Reliving My Younger Years - Slot Cars …

[WD Pro]

Continuing with the restoration of my set, I found some old, but new (still on the sprue) barriers to replace the ones that had got broken. I prefer gloss decals to the paper originals (which I still have) :

The extras give me enough, with spares in each colour, to complete my original set :

As I had modified my favourite original car, and its performance is a lot better than the other car from the kit, I didn’t have two similar cars that could be raced just for fun. Enter another eBay purchase :

It was quite a good buy as A) it’s a Cosworth (which I have owned, and still have a fancy ‘real’ engine), B) it’s perfect for my set and C) Hendy is actually a U.K. mustang modification and tuning shop

More wheels to do …

More bearings, more super glue :

The mini wheels (1st picture) are for the spinning bangers. One set has new grippy tyres, the other has sanded original tyres. I will judge which is best, as grippy may not actually be the most fun for those cars … lol.

All the mini wheels needed the rim edges refinishing :

The Cosworth wheels finished, with a spare set (the guy that bought the donor Cosworth on eBay only wanted the shell and chassis) :

Both chassis done :

The only mechanical difference in these two cars is the back tyres, which I will use to judge as to what I replace them with in future.

In fact, considering those two cars have come from different histories, and I thought mine had actually got scratched up on the chassis, I was surprised to find that they share identical marks from the production process or tooling :

They are twins, with the same birthmarks …

Body shop time. The amount you can do with a half painted car is limited, without going through to the base colour :

In comparison, the single colour cars are much easier and offer a better chance of defect removal :

Before and afters, and the reason I never ran my cars with the mirrors fitted :

I didn’t spot the small crack on the eBay advert :

Not perfect, but much better :

The trio :

Only after I finished the two standard cars, did I realise / remember that soon after initial purchase, I fitted a wider rear axle to the white car :

I will probably do the mini spinning bangers next.

I’ve been collecting additional bits of track that I either had back when I was a kid, or wanted when I was a kid - so far I’ve managed to find everything I want in either new, or as new condition

I’ve also started to build up a little toolkit consisting of the things I’ve found useful, or that I have used frequently on my journey so far.

More pictures to follow, once everything has arrived / everything is complete

WD

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[WD Pro]

I’ve managed to find some of my old cars on eBay, boxed, and in ‘as new’ or possibly even NOS condition

More on the cars later, but it appears that 40+ year old water slide decals don’t age as well as the cars …

Fortunately, only one set was like this though and although I managed to source a replacement, the bad set still cleaned up quite well :

Three good sets to keep with the boxed cars, and the cleaned up set :

The ‘bad’ set got used to decorate oil drums in period livery, and they still worked really well :

I never noticed with our childhood track (separate transformer), but when two of us are on the newer track (power base) and one car de slots, the power surge is normally enough to cause the other car to de slot if it’s on a bend or chicane.

I wondered about running separate supplies for each track, and decided to buy another transformer.

£9 on eBay (free postage), 50% shop sale bought it down to £4.50, the advert was open to offers so I offered £3.75 and the seller accepted. When it turned up, the postal label cost them £2.99 ??? !!! £0.76 profit, before eBay fees ?

New to me ‘old’ transformer (top) rated at 13.5v, newer power base (bottom) rated at 16.0v :

Guess which lane I will be racing on …

I suspect another ‘old’ matching transformer will be the target of another eBay hunt soon.

Whilst reading up on transformers, it seems that the old Scalextric units aren’t a smoothed supply, and use of a capacitor can make a real noticeable difference in car performance - so that triggered another mini project :

I might sleeve the cap in heat shrink too - I’ve got some on the way in the correct size.

It prompted me to look for smoothing in the newer power base :

None there either, so they will both benefit :

I’ve picked up some nice pieces of ‘feature’ track, all good condition, some NOS, but some still to arrive - I will post up details when everything arrives

WD

 

[Balr14]

This does not look like someone who "doesn't want to get sucked into another hobby"!

 

[WD Pro]

We have a family (parents, brother + family, sister + family and me + family) weekend away coming up in a large rental property, so bro and I are taking our tracks to join up and have a bit of fun with the kids - so power has been the priority.

Booster leads (for classic Scalextric) are quite expensive (£12 to £15 depending on length) due to the Scalextric specific plug on the ends, but old controllers share the same plug.

eBay to the rescue again :

I took the best parts of the controllers, and after a bit of refurbishment work, made up two good ones :

These are quite tricky to get into without marking up the casing, but having multiple spares to experiment with was useful :

The remainder of the controllers donated connectors to make 750, 1150, 1550, 1950 & 2350 boosters :

A grand total of £9.04 for five boosters and two controllers (in the same colours I had as a kid, minus the red trigger my old black controller had)

I never had track with tracer lights, but I’ve sourced a few pieces that needed a bit of cleaning up and new power leads.

The crimps are tiny, 10mm from end to end, including the conductor and insulation crimps :

Happy to see the boards still work OK :



Found a nice tub for all the electrical stuff I’ve made up - the blondies that originally came in the tub were just an unexpected bonus :

Same tubs are good for three small, or two large cars.

The last of the track power - one for each lane (matched) and one for the track lighting :

eBay again, they just needed a good clean up - I put new plugs on them, and added some rubber cable ties.

Decided I didn’t have time (or enough decals) to brand all the oil drums, so I figured a patriotic theme was probably best :

Now I just need to get a few more ‘matched’ cars ready for our little race weekend … lol

WD

 

[Balr14]

I assume you already have a way to true the wheels and tires. But, just in case you don't, it's something to consider. My experience with Scalextric is their wheels and tires are not true and will hop around a lot. Trueing the wheels, then adding good silicone tires really aids performance.

 

[WD Pro]

I assume you already have a way to true the wheels and tires. But, just in case you don't, it's something to consider. My experience with Scalextric is their wheels and tires are not true and will hop around a lot. Trueing the wheels, then adding good silicone tires really aids performance.

Yes, I’ve been working on that thanks

The old Scalextric tyres are really bad, only having a single injection point and the machines were probably ran for productivity, rather than product quality. The distortion on those was very noticeable, probably not helped by their ballon tyre profiles (thick sections to cool and shrink back).

There are two upsides to the old tyres, A) they are easy to true and B) most have cracked and perished by now anyway … lol

The newer generation tyres (I’m classing my Cosworth set in this era) are better, but still have a single injection point and a bit of distortion propagating from it. I figured they are mostly better due to their thinner profiles - less section to shrink back.

I don’t have a tyre truer, but on my cosworth set I originally did it with sandpaper held flat on the track. The tyres on those were treaded and it almost removed all the tread before they became properly true.

Everything I have rebuilt (other than one spinning mini) has gone onto silicon tyres. These run very true as supplied and I guess that’s down to the quality of the processing and judging by the flash lines, I think they are also injected or poured around the full circumference.

It’s a good job the silicon tyres are pretty good out of the box, without a wheel truer I think I would burn a car motor out before I made any useful difference to them using the sandpaper on the track method lol.

The Scalextric wheels aren’t great, but in most cases I have had enough spares to be selective upon reassembly.

I might as well update this thread on where I am up to.

I’m trying to finish off the two minis for our weekend away. The shells have been quite time consuming to bring them up to standard (remember these are 40+ years old). Example of what was needed :

The chassis where also time consuming, to remove (or lessen) the nibbles from impacts :

The rear bumper on one was cracked (it’s rare to find one that isn’t), so I ended up with this little assembly to open it up ready for glue :

It worked quite well. I know it’s there, but to most people it would probably go unnoticed :

Everything cleaned up and refurbished, ready for reassembly :

All going to plan, I will lube and refit the motors, along with gluing the bearings and rear axles in later this evening

WD

 

[Balr14]

Those Minis are really nice! I have never had a silicone tire that needed trueing, but the plastic wheels you put them on almost always need it. I converted all my cars to run silicone tires. It was expensive and time consuming (80 cars), but worth it in the long run. They run clean and never degrade with age.

 

[WD Pro]

Those Minis are really nice! I have never had a silicone tire that needed trueing, but the plastic wheels you put them on almost always need it. I converted all my cars to run silicone tires. It was expensive and time consuming (80 cars), but worth it in the long run. They run clean and never degrade with age.

Ref the silicone tyres - have you ever seen this discolouration ?

It’s on both the track and tyres after test running all my rebuilt cars for about 10 mins each. The minis were run a little longer, because they are fun, and just to give them a shakedown before I clipped the tops back on (no screws on the minis, so I’m trying not to take the shells off more than absolutely necessary) :

It wiped off the tyres and track pretty easily. This section of track was new and clean before the shakedown session :

It was only noticeable on the slick centre section, the grippy end parts of th track section (and the remainder of the small circuit) were all clean ?

The minis are done :

The 360 degree guide and long braids are a bit tricky to set up on these, nimble fingers and strong nails needed (unless you resort to metal tools - which I didn’t want to do) :

I’m really pleased with them, I think they look great for 42 year old twins

WD

 

[Balr14]

I recall seeing that discoloration in some older silicone tires. It came from a dye that was used in the silicone bleeding. It didn't hurt anything as I recall. They don't sell that brand of tires in the US any more.

I don't have a plastic track, so I can't say if that contributes to the problem or not.

 

[WD Pro]

I’m finished the Porsche 962 that came in a donor set that I bought for some track parts (and to resell the other bit’s separately) :

It worked out that I got that car, a donor car for my brother to fix one of his, and the track parts I wanted for free (after selling some of the other parts from the set), by the time I am done I should get back about three times my expenditure

These 962’s have a 360 degree spin guide that by luck, allows the front of the car to sit a little lower than the equivalent standard guide car.

Cleaned the wheel edges up, drilled the magnet pocket (that’s unpopulated on a 360 car) so I could remove a magnet if I chose to fit one - mine is the drilled chassis, the other went to my brother to fix his car :

This is the first car I have done where the motor wasn’t tight in the chassis and rocked, so I glued it in place :

New tyres and ball races :

The track we built for our family weekend away :

The twin supplies with capacitors worked really well, and the track was clean enough / in good enough condition not to have any dead spots or need any jumpers.

A few laps with the 962 (fastest car of the weekend) :



WD

Edit : To fix a picture link.

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