Bill's Junk (Page 10 of 10)

After completing the track work I shifted my attention to my ongoing projects....While I was in Georgia I got a call from Mike Naber about some used slot cars for sale. A friend of his that used to race at Pelican Park wanted to sell all his cars and stuff. Mike set up and brokered the deal. After I was back home Mike shipped the cars up to me.

The intent of this purchase was to make some cars available to newer racers. A few days ago I started taking a closer look at my purchase. I picked out the chassis that looked the worst. This one has been run hard, and repaired more than once. After doing some extensive Dremel grinding to remove excess solder and what looks like bird poop, I gave it a closer inspection. One of the hinged side pans was totally locked up. Hoping it was just corrosion or crud, I fired up my tumbler and threw the chassis in. After a good 18 hours of tumbling the chassis was all nice and shiney but, the side pan was still locked up. So over to the work bench it went....

I don't sell anything to racers I don't feel good about. This Hanna NASCAR chassis (STR 258) is rough. Multiple repairs with poor soldering. I am not great when it comes to soldering, but these were worse than mine! I used a cut off wheel in a Dremel to cut open one side of the square tubing that makes up the hinge for the side pan. Then I used a small hammer and screw driver to open up the tubing so I could slide the pan off the steel rod of the hinge. Turns out solder had wicked up into the tubing (probably during a repair) which had locked up the pan. After I got it apart, I cut off the old square tubing (which I had totally mangled getting the thing apart). The edge of the pan was then filed flat and smooth again. I cut new pieces of square tubing, reassembled everything using light oil on the steel rod inside the square tubing. The light oil is to keep the solder from wicking into the hinge joint again. After all the parts were assembled and squared up on my jig, I soldered up the side pan. After soldering I cleaned everything up with soap and water. Success, both hinges now move freely! Tomorrow STR 258 will go back into the tumbler for the final cleaning.

Well, we'll see Doc. At least I'll have something that goes around the track! You know me, I don't like borrowing cars!

It looks like you have survived the trip in fine fashion.  Well done.

Always good to see what's going on across the river.

After its second trip through, chassis STR 258 came out of the tumbler today. It looks much better, and the chassis side pans and center section move freely! It was time to assemble it for testing. The test motor was an old Parma 16D, a little bit of a soft motor but, enough good for the initial testing.

The chassis performed well, even without any tuning or lead ballast added. The complete chassis with motor weighs in at 6.9 oz/196 grams. The front tires/wheels are .875" dia. X .500" wide (for those that don't like "O" rings). It is currently set up for 1/8" rear axle with bushings. The wheelbase is 4.55" and the chassis width is 2.65". This will be a good chassis for NASCAR (narrower bodies i.e. Thunderbird) or for an OSCAR legal Super Stock body. This one will be sold without a motor or rear tires (the new owner will probably want fresh parts anyway).

STR 103 came out of the tumbler this morning. One plus of putting a chassis through the tumbling process is; the process will reveal any weak solder joints or poor construction. Looks like I will be making a repair to this NASCAR chassis.

The previous owner made some small modifications to the front of the side pans, probably to make the chassis fit a specific body. The pans were also drilled for body mounting. It looks as though this chassis was raced a lot (must have been a good one!). There is evidence of quite a few repairs completed in the past!

STR 233 is SOLD!

This joint where the cross bar solders to the side pan hinge seems to be a weak point. It's a small piece of square tubing to solder the wire to.

Two chassis had the joint break and the side pans fall off from the tumbling process. The small piece of square tubing was missing when the chassis was pulled out of the tumbler.

This is what it looked like after the piece of square tubing was re-installed and re-soldered. This small piece of square tubing not only serves as part of the side pan hinge, it also provides a place to secure the cross bar that is part of the up stop for both side pans, and front to rear movement stop for both side pans. It also keeps the side pan from coming off. Bottom line is, it is an important part!