Art & Inspiration Drag Racing in the Basement?

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Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Hey RS,
You have access to some great old stuff. Scanning old stuff is difficult, but is there a way to get some "clear" copies posted? My tired old eyes just can't cope with the darkened variations from those old scans. I was in the thick of things happening in So Cal and those 64 & 67 R/C mag articles were great times.

Thanks,
Jnaki

Here is an excerpt from one of the pages that brought more information from the memory banks from those days.

Hello,

In the article on “prepping the motor,” a name popped out that sounded familiar. It was a small shop that was on the main drag in our old high school cruising area. We must have driven by that place a zillion times over the years. When we visited the shop, we looked around while asking questions. We never left our armatures to get epoxied and balanced, but picked up some pointers by looking at finished products. Today, that old Toyota dealer has expanded and taken over the whole couple of blocks of cars and trucks. The old Electronic Balancing building is also gone from the area in Long Beach.

But, in 63-65, Electronic Balancing at that Long Beach Blvd address was well known. But, we picked up our speed secrets from the racers we talked to at the local, J&J Hobby Shop. We were told how to "true" the armature on a small lathe for symmetry. Those top racers told us that shaping the epoxy was the key. But, for us, a small woodworking lathe was used to true the epoxy coating layers to fit inside of the DC 85 motors.

The skills we learned in the HS metal and auto shops helped us with the truing of the epoxy shaping. We kept the epoxy coating even all around the original armature windings. We had quite a collection of armatures and could rebuild broken ones with all new stuff if needed.

Once those armatures were trued, finished, and installed, then the next thing was the outer bearings on the DC 85 motors. The original br*** press fit bearings came stock from the factory. But as hot rodders, we knew that ball bearings would make the motor spin so much faster than stock. The hobby shops started selling small bearings for the DC 85 motors, but people had to drill a larger hole to fit the small bearings. An exact true drilling hole was necessary for the motor to run smoothly.

People started to buy small German bearings to replace the stock molded br*** bearing housing. That improved the speeds. I was able to get some super high speed bearings that fit inside a dentist’s drill that spun at 250k per second. This made a world of difference in speed. Plus, the true 250k per second, bearings actually fit in the stock Pittman DC85 holes once the stock br*** fittings were popped out. No need to do a precision re-drill fitting.

These super-fast, dental bearings made little to no sound. It made our motors much faster…The bearings were expensive, but dentists always threw away used bearings and replaced them with new, better ones as their technology expanded. So, free is better than high costs. When I was asked about the bearings, I just replied, “Go see your dentist two times a year as prescribed”…ha!

Jnaki

But, on those rainy days in So Cal, we got out the old circle track of little slot cars and had a blast running them until the wee hours of the morning. Homemade snacks kept us going, along with tons of soft drinks. This was our X-Box and Playstations of the time period.

 

Cool stuff!!!!

 

In a previous post I specified a Pittman 95 and Ram 950 motor. Of course that is my Partzheimers kicking up again. They were Pittman 85 and Ram 850 motors of course. The Ram 850 was a late comer, an obvious ripoff of the Pittman 85 but with thinner field plates. Did anyone ever have a Ram? Were they compe***ive with the Pittman?

Also there were a couple cars on the magazines that had Lindsay motors. I never found out anything about those motors. Does anyone know about the Lindsay motors?

A funny story; I built a magwinder in the day while in high school. It had all the right stuff, rewound Pittman armature, cut down endplates with ball bearings, 64 pitch stainless/aluminum gears, etc. Being in HS chemistry cl*** at the time I knew the periodic table showed magnesium was slightly less reactive than calcium metal so I decided to try an experiment. I took the very fine shavings from the magwinder ch***is machining and piled them on a square plate of 1/4" aluminum in the middle of my dad's wood shop floor and lit it. When I got over the shock of the flash fire as bright as the surface of the sun and my eyes recovered from the total blindness, I noticed the magnesium ignited the aluminum and that was burning a hole thru the wood floor. I remembered from chemistry cl*** that water ignited sodium metal (more reactive than calcium metal on the periodic table) so it probably wouldn't be a good idea to put the fire out with water.. I got a shovel and took the entire inferno outside (hoping the aluminum wouldn't ignite the steel shovel blade before I could finish the deed) and buried it. Dad never asked me about the scorched pock mark in his floor and I never volunteered an explanation. Was an excellent hands-on chemical engineering experiment.

 

I had a pretty impressive collection of AFX slot cars & a Strombecker set that my brother in law gave me.
My friends & I spent a lot of time on these tracks, it was good clean fun.
Then one Christmas my parents got me a Cox Stinger Vega funny car which was pretty cool because my best friend got the Cox Stinger Pinto funny car(think our parents talked?).
Not to sure our parents thought it out very well, because there is snow at Christmas around here, we had nowhere to run them.
We tried running them in the ba*****t.
Not a good idea, our parents were pissed with the smell & the noise & the damage.
We did get to run them in the school yard when Summer arrived.
I don't think I ever played with my slot cars again after that.
Not even sure what happened to those tracks, might still have them somewhere.
The gas powered cars were cool & at the end of each run the parachute would pop out, it was just about like being at the drags.
Plus, we got to play with fuel.
They kind of set the stage for my lifelong obsession with anything automotive.
That & American Graffiti.

 

That fuel was nitro...
I had the Cox Vega Panel funny car.... That thing was a blast!!!!