[Difflock]

Here's some shots of my next conversion project. Who knows, it may have a use as a swiffer cloth, track cleaning device? aBill......enjoy my friend.

I thought I'd call it PACHYDERM, after it's been suitably painted of course! PACHYDERM? ...Post-Apocalyptic Combine Harvester of Your Doom Engineered from Robust Machinery

Mark.

 

[taxi]

Diff you deserve an MBE for that!!

(Mad But Entertaining!)

Let us know how it turns out tho...

Rob

 

[Intergrali]

I have a trailer type thing here that will throw out hey bails, it needs a tow hook though, so I put on on an old scalex xr3i

 

[jonny s]

Not much chance of another `car` knocking you off with that baby!

 

[Difflock]

The combine has a tow bar (just below the hole in the back end)

Mark. MBE.

 

[GRAH1]

ANOUNCEMENT- DIFFLOCK TO HAVE LABOTOMY VERY SOON

 

[Difflock]

When are you sorting that slot hovercraft then GRAH1 , eh?

WHOOP WHOOOP DING DING DING ARROOOOGAHH!!

mARK.mBe

Dammit if we can't have some fun with unusual vehicles

 

[GRAH1]

shortly after Ive completed the subterainian airliner

 

[jonny s]

Your all bloody mad up there! Must be cos you Northern boys don`t get enough sunshine...lack of vitamins. Mad, quite mad you lot

 

[Difflock]

QUOTE (GRAH1 @ 9 Jul 2004, 12:45)shortly after Ive completed the subterainian airliner

Don't think of surfacing that in my fields!!

GET ORFF MOIE LAAAAANNNND!

OOH ARR

GET DOWN SHEP!

EE WORRR WORRYIN' MOIE SHEEP!

Sorry back to more serious discussion.... I think!!

 

[Intergrali]

coldest July since '87 yesterday! Had to spend allday inside so had to do something

 

[Mr-X]

Keep on it, this is so cool

(quote from the mercedes trike inventor, me)

 

[bwaminispeed]

QUOTE ANOUNCEMENT- DIFFLOCK TO HAVE LABOTOMY VERY SOON
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me

than to have a prefrontal labotomy.

 

[a Bill]

That is fantastic!

I'm speechless.

 

[McLaren]

You are going to converta Scalextric Nascar into a working slot car?

Brave man...

Lotus

 

[Difflock]

Well Lotus, I am the club nutter

Mark.

 

[a Bill]

I don't go to toy stores very often so I really don't know what's available and all those screaming little kids scare me. Sooo, I picked up the first 1/32nd scale toy I could find and beat feet out of there

I'm having trouble figuring out how to get the guide flag positioned securely. There is now a motor in there and two thin electrical wires hanging out the front where a guide flag should be. This is the toy. It looks much nicer in real life than it does in the picture. If I had been thinking, the digital camera on the shelf above me would have been a good idea to use

Initially I tried an Atlas 206 motor. Too wide. That led to trying an old Tyco S motor, remember those? Worm gear

Unfortunately I made the bracket completely wrong for mounting the driven gear on the axle

Sooo, I switched to a similar style ancient Tyco Pro or Riggens HO motor that had a standard shaped brass pinion. This worked well. In keeping with the "use up incredibly old slot car stuff" theme I then located an equally ancient stamped steel crown gear for the axle. Know what? I forgot to see what the overall gearing was

Well, I'm batting a thousand so far. Anyway, it's something like 6:32 or so. I was shooting for a low vehicle speed with a safe motor speed. The motor spins, the tires rotate, it'll work. Unfortunately the tires rotate a bit faster than I'd like at 6v but that's the breaks.

So I need to work on the guide flag for a while. Once there is a guide flag installed, the thing is ready to roll.

Some interesting things about this model (interesting to me anyway). The wheels and tires are not only big and made of a rubber like substance but they are ROUND. This is a push toy for a 3 year old and up kid that costs maybe $10 and the thing has round wheels and tires. I think Fly, Scalextric and a few other companies that crank out expensive toys could learn from Ertl. Another point is the rear axle, it's 1/8th inch so standard slot stuff works on it plus the axle is straight. The front wheels are steerable. I don't know if I can get the guide flag to steer the front wheels but it would be nice. The toy is held together with the exact same screws used to put your slot car together so you won't need any new tools to tear it down.

Any pictures of guide flags mounted on tall equipment would be appreciated. I have a few ideas but would like to see what others have done rather than reinvent the wheel.

 

[a Bill]

OK, I got a guide flag in there and it works fine. I also got steering to work. Steering doesn't move as much as it could but it's close enough.

What I ended up doing was drilling a 1/4" hole in the middle of the front differential case going from the bottom to the top. This let me put in a 1/4" diameter piece of brass tubing. Then I split the differential halves and put in a sort of ring lock so that the tubing couldn't drop down or raise up. Put the differential halves back together trapping the lock then sliding a Cox guide flag up into the tube from the bottom. Drilled and pinned the guide flag in place then shifted my attention to the top of the tube where it goes almost into the toy. Up there I drilled a hole through the tubing then soldered in a long skinny brass rivet. The end of which slips in between two pieces of molded in plastic on the trailing arm of the steering. This way when the guide flag turns in the slot for turns it twists the tube. The rivet sticks out of the tube horizontal to the ground going between those two pieces of plastic which kicks the steering in the same direction as the guide. Since the tubing is large enough in diameter I fed the skinny power wires down through it and out a hole drilled in the front of the tube just above the guide. From there it is soldered to the leading edge of the braid.

I took some rather sorry looking pictures but my ISP seems to be having trouble with their server that I upload to so I can't post them yet.

My only complaints about my work is that I should have done it faster and for less money

Nah, my only real problem is a rare one, for me anyway. The motor is too fast.

Oh well, can't win them all. I wanted it to move a little bit slower for more realistic speeds. That and the thing is pretty tall and skinny, cornering will be touchy if you go too fast. I'm still not sure how that hay bailer works. It keeps spitting bails of hay out when I move it

 

[a Bill]

My ISPs FTP server seems to be up now. This isn't a big as the combine but it really is 1/32nd and it really does exist

The pictures aren't too good but that's my fault. I never did learn how to operate one of those camera things.

One with the trailer attached...

One with a GT40 for comparison...

 

[derekaluk]

Now that is cool

How does it run??

Alan