My Marui Hunter rebuild

[zuki250]

A good friends Dad pulled this out of a closet and asked if i wanted it...Well ya..so i took it home and went through it...The car is in Amazing shape...so i figured i would just clean it up and put it on a shelf. So here is how she started







Time to take her apart and clean it up!!

[zuki250]

And more....





The wife was like What the hell is this...hahaha



And the clean pile

[zuki250]

Time to start putting it back together

[zuki250]

Forgot about the wheels....



I even have the original oil....so of course i used it



Rear end rebuilt and done

[zuki250]

And as she sits now...I cleaned up the wheels, and even scrubbed the tires





This guy is going to get some touching up next and then I think it will be finished

[naushad]

Looking great so far...I like the unique shock configuration at the front .

[EvolutionRevolution]

Never realised these had cantilevered shocks at the front...

[Hcp22]

Almost good as new, nice going!

[zuki250]

Thanks guys...I love the front suspension on this thing...I don't think you can see it very well, but there are little springs on the a-arms right on the steering knuckles to help with flex...kind of cool i tohught

[Coelacanth]

Beautiful work so far on the restoration. The Hunter & Galaxy were nice entry-level cars BITD, easily as good as the Grasshopper/Hornet/Frog, if not better. The diff gears would be a weak spot, and be careful tightening down the pinion gear cover--the round areas where the 2 screws go easily break, especially after all these years.

Never realised these had cantilevered shocks at the front...

Interesting it was, but it worked like crap. The Galaxy's front suspension was marginally better.

P.S. I love that paint job on the body, a whole lot better than the "meh" box-art scheme.

[zuki250]

Thanks Cole...Not worried about breaking anything etc...as it will be up on a shelf once i repaint the driver and clean up the body...i may buy a repop decal sheet for it and put new decals on it also...I love the body....I don't really want to change anything...so i am not going to paint a new body

[zuki250]

Annnddd...she is done, here are her final pics

Touched up the driver a bit





And the body cleaned up....

[DerbyDan]

Excellent job on the clean up - I do like the bodyshell colours... two tone blue with white always looks good, but the upside-down spoiler sticker made me chuckle

This is a model that has only recently come to my attention since a friend of mine came by one in very similar circumstances to how you aquired yours...

Obviously sold to compete with the likes of the Hornet/Grasshopper & Kyosho Raider as a base model R/C car - the design of both the front & rear suspension is very efficient in terms of no. of parts used but perhaps leaves a little to be desired with regard to its effectiveness.... but then the Tamiya Hornet was not (by a long way) the best handling chassis! That box artwork brings back memories of seeing these in the hobby shop but I wonder if that double star decoration confused the the buyer int thinking they were purchasing a Tamiya... I'm sure it was Marui's intention as there are no other obvious manufacturer logos/markings on the box.

[Coelacanth]

Excellent job on the clean up - I do like the bodyshell colours... two tone blue with white always looks good, but the upside-down spoiler sticker made me chuckle

That made me do a double-take, too.

I wonder if that double star decoration confused the the buyer int thinking they were purchasing a Tamiya... I'm sure it was Marui's intention as there are no other obvious manufacturer logos/markings on the box.

Good point, I never noticed that. Sneaky Marui! But then again, lots of companies cloned Tamiya stuff; at least the Marui chassis engineering was totally different from Tamiya's.

[GoMachV]

Marui liked to copy the tamiya box art stylings and also sold some 1/32 cars that were even labelled as kyosho with a small "Marui" on the box in the right corner. I am not sure if they were licensed but I bet not!