| I missed Tjets the "first time around". Oh, I saw them at my buddies' houses when racing slot cars as a kid, but was far more interested in my TycoPro cars and the accursed AFX cars that my pal Chris used to slaughter us with. Once I determined to re-investigate these multi-geared wonders, I began tinkering with gear lapping and axle polishing, right off the bat. Soon, corrupted by online suggestions that I try out some magnets from the Super II car in my Tjet, I was playing with much faster cars. I discovered the Mean Green armature, and put a few of those in my AFX cars and a Tjet or two. Darn if these cars didn't get to be pretty fast and fun, so I began to learn about heat after several long driving sessions. Then, Kevin Barnsdale, an online friend from the Ohio/Kentucky border region, mentioned a Tjet he'd modified to address heat and weight issues. After seeing a photo of Kevin's hillbilly modified, I got it in my head to create some havoc with a Tjet chassis I had decided to mount some AFX "Cragar" hubs on. Kevin had cut AFX-style "windows" in the sides of his motor box, and made some drastic cuts to the gear plate, in order to let air in and lower the Center of Gravity ("cg") on his car. This fit the bill for my car perfectly: I wanted to run the AF/X hubs on a Tjet with a Johnny Lighting Corvette Grandsport Body on top of it. The smallest tires I could come up with for the AFX rear hubs were Supertires .474A's and, combined with the large front hubs, this raised the ride height quite a bit on the car - so much so that I had to fabricate a longer guide pin, using a track nail and some Black Max epoxy, and rebend the BSRT ski shoes to reach the track!
[photo:1] I'd mounted a red-wire AFX armature onto the Tjet's gear plate, and allocated some Thunderbrushes and Super II magnets for the car. I knew this car would heat up, and it certainly was tall! So, I crudely hacked some holes in the side of my Tjet, to vent air as the armature spun around, by plunging a small Dremel burr bit through the side of the chassis. In one of these photos, you can see the hack-job I did on the side vents, as well as the re-bend on the ski shoes. Next, I "went to town" on the gear plate, using a large grinding wheel and my ever-present Dremel. My theory was to remove as much material as I could without making the armature "wobbly" from lack of support. I'll leave it to the esteemed reader to determine from the overhead photo whether I went too far… It does run nicely!
[photos: 2/3] Finally, I lapped in all my gears with Mother's polish and mounted the JL body on the car. The Grandsport body looks good with a wide-track car under it and, as it's shown here, the car runs quite nicely. Downright "cool" as a matter of fact
[photo: 4 ] | |
