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Coelacanth, I meant to say that I was after a good alternative to the original seals. I see Fireboy has a gear cover set (and the other parts it comes with) with the seal on ebay but I just bought all those parts minus the seal. I went to Bunnings (a large hardwear store over here) and they had similar stuff to that in your link but it looked a bit too thick and cost nearly 20 bucks!

The original seals look to be around 3mm/4mm thick.

Joel, I've got a few 3/32's and they're way too big for it. The 1.5mm is just a bit too big so that leaves the 0/05inch. Luckily the pinion is just the right size to come out of the car without having to take it off the motor. I'll try the hardwear shop and see what I can find.

Thanks guys.


Keith

You can also check the automotive stores for that kind of sponge tape, it's also used for various automotive applications like sealing truck bed liners or something. It comes in various thicknesses & widths. It should be quite cheap, certainly nowhere near $20. I paid like $5 or $6 for it.

Keith, I bought a metre roll of neoprene rubber from Clark Rubber. It's 46mm wide so you can cut it into strips. It's .5mm thicker than stock. I used some on my Tomahawks gear cover and it works a treat. I've got excess so if you want some PM me your address and I'll send you some. It also has glue on one side so it sticks really well.

Sounds good Chris, I'll PM ya.


Keith

Double post.

Oops.

Look what I got.

Freshly painted by Jon Miller at RCS in the UK. I haven't taken the overspray film off yet.



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And the Optima Pro body. This is a team blue groove body and has the blue overspray film so the yellow looks like more of a green colour.



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I got him to do some box art style number 5's as well.



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Keith

Nice. Looks really good.

Top notch -
Now the fun begins
Do You have an old body You can use as template?

For the Optima I'm thinking I'll probably copy off the body it's replacing or one of the Javelins for the front section. Different story for the Pro body though, I was thinking of getting another body set to use for a runner anyway so I'll use it as a guide. I've got a dremel now so I can tidy up any rough bits.


Keith

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Optima Pro-ject (See what I did there? ) has begun. I'm converting the purple Optima which was previously posted, into a box art style Optima Pro.

The reason for using this particular car is because it already has the belt drive and front oneway diff. Pics before dissassembly.



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And more during the strip down.



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Note the amount of dirt on the gearbox just in front of the rear shock tower.



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The lower front guard has a twist in it that'll have to be straightened out.



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And the left chassis rail is bent at the front, and they both have cracks on the edge of steering post holes.



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Here it is all stripped down, I reassembled the majority on the chassis parts just to keep them together for now.



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The chain guards didn't have the lexan cover strips on them and as a result there was a lot of dirt in them, the pile of dirt in this pic came just out of the bottom guard alone.



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That's as far as I've gotten with car itself yet, I've got the Pro upper deck set for it and I'll get a new pair of chassis rails soon. I'm thinking of polishing all the alloy parts and I'll give all the plastic parts a good clean and replace any of them that need to be.

I took the protective film off the body and it looks awesome, the only thing is that it was painted with what looks to a gunmetal grey in the striping instead of the brown/copper colour. I take full responsibility for that though because the pic I sent Jon to work from was actually dark grey in the striping.



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And just for fun I put the wheels beside it, the Pro's have a nice low stance but not quite this low.



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That's all for now, I've got a cool idea for the shocks but I'll keep that to myself for the time being. I'll update later after I clean the various bits and pieces.


Keith

Hi keithrc, great writeup of your projects and progress.

I am in the process of tearing down and cleaning my Optima. Have you tried enough reproduction Sand Super 320/40VR18 tires to recommend a good brand? I would like to get the closest match to the originals (obviously), but it's difficult comparing my worn originals to pics I see on the internet.

Thanks for any advice.

lifeIsAnalog wrote:Hi keithrc, great writeup of your projects and progress.

I am in the process of tearing down and cleaning my Optima. Have you tried enough reproduction Sand Super 320/40VR18 tires to recommend a good brand? I would like to get the closest match to the originals (obviously), but it's difficult comparing my worn originals to pics I see on the internet.

Thanks for any advice.

Without speaking for keithrc, I would recommend any of the re-pro items from MarwanRC personally, all made to a very high standard IMHO

Thanks mtbkym01. I'll look those up.