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The NASTE Forum → Posts by wb0s
Paul Gage is making urethane tires to fit the Parma Womp cars. For $8.99 you get a total of four rear tires. Again you must add shipping charges to your cost, but it is still a great deal. And these tires last almost forever!
For this car I am also installing a seven tooth pinion gear. Pinion gears cost .90 cents for a pair at Professor Motor.
For this project what I am mainly interested in is the chassis and running gear, axles, guide flag, wheels, crown gear, and hardware. I will be replacing the motor with one more suited for use at TooBad Motorplex with a little less power and torque than a 16D. I am replacing the 16D with Professor Motor's version of the Fox 10. These motors sell for $7.50, to which you must add shipping costs. I usually try to order enough parts for free shipping, or at least be able to spread the shipping costs out over a number of items.
Here's an attempt to build a cheap slot car for racing here at TooBad Motorplex. For this car I will be starting with a Parma 1/32 car I picked up somehwere along the line in my many years of collecting slot car stuff. To get started, here's my work bench in its current stage of unorganized mess. It's a wonder I can get anything built in this mess!
This particular Womp started out as a cherry Corvette, complete with a nicely done interior. Somebody did a nice job on this car!
Probably a better candidate for a project like this would be something more along these lines. This Womp would probably have a much lower purchase price because it is pretty well BEAT!
As a track owner and occasional NASTE race host, I am always looking for CHEAP, or should I say inexpensive slot cars. I have two primary objectives when I introduce a new class for racing here at TooBad Motorplex, or to introduce the NASTE IROC racers to a new type of slot car; 1. low cost to purchase or build, 2. simple rules for modifications. There was a time I could scratch build cars pretty cheap. I built and sold the original NASTE Chassis cars using Radioshack motors that were a mere $3.49 each, and rubber rear tires that were $1.50 a pair. I sold the complete brass chassis cars for $15.00 less bodies. Racers were able to purchase new model kits for bosies for $5.00 to $8.00 on sale at that time. The total cost of a car was approximately $23.00, less paint of course.
That was almost 20 years ago, and I am now of the opinion there are NO cheap slot cars to be built anymore! Now days just the cost of the running gear, axles, gears, guide flag, and wheels will cost you at least $15.00. That doesn't even include the cost of the brass, which is substantially more expensive now days! What I have learned over the past few years is; the best way to build a cheap car, is to start with a complete cheap car!
There are many potential cheap project cars to start with. Mainly what I look for in a potential project car is; good parts for a chassis, or a nice useable body. Good candidates that can be picked up cheap are the Parma and Champion RTR cars, such as 1/32 Womps and 1/24 Flexi's. If you can buy used cars in a large lot it will reduce the cost per car even more. If that requires more initial cash outlay than you want look for a partner or partners to divide the lot with. I shoot for an initial car cost of $20 or less.
Mitch - The first Scalextric F1 Eagle I had I only spent about 20 minutes prepping for race duty. Added some weight and did a little tire sanding on the Luff's urethane tires. That car was awesome! But then I traded it off. Big mistake. I purchased a replacement car and spent a few hours prepping it. Took time to do a better job of truing the rear tires and wheels. Glued in the rear axle bushings and performed the "super glue trick' to improve the axle to bushing tolerances. The car ran and handled like CRAP! So I ordered a new lower chassis and a new rear axle/wheel assembly. This time I'll just throw it together again and not over-think and try to "better-engineer" the thing!
Goose - Just got done looking around for Classic wheels. I did not find any! I thought for sure I probably had a bunch, but I sold a couple lots of 1/24 parts I didn't want awhile back on Ebay. The Classic wheels I had were probably in one of those lots because I never liked them! Sorry!
Thanks Mitch. I'm hoping mine will be here this week. We aren't racing the vintage F1s this week so I have some time.
Slow. Just waitin' on tires..........
My interest in collections is quite diverse............
Hey Mitch, I did some research trying to find that issue of Life Magazine you were talking about with the article on slot car racing. I couldn't find any slot car articles in any Life magazines. I did however find out Saturday Eveneing Post had an article about slot cars. I think the edition was December of 1963? Could that have been the magazine?
Great information guys! Thanks!
Here at TooBad Motorplex we have been installing Paul Gage urethane tires on most all of our cars. These tires seem to work very well in all conditions and temperatures. They give excellent traction and wear does not seem to be an issue even on the fairly rough TooBad track surface. One question that did come up concerned the longevity of the tires in regards to shelf life or, will they deteriorate or breakdown over time?
Gary Goose Gosset posed that question to Paul Gage in an email, and here's the response he received from Paul:
Hi Guys, I still have the first batch of 8 year old tires I made. Bags and bags over the years, on 500 cars of my own, in boxes, out of boxes, in the deep freezer, in the desert sun. The only time I have found any decay is when the XPG's were glued on the rim with too much glue. This is with either the CA (Crazy Glue types)or Methacrylates (Nail polish) as adhesives. They soften and turn yellow, and it's only rarely, so I cannot eliminate that it was an ingredients or production issue. I have a Slot.it 962 with 8 year old XPG's glued on, ran it the other day. For anything other than a race unit I no longer glue them on, and I use the Soft (A40) tires. I use the Soft on all my shelf queens, some are in the box some in the open no problems.
My buddy Dave has his track in his heated uninsulated garage. It gets to 40 below here so when its 5 or 10 below we've popped out to the garage and run a few laps without turning on the heaters. I wish my 1:1 car's tires would be that soft at 40 below!
To this day I still come across local cars that had urethanes on them from years before they were introduced to me. From all the research I have done on the local slot car history I estimate they were making urethane here as early as '98 or '99.
Like I said the only bad tires were directly linked to me going crazy with the glue! But worry not, I'll be around for a while, you can get more! I'm also in the process of searching for an apprentice to take over when all I want to do is play with slot cars or hunt 50" musky!
The XPG casts into a mean 1/2 lb Bull Dog, if you do any fishing, tougher than the originals!
I like that idea Goose! Remind me at the next race and I'll start taking pictures!
Very cool stuff Rico, and nice find! What a honey!!!
That would be cool Goose! Maybe we could run them at maybe 8 or 9 volts and not do any damage? It wouldn't take much to break those mirrors and bumpers off Rico's Corvair!!! We would still have to race like gentlemen...................Ooh, not sure I have that gene in me.........
Yes it did! Too bad (no pun intended) those are so rare, we could do an IROCORVAIR!!!!
List updated from February 5, '15 race.
Rico Locati brought out his vintage Corvair for a few parade laps.
The Goose returned to Odd Thursday Night Racing with new hardware after the devastating crash of his Monogram Chaparral at the last race.
The view most racers saw of Goose's Strombecker Ford J.
February 5, it was an odd Odd Thursday Night of racing. It seemed like it was the first time I had tried to run a race using the new race software. I felt disorganized and like I was bumbling through the whole race. My driving wasn't much better! BUT, thanks to Amy Fields, who got us back on track with her outstanding computer skills we made it through the race! THANK YOU AMY!!!!
Goose took the win in the Classic Sports Car Class, with Mitch and Greg in a tie for second. Great run Mitch! Goose was also on the top of the podium for the Vintage F1 race with Byan Trachsel just one lap behind in the second spot. In the BRM Porsche 962 race the Goose again led the way to the finish, this time with Rico following in second. A new racer, Al Christensen brought out some great old KTM powered vintage cars for Over 50 Class. But it was the Goose's night as he won the Over 50 Class making for a clean sweep of the night! Rico was in hot pursuit with the Gold Finger Brutus Corvette, but he just couldn't quite catch that beautiful Strombecker Ford J car of Goose's!
The results:
Classic Sports Car:
1st Goose Gossett 50.0 laps
2nd tie Mitch Brooks 48.9
2nd tie Greg Petrolati 48.9
4th Rico Locati 48.7 - 9.996 Fastest Lap of the Race
5th Bryan Trachsel 47.6
6th tie Terry Abbott 47.4
6th tie John Fisher 47.4
8th Jeff Fields 46.1
9th Howie Howard 45.6
10th Bill Bostic 44.1
11th Amy Fields 42.3
12th Glenn Heath 42.1
13th Al Christensen 41.5
Vintage F1:
1st Gary Goose Gossett 52.3 laps - 9.539 Fastest Lap of the Race (no trac. mag.)
2nd Bryan Trachsel 51.2
3rd Greg Petrolati 49.2
4th Cailin Dunbar 48.0
5th Bill Bostic 47.1
6th Mitch Brooks 43.9
7th Amy Fields 43.6 - 9.405 Fastest Lap of the Race (w/trac. mag.)
8th Rico Locati 43.2
9th Jeff Fields 41.5
10th Glenn Heath 40.9
11th John Fisher 40.4
12th Al Christensen 34.7
BRM Porshe 962 Class:
1st Goose Gossett 59.6 laps - 8.480 Fastest Lap of the Race
2nd Rico Locati 57.1
3rd Bill Bostic 55.9
4th Glenn Heath 53.1
5th Jeff Fields 48.0
6th Mitch Brooks 46.3
7th Amy Fields 43.7
8th Al Christensen 42.4
Over 50 Class:
1st Gary Goose Gossett 50.8 laps
2nd Rico Locati 50.1 - 9.872 Fastest Lap of the Race
3rd Bill Bostic 45.3
4th Al Christensen 40.5
5th Mitch Brooks 39.7
6th Glenn Heath 35.6
Kevin Raper is at it again! Check out his newest board car:
Monte & Victoria, I had a great time racing at your place today! Thank you guys for another excellent event!
It's a sad thing when you can't even pull out a win with an illegal motor that's a good 4,000 RPM over everybody else's!!!!
We've missed you Chris, and it's very good to see you back on Odd Thursdays! Now if we could just get you to slow down a little..........maybe a little rum-in-the-coffee-pre-race-tune-up????
Too bad we didn't get your Chaparral crash on video Goose!
Monte pointed out to me that the pictures I took with your Chaparral in it are the last images of the car in its perfect original condition!
So here it is again just for you!
I like the vintage controller idea Monte! I have a few choices there!
And to be honest.......I'm really not sure how many vintage chassis I have.....if you count the scratchbuilt ones in with the production type, probably quite a few....if you separate them out, not as many..............but probably still quite a few!
The NASTE Forum → Posts by wb0s
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