RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

Ok, sooooo. It seems that legends are hard to find but i have a strange one for you... i've found about 6 or 7 and bought 3, NONE of which have the belt tensioner. Why does this part get lost so much. I've also noticed there are two different ones (for the graphite and tub), do you really need it? Does anyone here have one of either that they dont' love so much anymore. PLEEEAAASEEE!!!

Good question. My guess is that it's there so the belt clears the battery holder. I've seen a few race a long time ago and none of those drivers used the belt tensioner. I don't know why.

I have an old 1992 RCCA MIP ad that shows the legends kit installed and there is no tensioner shown. Maybe since the bottom run of the belt is the slack side they figured to let the battery hold down do the task.

Has anyone actually tried to contact MIP, I'm pretty sure Eustace Moore still owns the business...maybe he could give up some answers (like what kind of a printer head drive they robbed the belt from... ).

i emailed Eustace Moore a couple of weeks ago about spare belts and pulleys for the kit i aquired recently. i sent him a nice detailed email about what i needed and inquired about where he got the belts from and if he had the measurements for them. i even directed him to this forum and told him about the awesome pictures on here and how some of us could really use some extra common parts if he had anything in stock. he replied in 3 words in capital letters saying "WE HAVE NOTHING". i guess some people just dont believe in product support.
i have been trying to search the internet for a few weeks with no luck. from the measurements i got off my belt it appears to be a non standard size belt pitch of about 2.8 mm. mip must have had them custom made unless some other car used simalar belts back in the day. i work in the consumer electronics industry and even searched the old parts in our shop. we used to service printers years ago so we had some in stock but they were no match. i tried cannon, ibm, lexmark, okidata and a few other most of them were too long or the wrong pitch.

wyldbill wrote:i emailed Eustace Moore a couple of weeks ago about spare belts and pulleys for the kit i aquired recently. i sent him a nice detailed email about what i needed and inquired about where he got the belts from and if he had the measurements for them. i even directed him to this forum and told him about the awesome pictures on here and how some of us could really use some extra common parts if he had anything in stock. he replied in 3 words in capital letters saying "WE HAVE NOTHING". i guess some people just dont believe in product support.
i have been trying to search the internet for a few weeks with no luck. from the measurements i got off my belt it appears to be a non standard size belt pitch of about 2.8 mm. mip must have had them custom made unless some other car used simalar belts back in the day. i work in the consumer electronics industry and even searched the old parts in our shop. we used to service printers years ago so we had some in stock but they were no match. i tried cannon, ibm, lexmark, okidata and a few other most of them were too long or the wrong pitch.

Gotta love companies that blow off their own heritage. I'm not saying that MIP should jump up and start making long discontinued parts that truthfully probably didn't sell very well in the first place, and likely were sold at a loss in the end. But to not even be willing to pass on a little helpful info... must be nice to be busy making a profit on all his current products... uhhh, what were they again? I'll guess AE is just making their own "cva's" in the giant factory rather than buying from MIP now. At least we can still buy the zero maintenance steering and shock shafts...for the time being.

kinda like rpm feeling it's more lucritive for them to make plastic flesh toned nut sacks then it would be to make parts for the rc10 again. besides just the a-arms.

scr8p wrote:kinda like rpm feeling it's more lucritive for them to make plastic flesh toned nut sacks then it would be to make parts for the rc10 again. besides just the a-arms.

LOL! Nothing says "class" like a fake nut sac dangling from your bumper.

wyldbill wrote:i emailed Eustace Moore a couple of weeks ago about spare belts and pulleys for the kit i aquired recently. i sent him a nice detailed email about what i needed and inquired about where he got the belts from and if he had the measurements for them. i even directed him to this forum and told him about the awesome pictures on here and how some of us could really use some extra common parts if he had anything in stock. he replied in 3 words in capital letters saying "WE HAVE NOTHING". i guess some people just dont believe in product support.

I actually know Eustace from my work in the magazine end of things. He is truely one of the friendlyest (spelling? jeez i'm an editor who can't spell!!!) people in this industry and that's actually VERY rare to find people like him in r/c. I'm sure the capitol letters thing, from knowing him, is just frustration at getting that email 7000 times a day. LOL. You actually wouldn't believe how repetative emails get for these guys.

templeofspeed wrote:Gotta love companies that blow off their own heritage. I'm not saying that MIP should jump up and start making long discontinued parts that truthfully probably didn't sell very well in the first place, and likely were sold at a loss in the end. But to not even be willing to pass on a little helpful info... must be nice to be busy making a profit on all his current products.

Gotta remember that these guys are in a business, not a hobby like we are. Could they sell legends kits and get 600 bucks or more for them? Yes... to at best 50 people (a guessitmate surely but you understand my point). The tool up alone to make most molded pieces is about 10k each peice, much less material, production, labor, packaging, marketing and everything else that goes into it. I know this for good fact because I had a long talk with Atticus at RPM about redoing the Worlds Kit once and they had seriously considered it and even still have all the molds, but the market for them was no where near where it needed to be to make even half the setup and production cost back. We're talking about cars that are 15-25 years old and four manf generations old. There is almost no market for them, much less electric 2wd offroad in general here in the US. Vintage market, well of course there's a small market for that, but in all truth we probably represent a sizeable chunk of that market as far as sales go for rc10 stuff. Believe me... if there were profit to be made... ALL these companies would still be making parts for the 10. Associated had even tossed around (from my suggestion, thank you) the idea of reissuing the RC10 as a limited edition, numbered reissue a couple years ago but money wasn't there... not even close enough to try it. This is all the same reason the rc10 stopped being an aluminum or graphite car made in the US and became a molded plastic/graphite rtr made in Mexico. R/C companies are in business to manufacture a product (be it r/c cars, toys, or baby products) and make a profit from doing so, and the only way to do that is to adapt and stay current within the industry that your in, not the hobby you do for enjoyment. If they meet somewhere close to the middle, they are certanily having a better time but at the expense of making money... which is what we ALL go to work for.

The problem we run into and the way we feel about all this is very similar to that of oval racers here in the US and I'm sure Doug can back me up here too. We belong to a small group of people that remember when R/C was a modeling hobby. That hobby is LONG gone and has more or less become a prepackaged toy industry. Buildable kits make up less then 10% of the r/c cars being made currently. The hobby that we loved and grew up with ended along time ago, and I feel that's why a lot of us have turned to this vintage thing... because its the only place it still survives.

BTW: its friendliest... i figured it out alllll by myself after the fact!

Erich Reichert wrote:BTW: its friendliest... i figured it out alllll by myself after the fact!

You da' man. Sometimes I question the fact that I got an college edumacation.

Well said Erich. You guys have to to put this in perspective

The first MIP 4wd kit was a big deal because there were not too many 4wd buggies out there.


by the time the legends kit was released, there were optimas and yokomos and a whole slew of other really competitive buggies out there that would eclipse the performance of the legends built rc10.

Why produce something now that would be second rate in performance and just a copy of an old design.

another added factor, 4wd electric is BY FAR the fastest (and only) growing electric class in offroad. With prob 10 cars available, there's no need for a conversion kit. At least thats the way manf. look at this.

shodog wrote:Well said Erich. You guys have to to put this in perspective

I agree 100%

so back to the topic... no tensioners?

I personally don't know the correct answer to address the question. I can only offer additional ammo to support what you stated. I believe I have two (used) kits, both don't have a tensioner. My plan, although not correct, is to use a YZ-10 tensioner just as hoop did..... I have a TON of those at my finger tips.