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VINTAGE ADS
        This Tamiya Fox wasn't exactly a purchase. You see this little warrior had given many years of service and countless laps on the local track to it's original owner Chris. As with all buggies this Fox had finally been given a long deserved rest in a box, and was forgotten for a time. After a while Chris wanted this buggy to have a good home so he gave it to me here Vintage RC Web. Below are pictures of what the buggy looked like after sorting out all the bits and pieces. As you can see there are no front wheels or tires. Fortunately I have a beat up pair that I got in with a bunch of parts not too long ago. Chris tells me that most, if not all of the buggy is here. I can already tell that I'm going to have some important spares!

        
        Here are the fruits of hours of cleaning, sorting and assembling. The thing I was most worried about in taking on this restoration was missing parts. As you can see almost all of the original parts were there. The only parts that were missing were a tie rod, wheel lock hubs and a servo horn adapter. I did put on a set of non Tamiya tires on it just to have rubber on the rims for now.
        This being my first Tamiya restoration I wasn't sure what to expect. It was quite different from the Kyosho kits I was used to. It was just as much fun with what seemed like more small parts.  I did have to make a repair to the body. As you can see by the pictures in the above section, the rear wing mount was completely broken off of the body. I used some scrap from a parts tree and some tire glue to put it back. This being a runner body I think this will be very strong and very hard to see.
        The paint would be a much more difficult to remove on this one. When I started to use my usual brake fluid technique, I realized that this would not work at all. As not to destroy the body like I did using thinner on my Optima Mid, I went in a new direction. I took a trip to the hobby shop to find a solution. One of my readers had mentioned how Nitro Methane fuel softened paint. I asked what % would be the hardest on paint. They told me the higher the % of Nitro the faster it would soften paint. I bought the highest they had, 33% and headed back to the lab. This stuff worked like a champ! I was so happy to see what seemed like a permanent paint job wash away with a cotton ball.
The finish is comming soon!