Ayk Sidewinder and Bobcat Restoration.

[Dadio]

As you may have seen in another thread i recently had a bit of ebay luck and now have An Ayk Sidewinder and Bobcat to restore.

First photo is after a quick run through the dishwasher , this was my first mistake as it removed most of the red anodising from the Sidewinder shocks
The cars are remarkably complete and with very minimal wear and tear so at first glance they appear to be little used , even the tyres despite being old and hardened rubber still have plenty of tread left .
After opening the gearboxes it seems to confirm that they were only lightly used , lots of grease still in un degenerated form and littleor no visible wear to the gears , the phosphor bronze bushings are still good with little wear , no ball bearings anywhere on either car , the diffs both look perfect and that was a relief as from a little research they are a weak point with some discussion as to weather the metal gear diffs or plastic are better , both of the diffs are plastic geared .I'd like to replace the bushings in the gearbox with ball bearings but it looks a lot like they are pressed into the gearbox at least on the bobcat gearbox and the sixes are not looking favourable , of course i could modify the gearbox's to fit ball bearings but I'm not sure at this point if its a good idea to go that far or weather that would detract from the restoration .


the next pictures are after stripping down the Bobcat and polishing most of the tarnish off the alloy components and removing the rust from the steel parts .i also fitted some electrics for a test drive as well as a set of re re Scorpion wheels as they are a direct fit.

[NomadRacer]

Sounds like some cool projects. I don't know if it's just me but your pics are not showing

[Dadio]

Oops ! i had the album on private , can you see them now ?
Anyway the first thing that i noticed on the Bobcat was the amount of play in the front steering upright ,again this is a well documented problem and similar to the Scorpion , the picture shows the upright that has a screw through in it as it would be when fitted and you can see the angle that the screw can move in the upright , so it was off to the lath and mill to make a new pair with tighter tolerances .

the left one is the original and right one the one i made , you should be able to see a reduced angle compared to the screw.

its not much to look at but it translates to a lot of slop removed .

[Dadio]

Could anyone confirm my pictures are now visible please ?

[GoMachV]

I can see em

[Dadio]

I can see em

Thanks .
Just spent an afternoon stripping and polishing up the Sidewinder front suspension , my hands are worn out so I'm taking a break before I finish off the rest of it .
I took the Bobcat for a short test drive and it runs very smoothly , more composed than a scorpion , probably because the front suspension is more advanced and has anti roll bars both ends , it's very quiet too , I like quiet transmition

[Dadio]

Virtually finished the clean and polish of the Sidewinder .
Comparison of before and after with the front trailing arms .

And a few pictures of the rest of the completed chassis.

[Dadio]

I just ordered a Bobcat body from TBG in Canada ,hopefully it will be OK , the Yokomo Dogfighter ZY-834B body i got from them was barely usable the fit was so bad , if it turns out good I'll order a Sidewinder body as well , the cars came with an original body on the Sidewinder that's quite scruffy and an awful cut down sports car body on the Bobcat .

[GoMachV]

It will be undersize as that's how they backpour them. I have quite a few from them, the biggest mistake is assuming the dimples for the body mounts are correct. They will be 1/2" off sometimes. As long as you test fit you should be fine.

[Coelacanth]

Nice job polishing those cast pot-metal swing arms. I'm a big proponent of polishing aluminum parts, but even I don't bother going that far with cast metal bits.

I had some fun (not!) resto-modding my buddy's Buffalo for his girlfriend and getting modern 2.2" rear wheels & tires to work was a major pain. It turned out pretty sweet at the end, though.

[Dadio]

It will be undersize as that's how they backpour them. I have quite a few from them, the biggest mistake is assuming the dimples for the body mounts are correct. They will be 1/2" off sometimes. As long as you test fit you should be fine.

I guess by backpouring you mean they make a cast from the inside of an original body with plaster of Paris but then the problem is the plaster (or other casting medium) shrinks as it drys making an undersize mould .
When I was at school we had a vacuum forming machine and we had this happen , a friend and I played around at making body's but the only plastic we had was orange and flocked on one side ,it was also very brittle but we had fun for a few days trying ,I'd guess half the stuff we did at school would never be allowed these days for health and safety reasons , my best friend's dad was the care taker for the school so we kind of had the run of the place in the evenings ,laths ,metal casting ,woodworking tools ,not to mention gymnasiums and tennis courts , we had a pretty good time really at school ,well after the rest of the kids went home anyway

[Dadio]

Nice job polishing those cast pot-metal swing arms. I'm a big proponent of polishing aluminum parts, but even I don't bother going that far with cast metal bits.

I had some fun (not!) resto-modding my buddy's Buffalo for his girlfriend and getting modern 2.2" rear wheels & tires to work was a major pain. It turned out pretty sweet at the end, though.

My hands and arms agree with you ,polishing stuff is very labour intensive , it's kind of a hangover from my other hobby , I do Ww2 renactment with airsoft guns , most Ww2 airsoft guns are metal but have a paint finish , very few period guns had a paint finish so we strip the paint and refinish them ,incidentally I used some gunsmith products on the Bobcat , the rusty steering linkages and anti roll bars have an oil blued finish but after removing the rust most of the blueing was gone , I did not want to have to re temper them so I used" Birchwood Casey perma blue" to restore the colour , it's a chemical that turns steel a blue/black colour that you see on many steel parts .

[Dadio]

I just had the sidewinder out for a quick test drive out in the road , all went well , no nasty noises , I do think I have the front suspension adjusted up too high as it sits right up at the front .

[Dadio]

New body's now ordered and reproduction sticker sheets . I also decided on keeping the Sidewinder and the Bobcat is going to a friend .
I've now ball raced the axles front and rear on both cars and the full transmition on the Sidewinder except one gear that cannot be done but has a long bush through it that is in good condition and I can make another if I need too in the future , I also made some shims for adjusting the diff mesh , I made them out of feeler gauges with a dremmel tool , there's a set of genuine shims on eBay but the guy wants £12 plus £5 p+p little dear for half a dozen little washers !
I've also got a 21t brushed motor coming to try out .

[Dadio]

Both body's arrived and the sticker sheets , I've decided to keep the Sidewinder , a friend of mine has put dibs on the Bobcat .
I just ordered paint , I'm not mad keen on the Sidewinder box art but I do like the Bobcat box art so I'm going to do a mostly Bobcat paint scheme on the Sidewinder , I have black ,dark green ,steel grey and white paint coming , I'll post up pictures when it's done .