RC10 Team car restoration

[JohnE]

Like many people here I had a gold pan RC10 when I was a kid, there was a track in my town so I race a bit. I added some stuff to my car like wide front arms, a graphite chassis and an MIP transmission. I lost that car in a move, recently I have bought and restored a few vintage Tamiya and Kyosho cars but I always wanted a nice RC10.

I found this Team car for sale, it looked like it was in pretty good shape and had most of the parts but needed some cleaning. Here are some pictures of the ad.

My plan with this is to restore it to close to what I had but I also wanted to add some stuff to it and make it the car I wish I had back when I was kid.

[JohnE]

I didn't notice it in the ad but the car came with the box which was in pretty good shape. There were a few surprises inside spare parts wise but the big shocker was that it came with the instruction manual, the parts manual and a ROAR membership application.

It also had all the original parts bags, I thought I was the only person who kept those.

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

Hah! I loved the Big Johnson line of products! I only ever owned a bottle koozie from them but loved reading the t shirts.

[XLR8]

Looks like a diamond in the rough -- should clean up nicely.

When I build a NIB kit, I never throw anything away -- including the empty parts bags. All the trash goes back in the box. So I guess that makes three of us.

[coxbros1]

My plan with this is to restore it to close to what I had but I also wanted to add some stuff to it and make it the car I wish I had back when I was kid.

Then your gonna need a Le Mans motor!

.....and dont forget to vote for this and every Build of the Month. Polls arent open yet tho

[XLR8]

My plan with this is to restore it to close to what I had but I also wanted to add some stuff to it and make it the car I wish I had back when I was kid.

Then your gonna need a Le Mans motor!

Derek! You forgot to mention BOTM.

[coxbros1]

My plan with this is to restore it to close to what I had but I also wanted to add some stuff to it and make it the car I wish I had back when I was kid.

Then your gonna need a Le Mans motor!

Derek! You forgot to mention BOTM.

yup! i will edit it!

[JohnE]

I took the whole car apart and started cleaning the plastic parts and sorting out what screws and hardware was missing. Most of the stuff was there, I just needed to find some parts for the shocks.

First big project was to do some work on the chassis, I was out of the game when this car came out so I was happy to see that this chassis was black and not gold which made the cleaning up much easier. The bottom was pretty rough and it looks like this guy was driven on pavement for most of it's life. I sanded the bottom with a rotary sander with 220 grit paper which got most of the big scratches out. I left the inside and sides as is and just painted the bottom, It think it came out pretty good.

Here are some before and after pics.

[XLR8]

The chassis re-paint looks very good.

The scratches on the tub are fairly typical. I have some that are much worse. One of them has the aluminum worn paper-thin behind the transmission. I sometimes wonder if a previous owner ran the car without rear shocks.

I absolutely love to do what you are doing right now; find an old RC10 with potential, then rebuild it from ground up. It's a great way to spend a weekend.

Thank you and please continue to post your progress.

[JosephS]

I took the whole car apart and started cleaning the plastic parts and sorting out what screws and hardware was missing. Most of the stuff was there, I just needed to find some parts for the shocks.

First big project was to do some work on the chassis, I was out of the game when this car came out so I was happy to see that this chassis was black and not gold which made the cleaning up much easier. The bottom was pretty rough and it looks like this guy was driven on pavement for most of it's life. I sanded the bottom with a rotary sander with 220 grit paper which got most of the big scratches out. I left the inside and sides as is and just painted the bottom, It think it came out pretty good.

Here are some before and after pics.

That's looking nice. I am starting on my own team car restoration now as well. Let me know if you need help sourcing parts of if you find some great ones.

I tried going the aluminum black route and it simply didn't work out well enough even after a through cleaning in acetone and alcohol.

I think I am going to go for this route for my runners
https://www.xpel.com/ARMOR-Protection-Film

I keep fighting the urge to a 'perfect' car and just get the parts I need to make a solid runner.

I can't wait to see how the full build goes

[JohnE]

Not sure if people have heard about this trick but I wanted to try and brighten the white parts as much as possible. I heard about people soaking the parts in Hydrogen Peroxide an letting them sit in the sun for a day or so. I did some research and it sounded I needed to step it up a bit from the normal stuff you buy at CVS. I found a bottle of this stuff on Amazon which is 8%, I think the CVS stuff is around 4 o 5%.

Put the parts in a mason jar, filled it up and let it sit i the sun for a day. I am pretty impressed with the results, the white really came back. Here is a picture of a non-treated part next to a rear hub carrier which I baked for a day. The lighting isn't the best but pretty much all of the yellow is gone.

[juicedcoupe]

Be sure to rehydrate the nylon in water.

[JohnE]

Skipped this picture of the nose plate after it was painted.

I decided to put stainless steel screws in this car since most of the ones on it were pretty rusty, plus I always thought they look really cool. The screw kit I bought came with stainless steel versions of the bigger screws that hold the suspension mounts on but they did sit total flush like the aluminum ones do so I left them in.

[JohnE]

Started to put the front end together, the white parts came out really well and look much better in these pictures.

I added some Lunsford retro titanium turnbuckles and found some steering arms from the world car re-release that look pretty good. The car I had when I was a kid had yellow A&L steering arms so this is close but the white looks way better. All the shock mounting hardware was there and the front shock tower was in pretty good shape. It had some paint marks on the edges from who knows what but they sanded out fine. I kept the stock ball studs, they were a little rusty but cleaned up ok with WD-40.

[JohnE]

Started to put the rear end together. The transmission was in pretty good shape but I took everything apart, put some oil on the bearings and rebuilt the diff. The rear shock tower was pretty beat up so I bought a new one.

I like the look of the stainless steel screws.