This is why I can’t have nice things...
Ahhh better now.
Had a bit of a bow in the deck. Now flat again and no “tweak”. The nose is slightly skewed but I’m not stressed that much - will clamp it to even out
Sorted into metal parts (the compartment box), screws and plastics.
Diffs are in mint condition and everything else is just dried out lubricant stopping everything else.
Will have to soak in Orange Agent to break it down and then scrub like crazy.
Fuel tank is no longer gummy on the inside
Motor freed right up through day of soaking in WD40.
So now I need screws, bearings, driveshaft and balls and some time to assemble.
Mixed day of activity. Got a call from Ultimate Action Hobbies down in Victoria, sorry but we actually don’t have those 7.8mm balls, but we think later generation Inferno ones may work for you. The later ones are flanged on one end so in principle will work. So they’re sending those instead as Kyosho has discontinued the 92846 round 7.8mm balls I need.
That call then triggered an order direct from Japan for the right balls, plus some other bits.
Before I spent more money I went out to the garage and started the cleaning process of the TR15 parts.
All the plastics soak in organic degreaser (Orange Agent) then get scrubbed. They’re lightly dried and now in a sealed container coated with plastic treatment.
Metal parts get the same initial was process then end up in a WD40 bath to break down lingering grease. I use a bit of steel wool to break up the corrosion on the black oxide finish.
I’ll do the same for the screws, but only after I bin the chewed out ones. They’re just going to be spares as this is getting all new stainless hardware.
I then switched attention to the motor.
The Kyosho GS motors all use a one way bearing that’s completely unique their type, they’re had to find and horrendously expensive - we are talking about AUD60 delivered in most cases.
My two GS11R’s bearings were OK thankfully, one recovering after a soaking in solvent and WD40 and the other being “like new”.
The gummed up GS15R from the TR15 though delivered my first outright failed unit. Although I could try to clean it up I decided to test a theory.
Theory was that the bearing was a very common HF0612 one-way pressed into the special Kyosho sleeve. I used some spacers I had from a 1:1 project and a nut driver as a drift in the bench vice as a ghetto press. After a pretty big “crack” it pressed straight out.
Time to order a few plain HF0612 one-ways (they’re about $2-3 each) .
Very happy with this outcome and scavenged the one-way and a few other bits from one of the GS11R’s to get the now ungummed GS15R assembled.