Meteor axles & restomod

[Marky]

Hi all, I am rebuilding my SWB meteor that I last raced in the early 90s (at clydebank radio controlled car club in Scotland).

I collected it from my in laws attic when I visited a month ago. I'm building the car for grass and dirt outdoor racing in NZ.

I do have a couple of problems I don't know how to solve though... 1 is that the new 2.2" rear wheels I got from mardave don't fit the car as it is and I have no idea what stub acles or cvds(?) I could replace them with. I managed to order some shaft spacers and get the bearing front wheels to rin nice on the circlip front axles, but the rears are not going to work (I remember reading some sort of tamiya cvds fitted a meteor somewhere sometime in the last 4 years I think??).

Thanks for reading and let me know if you want a youtube vid or more pics of the build.

PS. So far...I switched all the hardware to button head Stainless steel, polished the chassis, bought new wheels and tyres, cleaned everything, got a rounded hard case lipo with tamiya connector that looks like a nicad, got a brushed esc that works with lipo from a maverick quantum, built a motor plate from 2mm aluminum, added a bangood heat sync, kept my old alloy servo mount, rebuilt the diff with new cog, rebuilt the shocks with 650 and 450 cst oil and some other stuff..

[Marky]

Got the car running, but need a couple more changes before I take it out of my garden and into a club + on to the interweb via YouTube.

What pinion are you racing people using for racing with a 27t brushed motor? 16tooth 32dp?

My Meteor test track is the only place that's heard its scream for over 2 decades.

[Retro rc]

For the g27 you want a final drive ratio of between 5.9 and 6.1 depending on the track and tires your running. Where abouts in Nz are you based marky?

[Marky]

Christchurch, I will need to figure out what pinion to use to get that drive ratio. The 12 tooth pinion is way too slow & I've been told 16t is the normal racing choice with brushed motors.

Painted the shell yesterday and took it for a wee drive today, need to glue the tyres on and make sure everything is still tight, then it just needs a bit of set up and the shocks resealed

[Marky]

Progress

Got the 16t pinion in the car, hopefully it won't melt the gearbox with the extra heat syncs I have added, also got new springs on the rear, new servo horn, new servo rod (filed down to length) and a new Futaba 3pv + t-fhss reciver (my flysky was malfunctioning because the wheel has been turned too hard by my 4 year old son when he was driving my LC Racing embt.... he is driving his WL toys 144002 in the background of the pic).

Going to order a new shock tower, rear wishbones, bearing rear hubs + c hubs & steering arms from Additive RC (sadly the gearbox casing isn't ready yet).

Next jobs are... fitting all the schumacher dog bones and ball joints I just bought, putting the OG rear springs on the front, rebuilding the front shocks with new plumbers tape and some new o-rings from my RC10B6.1 shock rebuild kit (I have never run the car), fitting the new mardave front wishbones I have, trying the 15t pinion, swapping out the OG Futaba FP-S148 servo for something better and not "sloppy", locate some gearbox parts with bearings (the ones Mardave have sold out of).

A pic of my car with the shell off.

[Marky]

Just got a 2nd older SWB meteor for my son + some parts from mardave while I'm in the UK.

This one has a bust shell, a bust rear shock and a bit of corrosion.

Will be replacing all the hardware, swapping to an ESC & tidying everything up.

[Marky]

Pulled it all to bits now.

got the 4x8x3 bearings ready for the gearbox, the ball raced idler gear, a 16t 32dp pinion and a spare 20 mins every few days to start the build.

[Marky]

Started on this car again.

Bought some...
5x10x4 bearings (no 3mm wide ones easily available today).
Maverick ion(?) Dogbones (1mm ish diffrent to the meteor OG axles).
Some dogbones from aliexpress 56mm long.

Going to try some diffrent set ups with the bearing rear hubs and see what works and what doesn't. Hopefully confirm what dogbones are good meteor spares

[Retro rc]

Are you going to run this out at the Mrc track at Rolleston?

[Marky]

Are you going to run this out at the Mrc track at Rolleston?

I'm planning to. My son (5) is just getting the hang of driving mardave meteor #1 (my car) and I'm building his one (meteor #2) at the moment.

We might get a 2wd SCT for him at Xmas because when I went out for a look last yr there was at least 1 young driver in that race (im thinking maybe it's not ideal to have him accidentally crashing into other vintage rcs and damaging hard to find parts).

Are you running vintage cars out there at rolleston?

[Marky]

I have given up on getting the mardave 2.2" wheels to fit the meteor.

Converting the rear to 12mm hex seems to be an easier option.

Just need the tamiya 9mm wide hexes to fit when they arrive & to get rear wheels with the right spacing. The modern assosciated 2wd rear wheels I have might have enough offset to clear the top of the hub/upper suspension link.

I should mention that I don't have rear wheels any more as I put them on my son's meteor that's almost built (2 cars and one set of one piece rear wheels)

[LurkingCAT]

Very cool projects you have going there! I have a Meteor I was considering for vintage racing, but the size of the running fleet tells me I have to confine my desires...
Like the pink paint