Cougar Restoration

[CAT3K]

I picked up a rough Cougar a while ago and today i started restoring it.

I think it was originally a Topcat as it has the Topcat motor cover and it came with loads of spares including some of the topcat shock mounts/levers and short shocks.





Also in the box of parts were these aluminium front and rear shock mounts. I've no idea who made these and i don't remember anything like this being available when i raced one of these in the early 90's. I thought they might be for the shotgun truck, but the rears don't line up on my shotgun so they must have been for the cougar.





This is the main chassis stripped and pollished, not perfect but a lot better than it was.



Notice the black motor plate? Not had a cougar with one of these before, not sure if Topcat had these as i have no Topcats..



This is it reassembled minus the shocks.







This is the chassis nearly complete, those shocks took ages to pollish..



I'm going to try and get it fully rebuilt this weekend. I also have a nip bodyset so i'm going to spray that up too. Just not sure what colour would go with all that silver

[Coelacanth]

Great work so far! I'm not sure what final grit sandpaper you used for your aluminum bathtub, but if you went to 1000 and 1500 grit by wet-sanding, then follow that up with a good rub-down with 3M rubbing compound, you'll get an amazing shine from that tub.

[Jay Dub]

It looks like a early Top Cat to me. The early cars came wtih the motor guard that said "top Cat" on it, and took some time before it was removed. The towers were an aftermarket, the front being for the Shotgun truck. It will work just fine on the car however. Some of the early moulding sets still had top cat pieces included, but were not used. So they ended up being extras in the tool box. -Jeff

[isobarik]

Good looking front tower...

mvh Isobarik

[RedScampi]

Very nice rebuild! Love those shock towers!

[DerbyDan]

Looking good!

Your car appears to have a number of useful upgrades including the RW tufnel spur gear & what appears to be the MMS diff? The anodised black motor plates to the gearbox were also upgrade items (not sure what improvement they would have made though?)

Those shock mounts were aftermaket items made by Team Tanaplan, the long front tower & shocks was a popular upgrade on 2wd buggies... Schumacher offered their own glass fibre tower as an option, these alloy ones were less likely to snap - but tended to bend instead. As said said above the Shotgun truck came with the long front shocks too... but strangley reverted to the short items when the 'Nitro' version was released (Nitro10)

Its difficult to tell if your car started life out as a TopCat or not - as some early Cougars it seems came with the 'TopCat' embossed motor guard too IIRC? - your car does have some later Cougar parts which could have been added to replace broken parts etc - the rear bulkhead has the notch which locates a battery bar.

It seems the rear hubs on your car have been 'trimmed' as these were full dishes that sat inside the wheel to keep out dirt, but the edge of these used to rub on the inside of the wheel.... later on these were of a more conventional design & looked more like what you have now

I loved my Cougar back in the day... It was so much better that the TopCat I converted it from.. I won my first ever trophy with it!

[CAT3K]

Thanks for the info, very usefull I'm going to have to take the gearbox and look at the diff now as i hadn't checked to see if it was an mms.

I fitted the wheels and a few other bits today, just got to paint and fit some electrics to finish.

Talking of wheels.. i fitted some rib spikes to the front, i always used to fit them rib out back in the day, but is that correct?










Paul.

[RC10Eh]

Based on the title I was expecting a face lift and a boob job . Cool Cat never the less

[minichamps11]

Nice Cougar! Like the matching the chassis and towers look. The shock towers were made by "Team Tanaplan" in London, UK, in the 1990's. I still have some NIP's somewhere if anyone is interested in a pair.

Cheers,

Ian

[Jay Dub]

Turning out nice!. I am planning to get another one one of these days . Anyways, I think he is telling you that you DO have an MMS diff, as it can be seen in the early pics with the tranny upside down . This is a nice item. Tear it apart, and let us know if it is the early one with the glue on washers, or the later one with the hex drive washers. -Jeff

[CAT3K]

I took the gearbox apart today for a service.





Looks like the diff has the glue on type washers. And i need to find some thrust race balls as theys were almost ground in half


Paul.

[DerbyDan]

Gearbox internals look pretty clean considering.... & i'm guessing thats a matching MMS layshaft

P.S; your rib-spikes are on the wrong way round - the spikes goes towards the outside

[Jay Dub]

The thrust bearing is s standard item on most shumacher cars, as well as Losi. I almost never used the Schumacher pieces, as Losi were plentiful and cheaper and worked better. -Jeff

[moozo]

I think this chassis is the topcat version, the two holes to the front and side of the chassis were for the shocks to attatch.

[Jay Dub]

If I remember correctly, the early cougar versions had the same chassis carried over from the to cat. -Jeff