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Hi all,

I am very new to vintage rc restorations and have acquired 2 vintage rc cars (1x marui hunter, 1x tamiya manta ray) from my dad and want to do a low buck restore and slight upgrade. The hunter is a runner that need a new motor and the tamiya has a motor and electronics but no other running gear so my question is do i put the electronics from the manta ray into the hunter or do i try and source all the missing parts and make them both runners.
pics will be uploaded when i get home.

Thanks Justin.

If you want a runner then the Manta Ray is a better choice as parts are easy to find and it's quite a solid car for running , the Hunter is a harder car to find parts for and not so robust , all the Marui cars have a well deserved reputation for being a bit fragile .

What Dadio said. Parts availability for Tamiya cars is much better than for Marui cars, and Marui cars all have numerous weak points making them very fragile. They're great resto projects, though!

Well, I fully agree with @Dadio and @Coelacanth said regarding the fact it is really easier to find parts for Tamiya cars compared to the Marui Hunter.
If you had only the Hunter, with some work it could be a runner, but don't expect it to be a solid piece of rc car.

Now, just to make sure you are aware and understand what you will face, the Hunter have some known weak points (I made a list, but I don't even think it is exhaustive, as I can only see what happened on few chassis that I could see or discuss about beside mines):

• idle gear is a potential issue, it wears fast and it is becoming very difficult to find replacement - and it is not mounted on ball bearings, which doesn't really help

• rear shock towers are very often breaking on those chassis. You'll need to reinforce them

• each mounting point for screw is potentially a failure point. If you have the original screws it will be just fine if no thread is damaged. If some are damaged it will directly add to the weak points

• the infamous oilless bearings which were delivered with the kit originally add to the weak points as they tend to eat the chassis and underside gearbox cover

• failure in setting the gear mesh will probably open room to damage the chassis at the iddle shaft mounting point, and as well turn to be a nightmare for the idle gear itself - which start to wear first, and then differential will also wear

• the rear bumper tend to break very easily, including some chassis damage in some cases

• front body mount fixation is another weak point

• and finally, while the front suspension seems to do just fine, I saw some chassis broken at the rear side of the front suspension mounts

Ultimately, it all depends about parts availability, what you have at hand, but if any of the existing components is dead or slightly damaged, it will be source of problem soon, and difficult to source. Now, that being said, it is possible with 3D printing to redesign parts, and even more, but prepare yourself to a long journey... And be aware that if you intend to make it a runner, it is going to be a complex task. And this, much more than for any Tamiya of any model (even for those which are known to be unreliable, even though for Tamiya, unreliable would be another league than the unreliable level for Marui).

I appreciate all the info I think ill go with the manta ray and have the hunter as a shelf queen as the old man painted the body shell in a 2 tone blue and silver metallic and would hate to have the chassis fail on me. Considering that all the electrical components have failed due to the age and poor storage of the car.