Shonan Beach RC

Tamiya Desert Gator (DT-02) Rebuild

This Tamiya Desert Gator (DT-02) is not in the best shape but it is still working! It has to be cleaned, so i think I will take this one apart and clean it.

Main parts that are missing or are broken:

Actually nothing is missing or broken on this car. Only the tires are totally worn off and the chassis is not in the best condition, I have a new one for this so maybe i replace it. As far as i know the wheels and wing are not the original ones. But i think i just keep the wheels, I like the bigger wheels. I bought some new tires for it and i also bought a new wing.

The body is to my opinion quite ugly! So i took off the decals which made it a bit better but i think i will try to remove the black paint. After all i gave up on this idea to remove the paint and bought a new Sand Viper body shell.

After taking it apart it turned out that the gears and most of the part where in a quite good condition, therefor i only replaced the chassis and the front bumper.

As i wrote earlier i kept the wheels, cleaned them up and replaced the tires. i think these big wheels look great on this car.

The tires i used are:

OP.1186 Rear wheel dual block tire K (62/35)

OP.1185 4WD front wheel dual block tire K (62/25)

For the rest i kept it quite original. The only option i put is the “DT-02 Carbon damper stay (rear) [OP-1432]”

Overall i think that the DT-02 chassis is quite easy to rebuild, but i find it lots of fun to do. And i think the result turned out quite nice!

To make it move, I put an 3650 4300kv motor with an 60amp ESC which can handle a 3S lipo battery. So far I only ran it on 2S. It’s reasonable fast and handles quite well. The only thing I found while driving is that it wants to go straight while accelerating! For me that’s a minor issue! Overall it’s fun to drive!

Motor and ESC. Buy it here or here!