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OK, I confess I know nothing about these.

Last night somebody contacted me and said they had an unusual MG motor they had never seen before. As some of you are aware I am a bit of an MG fan and have amassed quite the collection, having been sponsored by them bitd.

Mick Goddard (MG) was famous in UK slot car racing circles before branching out into the RC world in the late 70's.

This motor is a black end bell Igarashi. Looking at some old MRP adverts I see this black endbell version was around in 1981. if anybody has more dating info them please feel free to correct me!

I only really started researching these in the past 12hours as they are a bit before my time in RC - I am surprised how much info is out there on this and the black art of tuning them.

The motor has an MG label I have never seen before, in fact the label is in much better condition that the coating on the can itself! Endbell looks mint though.

The can has been drilled on either side for air venting, along with two holes in the endbell itself as well as screws added to locate the endbell itself. It has also been machined to take ball bearings instead of bushings.

Inside, the armature appears handwound with thicker, heavily varnished wires than what I has seen looking at pictures on the 'stock' 35T versions of these. It has been drilled for balancing.

I called Mick Goddard himself earlier today to talk about this motor and he said he thought it sounded like one of his 'Magnum Originals'... he named his modifieds Magnum throughout his motor building days.

He told me to look out for soldering on the tabs which would indicate that he had rewound it, which appears to be the case.

He also said he toyed with alternative brushes but I cannot comment on this. It looks pretty standard to me in that area apart from the vent holes, but I have sent him some pictures for his comments.

Now i have purchased the motor the can will go off for a zapp (I have access to the original MG zapper) and the armature will be skimmed and inductance tested to determine the wind. It is obviously a Single though.

I never expected to see a modified MG Igarashi as i thought these were pretty much exclusively US modified motors at that time. A rare beast indeed.

A few pictures, as found:-

Quick update following an email reply from Mick Goddard (MG) late last night.

He confirmed that this was indeed one of his early Igarashi modifieds and that it was most likely an early trial of either an 18 or 20 Single using 0.8mm gauge wire. He was only really building Single winds at that time.

He also said he drilled the can and endbell vent holes himself for cooling purposes (as expected really), as well as adding the ball bearings at either end.

OK, quick update on this, which is turning into a bit of a fascinating research project for me.

After a little digging it turns out that at the 1983 1/12th Euro's there were 6 drivers using Igarashi MG's. Andy Dodson was running 28 Single and was first home but a penalty dropped him to fourth place, so they obviously performed well even back then.

My MG has now been stripped and serviced. The comm only had very light wear so a tiny skim and it was back looking fresh. An inductance test showed it to be a 26Single, which I suppose that that time would have been a hot motor. The wire thickness is fairly significant, more so than I was really expecting, especially for a 26. It is impossible to tell whether the flat for the pinion was already there or was ground on (I have read of early Reedy arms having the flat ground so tried to check). Magnets were bang on central, so just had a zap.
The bearings are smaller than what i consider standard also. They looked like flanged but they are in fact 1/8 id 3/8 od 7/64 wide.
One is pretty shot so ideally needs replacing. Anybody have any ideas where to source such a bearing?

I am also looking for hard evidence as to when the black endbell Igarashi motors first appeared. Anybody help with that? I have an MRP advert from 1981 with them on so far....

The 1983 Euro MG's had a gold MG label on them, and my motor label pre-dates those.

Cool motor, never seen one before.

I normally look for bearings here: https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/p155962/SR26ZZW10-Budget-Metal-Shielded-Imperial-Miniature-Stainless-Steel-Deep-Groove-Ball-Bearing-1/8x3/8x7/64-inch/product_info.html

Cool link - thanks for the bearing info. Checking it out now.

I am spending time trying to gather info on these, helped out a lot by a guy in the UK who has a wealth of information on pretty much everything RC.

He posted this for me earlier today:-

Thanks again for the bearing link winner_evo.... they had the correct and somewhat usual size in stock and I have just ordered a pair

What is also interesting is that I have got hold of the tech sheet from the '83 Euro Champs that the above MG Igarashi powered 'C' car was entered in.


In a rather random coincidence, I am friends with Jimmy Davis who lives very locally to me, and about 18months ago he sold me a pair of early Yokomo-based Reedy motors which he informed me he and his brother Wayne used at the very same '83 1/12th Euro Champs. I didn't really take too much interest in them at the time, and popped them onto my shelf display, but looking again now it appears as though I have the two actual motors listed in the tech sheet. They are both very early Reedy motors with the Erdinger Associated addy on the label, and one actually has the '83 meeting sticker still on it. It will now be interesting to open these up and confirm that the windings match those in the tech sheet, and also to see how they compare in performance with the MG Igarashi in this thread. An interesting transitional period in RC motor development.

Well thanks to winner_evo the new bearings arrived and were a bang on fit.
Happy days, so I just thought I would round this post off with the rebuild details. Once stripped the brushes actually looked pretty good, and we did not want to mess with the standard set up too much, so everything was just cleaned, the brushes were left to soak overnight in comm drops, and then with the armature freshly skimmed it all went back together again, with the new bearings snugly in place.

Being a higher wind than I am generally used to as a 26Single I wasn't really expecting too much as far as max revs goes, and secretly just hoped it might be comparable to a decent 27T standard (stock) motor.

This turned out to be the case, with max revs on the Shinwa showing at 21,500rpm, with an amp draw of just 1.4amps.

It was the torque which surprised me though, showing 1.75kg/cm which is by far the highest we have seen out of any of my motors which have been rebuilt. In fact, it snapped the cable on the internal workings of the Torque Checker which then initiated a hunt for a replacement cable before the final reading could be taken.

Another recent discovery, after much digging and asking a friend with an old mag stash (ohhh MATRON!), the following advert has also been uncovered from a March '83 advert:-
I think the 'Magnum O B/Race' description sounds spot on and might just be the description for this motor which I have been looking for. It also states 4wd applications as well as 'Rough Rider'...

I have a nice original Sand Scorcher awaiting restoration so i would really like to find a way of fitting this into it if I can