bender!

Having thought about it for a while I decided to have a crack at straightening the one on my car.....by hand... which wasn't as easy or anywhere near as much fun as i had anticipated.

Got there in the end though, and i think it looks fab

[dinglem]

Next up, the finer details....

Firstly I have managed to source a set of the correct and unused original Radiant TG22 HI-SPORT tyres. I have always fancied some of these but never really had the need to get my hands on a nice set until I started on this build.

As the Radiant shell is off getting some paint, I decided i wanted to source some Japanese stickers for it. I ended up locating some that came free with the Japanese RC Magazine, matching the actual 1987 mag logo perfectly. Happy to have something period-correct for this car - just what I was hoping to find

[dinglem]

This should do it.... pre-sticker sneak peek.

[Dadio]

Wild ! Almost a shame to put stickers on it at all

[dinglem]

Wild ! Almost a shame to put stickers on it at all

To be honest, I kind of designed the paint scheme around the stickers i have for it and have left suitable gaps. In fact i have left the rear wing area totally clear without any paint at all to try to draw the eye away from that area - it will just have some bold sticker action instead. I think they will look good but will be experimenting with them a little. Trying to give it an overall Japanese theme as you can see!