Competing with the Screamer
by Jim Gase
Well, everyone else is telling how they do things, so, I thought I would try telling what I'm up to.
First, I took a Johnny Lightning Thunderjet 500 Ford Fairlane and stripped the paint. The stripping was accomplished with Simple Green diluted and placed in a sonic cleaner. A few hours later and there was a bare body. I then repainted it with automotive paint. It's a metallic maroon. It's actually touch-up paint from when my car was repaired due to hail damage. I used an airbrush to apply the paint.
Next, is the chassis. Obviously I have quite a few parts lying around. I started with a bare T-jet chassis. I then put standard rims up front and AJ's on the rear. I pulled out a gear plate and installed a mean green and dragster armature on two differeent cars. The mean green had standard gearing and the drag chassis had tuff-one gearing. (I hear the drag arm has more torque and the Mean Green has more speed.) I added JB's Thunderbrushes to both of them. I added Super II magnets and assembled the car. I put Wild Ones p/u shoes on the bottom.
I don't have a track set up yet, so, I don't know what works and what doesn't yet. I'll let you know when I do. After I got a few Super II chassis, I noticed the brush tubes with magna-traction brushes and springs. I plan to do that next.
The Quadralam armature was my next venture. I popped out the arm shaft and put it in my lathe. After machining off the pinion gear, I put it in a chassis. I noticed, you don't want to take too much off the shaft, toward the arm. It needs something to wear against to keep the arm from rubbing on the gear plate. I tried it again and it came out really well. I need to take some off the bottom next time because I had to cut a chamfer on the bottom of the chassis to clear the step on the shaft. It runs pretty well but I need to break it in a little more.
Well, until the next modification.....
Keep the articles coming, I'm sure there's plenty of people who want to save time by learing from others mistakes. Thanks to all who have contributed.