My Dad’s friend had this old Tamiya Mad Fighter in his loft that was destined for the bin. I couldn’t say no to getting a hold of it to bring it back to life as I had one as a kid.
As you can see – the poor thing was absolutely caked in dust, the tyres were well past the point of usability, all the springs had gone rusty and there were no electrics barring a old steering servo.
Not evident from the pictures is that one of the shock absorbers was broken and the dust cover for the motor and gearbox was missing along with its screws.
The first thing to do was wipe everything down with cleaning wipes to get rid of the worst of the dirt.
Here’s that broken shock absorber. Aftermarket oil filled shock absorbers are available for these, and are probably a sensible purchase, but the standard shock absorber bits are readily available (albeit for the DT-02) and were much cheaper. So I opted to rebuild the standard ones.
This is where I got the standard parts from:
If you are restoring one and have any missing bits, a copy of the manual is available online and that contains all the Tamiya part numbers (barring the tyres. The rear ones are 53059.)
The manual can be found here https://d7z22c0gz59ng.cloudfront.net/cms/japan/download/rcmanual/dt01.pdf
I also managed to find the missing motor dust cover from googling the part number. That can be found here: https://ttpmodels.com/products/tamiya-58184-fighter-buggy-rx-madbull-dt01-9335230-19335230-0555099-c-parts-nip?srsltid=AfmBOor1RT1gEzOmyQRywIAmcnGiMIiq0NqpJK70_onAEz7XABut1t4b
Whilst waiting for the bits to arrive I stripped all the plastic off of the chassis that would have been used to house the original mechanical speed controller. That should hopefully save a little weight!
I also cleaned the worst of the corrosion from the springs. Here’s a before pic of one:
Between then and now I’ve managed to lose the ‘after’ pic with the spring off the car. Here it is refitted.
I used WD40 on a cloth and wiped around the spring to get rid of the worst of the surface corrosion, then a bit of 800 grit sandpaper to get the more stubborn bits off.
The body was a bit of a sticking point. It had taken a really good battering over the course of its life. There was damage on the wing and a couple of the decals were torn or missing.
I also really wasn’t a fan of the plasticky yellow so I knew I wanted to repaint it but I wasn’t sure on how and what livery to do. Then I struck gold and found a New Old Stock decal sheet. So the respray was on!
I sprayed the body white (which really didn’t want to cover over the yellow, so I sprayed it grey primer, then white primer, then white top coat) and brush painted the cage work at the back Vallejo Gun Metal.
(And another without the wing to show off the gun metal)
I also sprayed the body mount gun metal grey to match.
The aluminium mesh windscreen was cut to shape and hot glued to the inside of the shell before painting.
The driver also got a little makeover. He was painted with a mix of Army Painter and Vallejo paints.
The replacement tyres arrived. They aren’t listed in the instructions but are Tamiya part 53059. If you’re skimming through this, the link to an online copy of the manual is further up if you need it.
Electrics wise, it now has a HPI Firestorm 20T motor, a Hobbywing Quicrun 1060 ESC, Flysky 2.4ghz receiver, an Alturn USA steering servo and a 3000MAH NiMH battery. It’s very basic but this is not a competition chassis and giving it much more power would make it unusable.
It is worth noting that the pinion is an unusual size on this car. A lot of 1/10 and 1/12 RC cars have a 0.6 module pinion, this chassis has a 0.8 which is noticeably bigger in diameter.
Finally the livery went on! Some of the clear around the graphics had gone a little yellow with age, it is noticeable on the wing, but it’s fine. I’m pleased I got to keep the original design as it’s such a part of the character of the car.
(I got blingy blue body clips and wheel nuts too. EBay and Temu are lethal for bits like that!)
Thanks for reading! It was a fun trip down memory lane working on one of these. I’m glad to have one back in my life as I had a tonne of fun with mine as a kid.
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By Richard Francis.
