Update
I knew this would be a quick build, but I didn't know it would be
this quick. I had a marathon session in the workshop yesterday and got the car done essentially in one sitting. The very first step is to simply mount the foam donuts onto the rims.
This was actually the most difficult part of the build, as you need to line the tires up perfectly. There's only one chance to get it right! Once you pull out the protective second lining on the adhesive strips that glue rubber to plastic, there's no going back without making a mess of things. Be sure to mount the coated, flat side of the tires towards the outside. You can attach lettering decals more easily to these surfaces (though I opted out, leaving them plain). I found that while the rear tires fit nicely, the fronts were a very snug fit (requiring a bit of stretching), and they were also slightly narrower than the wheels (see above). I made sure to mount them towards the outer edge of the wheel, leaving the gap on the inside where it wouldn't be seen with the body on.
The hybrid bathtub/plate design is delightfully easy to assemble.
At step 7, I recommend
not snapping the ball ends onto the steering knuckles yet. Leave this for the end, when the tires are mounted and you can judge and adjust the toe-in before really committing. The ball ends are a bit soft, not to mention tight-fitting, so the less you have to pop them on & off, the better.
When attaching the hex hubs to the main axle shaft in step 12, take care to not tighten the set screws down until you've adjusted the placement of both hubs to leave just the slightest bit of side to side play between the bearings. In case the A2 outer hub assembly looks confusing, don't fret. All you're doing is squeezing the round metal BA1 nuts into the hubs by tightening the screws down from the opposite side. They're designed to make a press-fit and stay behind. Don't overtighten the screws, just make sure the nuts get embedded into the hubs to where they're flush with the upper surface, then remove the screws & washers.
One more thing. The instructions are wrong in step 22 where they show you how to cut the front body posts down.
The illustration shows that you should remove the top hole, leaving 4 holes under it. In fact, there are more holes than this illustration shows. Whoever built the kit for the photo on the manual was confused by this too. You can actually see in the photo that even though the body pins aren't going through the top hole (there's a bit of extra post sticking up), the body is still running too high in the front. You do need to trim it to where there are only four holes, and mount the underside pins to the second from the top hole that remains, so just count from the bottom, not the top
There she is! All of the photos are in the
gallery, minus the shots of the manual, so have a gander. I'll take the chassis out for a spin in the next couple of days and put up my full writeup on the site after that!
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