Pituk's Optima Project

[pituk]

The buggy's were definately well used , these were the extra parts in the box . All are worn or cracked except for the chain gears which was probaly because of the switch to the belts...not sure what happened to the body . There's a couple worn final pinion gears also , is that common or did the original owner just run a fast motor ? Made some progress on it , gave everything a good cleaning and did a little assembly .








Oddly enough , looked over the 10 and it just needs a bent shock screw replaced .

[Coelacanth]

The Optima's final pinion gear was made out of soft aluminum; practically every one you see will have the gear teeth worn to points. You can keep replacing them--which is a major pain as you have to totally disassemble the gearbox--or you can upgrade to a hard final pinion, Option House P/N OT-76, but those are hard to find and usually pretty expensive when you find one. Dirt Burners also made a hard steel gear to replace that stock final pinion. Lastly, you can follow markbt73's thread, he found a 19T gear for cheap on eBay that he was able to install with spacers and minor modding:

http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=30624&start=22

[markbt73]

The Optima's final pinion gear was made out of soft aluminum; practically every one you see will have the gear teeth worn to points. You can keep replacing them--which is a major pain as you have to totally disassemble the gearbox--or you can upgrade to a hard final pinion, Option House P/N OT-76, but those are hard to find and usually pretty expensive when you find one. Dirt Burners also made a hard steel gear to replace that stock final pinion. Lastly, you can follow markbt73's thread, he found a 19T gear for cheap on eBay that he was able to install with spacers and minor modding:

http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=30624&start=22

Tower Hobbies, actually, but who's counting?
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXVCX4

I want to know what on Earth happened to that body. Is that fire damage? Did the ol' "spot-welder special" speed control give up in spectacular fashion? Or was it attacked by a tiny and particularly vicious dragon?

EDIT: looking more closely at that pile of gears, is that a hard final pinion sitting in front? To the left ot the complete rear diff, kinda half inside a sprocket?

[Coelacanth]

looking more closely at that pile of gears, is that a hard final pinion sitting in front? To the left ot the complete rear diff, kinda half inside a sprocket?

Could be, but it almost looks too black & plasticky. It's about the correct size, though. The Dirt Burners gears were a dark grey color. Also notice to the far top right of the pile of diff parts, there's another gear that looks similar to the one you spotted. That would be quite the diamonds-in-the-rough if there were 2 hard final pinion gears in that lot of diff parts!

[pituk]

Had some time over the weekend to work on the buggy and also thanks to Marc for the parts to finish it . I went with a Robinson 12t pinion , it was the smallest one I could find at the hobby shop . The manual does show a 9t pinion , is that for running 8.4v and also do not have the motor plate installed , will this have an effect on the gears or alignment ? Cleaned up the body , scraped off the flaking paint and repainted it . The blue is not an exact match , you can see different shades on it but it looks good from a couple feet back

[Coelacanth]

Very nice resto, that body-off chassis looks super clean!

[RC10Eh]

That RC10 is sporting a Houge swing arm chassis , nice score .

[keithrc]

Nice job mate, looks pretty good. What motor does it have? The Turbo Optima's came with the Le Mans 240S which is a 19 turn motor and used a 9T pinion.

I don't know for certain, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the idea of the motor plate was to have a cooling effect on the motor, not having it shouldn't affect the gear alignment.


Keith

[Coelacanth]

I think you're right about the motor spacer, Keith; it was probably for cooling.

[RichieRich]

Well, done! Looks amazing.