What's Andy's Story

[vintage AE]

I know there is a lot of Team Associated history buffs here, so I ask the question, what is Andy's story?

What's so different in the Andy's arms? Also, I have seen the rare Andy's chassis, what's up with that too?

[Mr. ED]

I don't know much on this subject but the first product I learned about was their set of wide arms for the ultima front. They were a must have to make the car far more stable.
The succes of the arms I guess comes from the good material choice: glass inforced nylon which makes them very crash resistant: kinda like the RPM stuff still today.
Kyosho used this kind of material already for their arms before and many other brands followed so Andy's stopped offering them.

[RichieRich]

I don't know much about Andy's parts but I do have a rather interesting story. Back in the late 80s, my cousin and I discovered that Andy had his shop out in San Dimas. It was blocks away from grandma's house. So, we rode our bikes down there on a weekend and the place was closed. Duh. We went around back and found a dumpster full of lexan bodies. SCORE!

Too bad all the bodies were sliced in half. Anyways, we had tons of scrap lexan to make wings, etc for a while. I used to go to Pegasus Hobbies and talk to this guy named Andy all the time. It took me a while to put 2 and 2 together and realize it was the Andy. Yeah, I can be a little slow.

[Twiceblown351]

Andy's part were the frist realy good chassis part out there. Other the the stock parts. A-arm bumpers. shock towers. And made one hell of a chassis. Them RPM came about. But i don't think he could keep up he was a little shop. And I think RPM took he over just by how fast they could make the parts..

[markt311]

I thought Andy's was somehow connected with S&K also. When I started racing my Team car in 92ish you had to have Andy's arms on your car, we had an indoor track with a large pole in the middle and their arms were the only way to survive a "BOING" sound when you hit that thing. I think he came down to San Diego one time when we had a big race. All the big names were there Tyree from Novak, Mark Pavidas, Brian Kinwald, Gary Kyes, Barry Baker, wish I could find my pictures from that race

[vintage AE]

I am glad I asked. I hope there are more stories to come. From a technical stand point, I'm getting that they are stronger but,... are the longer, lighter, have any affect on the wheelbase

I have seen the Andys wide arms on ebay, are they the equivalent length as the worlds Who would have thought someone would have so many questions on RC arms almost decades after the fact

[vintage AE]

Oh yeah, I forgot...I love your signature Mark! LMAO when I seen that posted!

[scr8p]

the andy's wide arms are the same length as the stock widetrack rc10 arms. the andy's short oval arms are the same length as the short stock rc10 arms. the andy's pro race arms are the same length as the rpm worlds arms. but they're narrower where they mount at the bulkhead.

[RER40]

I know there is a lot of Team Associated history buffs here, so I ask the question, what is Andy's story?

What's so different in the Andy's arms? Also, I have seen the rare Andy's chassis, what's up with that too?

Andy's came about back in the day, as many other small manufacturers of hop-up parts, more out of neccessity than anything else.

Back then the goldtub RC10's and Ultima's suspension arms were a bit of a problem.
The Kyosho ones were fragile and would break easily. The Associated nylon of the era was very flexible (good idea in premise, they were bulletproof), and the design of the stock a-arm would trap dirt on top of the arm since they weren't smooth. While we would trim some of the extra material away from or drill holes in the rear AE arms, and could get away with it since they were physically larger, there really wasn't anything we could do to the front arms because they were so small (and would easily bend/deform out of shape and give you a bad caster angle after hitting something because the nylon would flex so easily if you cut on them at all). This was also the era when people hit upon the idea of boiling parts, to stiffen up the AE nylon parts, and about the same time we also figured out that we could custom-dye our nylon parts for the custom look.... but that's another story.

So anyway... Andy's came out with their original "narrow" front a-arms (which were the same width as the stock ones). Smooth on top, not as flexible of nylon, and stronger than the stockers.
This was quite a while before any "worlds" or team cars were on the market. You have to remember, back in the day the cars were pretty terrible/minimalistic out of the box - so not only did you have to spend hours assembling your new rig after purchasing it, you also had to plunk down extra dollars for all the goodies you'd need for it if you were going racing.

And then, after the release of the original JRX2 (maybe second gen, memory's failing me exactly when) - which was designed around the new wider IFMAR and ROAR specs - Andy's released the widetrack a-arms to keep the goldtub cars (and anybody that had converted to a Composite Craft CF chassis) on a level playing field.

I do remember that for a while it caused guys to carry a complete second front end for the RC-10s in their pitbox - widetrack for open tracks, and narrow-track for tight tracks - and they would switch back and forth between rounds.


I used to luv dropping by the hobby shop back then, just to have the guy working behind the counter give me the wink and ask, "so have you seen these?" and plop that latest release from Andy's, or BRP, or Hot Trick, or Losi (that's how they got in the biz), or Thorp, or A&E, or Dan's, or any other of a number of manufacturers that made parts to replace some of the crappy "stock" parts that came on all the cars.
And back then it was always easy to spot the new guy in the pits, even the Team drivers used prototype or other off-brand parts, because they were the one that had it assembled in "out of the box" status and needed advice on getting it up to race-ready status.

Oh, the good old days.

[vintage AE]

i have been thinking of building a rc10 with a graphite chassis and andy's wide arms, with many surprises thrown in. I should probably finish the project I have already started, but I just cant stay off ebay.

I found these front wide arms NIP, is this a good deal or what
http://cgi.ebay.ca/NIB-Andys-RC-10-Wide-Track-Front-Arms-Very-Rare-RC10_W0QQitemZ260377550360QQcmdZViewItemQQptZRadio_Control_Parts_Accessories?hash=item260377550360&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

[RER40]

i have been thinking of building a rc10 with a graphite chassis and andy's wide arms, with many surprises thrown in. I should probably finish the project I have already started, but I just cant stay off ebay.

I found these front wide arms NIP, is this a good deal or what
http://cgi.ebay.ca/NIB-Andys-RC-10-Wide-Track-Front-Arms-Very-Rare-RC10_W0QQitemZ260377550360QQcmdZViewItemQQptZRadio_Control_Parts_Accessories?hash=item260377550360&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

I don't know what's worse - whether he wants $85 for them, or the 21 bucks he wants for shipping. I forgot to look and see if his shipping location was Mars.

[vintage AE]

the andy's wide arms are the same length as the stock widetrack rc10 arms. the andy's short oval arms are the same length as the short stock rc10 arms. the andy's pro race arms are the same length as the rpm worlds arms. but they're narrower where they mount at the bulkhead.

I did notice an Andy's pro chassis that uses the pro race arms...is there something that can be used instead of the Andy's front bulkhead with these arms?

[scr8p]

the mounting points are the same, but the andy's bulkhead is narrower than a 10t bulkhead where the a-arm attaches.

[vintage AE]

hey, thanks scr8p

i edited the RC10T part from the post to get more options for a reply, but good to know about the RC10T bulkhead...I'll keep it in mind like the rest of my rc10 visions

[vintage AE]

I noticed a thread posted about a year ago "RC10 andy's parts" that had a photo of these different arms all together, nice!
scr8p, was that your andy's car you posted on there?? and if so do you have any more photos of it that you could post on here? I'm just doing some research, so I'm not wasting money on parts when it comes time to gather parts.