Aristo-Craft Hitec Kangaroo

[Lowgear]

This is the build thread for my Kangaroo. I first learned of this model a few months ago. Seeing as how I'm mainly into vintage R/C's that are rare, uncommon, unpopular, obscure, etc... I instantly fell in love with it. I ended up buying one a ClodTalk member had listed on eBay. Theres a whole (negative) story behind that in which I'll start in the Complaints Department.

But anyway, I worked on it for three days after I received it. I'd be embarrassed to tell you how many hours I have into it thus far. Its not that its a complex design so much as I have well documented OCD which makes things take five times as long as they should in some instances.

So far I've stripped the entire thing down to every last nut and bolt and scrubbed every piece in the sink with dish soap. Some cleaning tools that came into play were toothbrushes, toothpicks, cotton swabs, and a magnifying glass. Yeah, I know Its pretty anal.

I haven't worked on it in a few days because I bought all new gears off of eBay and had to wait for them to come. I didn't like the way the gears were meshing with one another. They stick in random places, and when I would screw the gearbox halves together the sticking would turn into binding. I spent three hours trying to figure it out which included carefully filing the gear teeth to try and open them up but it didn't work. The new gears came but I haven't tried them yet.

The problem now is I want to buy more new parts simply for the fact that they're currently on eBay and I have everything apart. So even though I don't necessarily need them what the heck right? You know what I'm talking about.


Disassembling:

More disassembling:

The entire buggy was covered in something including the body and was emanating a putrid funk:

The pinion gear was too big to fit through the hole, and was stuck on the shaft:

Was a little tricky getting at the set screw:

Better shot:

Thats it for the disassembly pics.

[Bormac]

What about the 'DOLPHIN'? Or was it 'PORPOISE'.....LOL!

[Lowgear]

I wasn't going to but heres a quick history lesson.

Aristo-Craft Hitec had three buggies. They were basically all the same with only minor changes between them.

Koala: 2wd, plastic friction shocks, white rims, shared the same body with the Dolphin.

Kangaroo: 2wd, nice aluminum oil filled shocks, yellow rims, had its own unique body.

Dolphin: 4wd, nice aluminum oil filled shocks, grey rims, shared the same body with the Koala.


The Kangaroo was the most popular of the three, and the theme of it was modeled after this song:
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[Bormac]

I remember a magazine article on the Kangaroo back when I was first getting into r/c way back when. I was learning what an ESC was and soon worked out that the Kangaroo had one mounted on its rook as it would seem.

Im looking forward to pics of yours.

[Lowgear]

Something seemed to be wrong with the HS-402X servo:

I took it apart to see if I could find what was wrong and found that the bottom gear with the finest teeth was slightly stripped. I tried to fix the teeth with a razor blade but it didn't work well enough. For the heck of it I took a trip into the crawl space to see what I had if anything in the way of old servos in which I might be able to use for parts.

I found an old Futaba FP-S148 servo that was the same size and I imagine from around the same time period. I took it apart and the gears looked the same. After tinkering for a while I found they were slightly different from the Hitec ones but they all fit in the Hitec case. The only old gear I used was the one the servo saver screws into. Put it back together and it worked perfectly. I'm pretty psyched about it.

New gears:

[Lowgear]

This is it until Wednesday when I get the rest of the parts I need. Everything will then be ready to be put back together.

[Mr. ED]

I remember the kangaroo, but not the dolphin* or koala. Anywhere I could see some pics, especially of the 4WD train?

*I do remember some silver colored car with blue accents (body, the rest just plain black ABS). Would that be the dolphin?

[jwscab]

My brother had one. I still have some parts around, I'll dig them up and see what's left, if you are interested.

[scottmac74]

Here are some NOS parts for sale that may help you with this resto;

http://marketplaceadvisor.channeladvisor.com/storefrontprofiles/deluxeSFshop.aspx?Aristo-craft/Hitec...&sfid=79026&c=343302

[highwayracer]

It's amazing how similar this car is to the Marui Samauri. I'm working on a couple of Samuari restorations and noticed that the parts are very similar.

I might use a kangaroo gearbox on one of my cars...since I have plaenty of kangaroo parts.

Regards,
highwayracer

[highwayracer]

BTW, I would drill a very smaill hole in the gearbox so you can access the pinion gear screw. You can place a rubber stopper (like the ones used for the noval ESCs) in the hole to keep things out.

[Lowgear]

I remember the kangaroo, but not the dolphin* or koala. Anywhere I could see some pics, especially of the 4WD train?

*I do remember some silver colored car with blue accents (body, the rest just plain black ABS). Would that be the dolphin?

You can see various pics of all three buggies if you search tamiyaclub.com. You're right, the silver colored one would be the Dolphin.

My brother had one. I still have some parts around, I'll dig them up and see what's left, if you are interested.

Since it will be a shelf queen I would be looking for still new in the bag parts. Namely the body and wing.

Here are some NOS parts for sale that may help you with this resto;

http://marketplaceadvisor.channeladvisor.com/storefrontprofiles/deluxeSFshop.aspx?Aristo-craft/Hitec...&sfid=79026&c=343302

Thanks for the link. I might buy a thing or two from there.

It's amazing how similar this car is to the Marui Samauri. I'm working on a couple of Samuari restorations and noticed that the parts are very similar.

I might use a kangaroo gearbox on one of my cars...since I have plaenty of kangaroo parts.

Regards,
highwayracer

Yes, the designers definitely modeled it after the Marui Samurai with a nod to the Frog's rear suspension.

BTW, I would drill a very smaill hole in the gearbox so you can access the pinion gear screw. You can place a rubber stopper (like the ones used for the noval ESCs) in the hole to keep things out.

That would be a very good idea to do for a runner. I bought a new gear set and it came with two pinions. The big one that doesn't fit through the hole and a smaller one that I'm thinking will. When I put the gearbox back together I'll be using the smaller one for ease of assembly.

[Lowgear]

The gearbox on this thing will be the death of me. I have over eight hours into it thus far and its still not together.

First I didn't like the way the gears mesh as they would bind in random spots. I spent three hours trying to fix them to no avail. I bought a new gear set off eBay and after it came in I decided I might as well by the gearbox itself as well. That came in a couple of days ago but I didn't get a chance to work on it until last night. I worked on it from 1:00am until 6:15am and basically got nothing accomplished because I ran into one problem after another.

The biggest problem was with the new pre-assembled gear diff. There was something wrong with every part of it. The best part was the two poorly cast gears on either side of the spider gears. They were all cracked and broke. They are the two gears that the outdrives push into. Well since they were so poorly cast I got the outdrive stuck in it and it took an hour of gently prying to get it back off. Since I can't use the new diff assembly since its junk, I cleaned up the old one and will use that. No big deal as its mint anyway.

Its so frustrating as my goal was to finish the buggy last night and I didn't even get the gearbox bolted together. Maybe I'll have time to work on it again tonight.

[Bormac]

Im still watching this thread as I have always been a little intrigued by this buggy. While it was never a real high end kind of ride it certainly looked like a fun car to wheel around.

Keep your chin up, Ive had plenty of moments like these myself. Kinda what makes it so much fun when you look back at it in years to come.

[Lowgear]

Well, I officially give up until I can find another assembled gearbox. I'll buy an entire buggy if it has a correctly working one in it.

I've just spent another four hours trying to get the gearbox working correctly and just can't seem to catch a break with it. New gearbox halves and new gears and it seems to be worse if anything. I just don't understand what the problem is. It almost feels like the gears are out of round or something. Once the gearbox is assembled theres serious binding. Its to the point where you can't turn the outdrives in the same direction by hand. I have to stick a flat head screwdriver in either one and wedge the gearbox under my foot just to turn them. While turning the whole assembly it loosens up slightly then goes back to being hard to turn as if the gears were out of round like I mentioned above.

I've been in the hobby for 18 years now and I have never experienced anything like this. I'm so discouraged and frustrated at this point its ridiculous.