I am noticing a buzz of HO around me, but never got a foot in the door. I traded a huge collection of old Strombecker parts for a used and abused HO car collection several years ago. I've added many new cars to the collection over time. But it never got off the ground. I have a track and tried all the cars. The thing that bugs me most is the tire vibrations on some of the cars.
I see the drag race proxies going on. But have no clue what's what. I'm going to require a small (or large) education first.
The cars.
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The track.
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I presently use aftermarket urethane tires on my 1/32 cars. I glue and true them. No vibrations. Not sure where to buy, or how to true HO tires.
Out of all the cars. The red Ferrari Dino doesn't run. (back row)
Thank you very kindly for any help you can provide to this HO newbie.
First of all I'd sort them by chassis type as you have Tjets/Tjet clones, Aurora Magnatraction/AW Magnatraction clones, , Tomy Turbo and one or two Tyco cars at least.
Sort them into those chassis groups and compare them peer to peer as a starter.
This might point out some obvious stuff like 'gravity' cars and various degrees of magnetic assist.
Also try and bring those in each peer group up to the performance of the best in that group in much the same way you would with 1/32.
Clean, oil, new pickups if required, ensure guide pins are straight where metal, axles and wheels run true, no binding parts, etc.
Oh - and that red Dino's nice but the tyres look huge. Are they jammed against the wheel arches or the chassis?
A nice cross-section of HO cars there
As Doug said, they will be very different in performance, depending on the chassis. Identification will be easier from the underside!
Changing tyres makes a big difference with most HO cars, but I do enjoy running the Tomy Turbos (the four F1 cars and probably a few of the others) with trued stock rubber - the magnets are relatively weak, so you get some great sliding action. Those are the cars that persuaded me to crossover from 1/32 scale.
I buy silicone Supertires from Frank Yuroshoski in the US (
www.franktheracer.com). His international shipping is quick and very reasonable. These are what I use on the older Aurora 'pancake' chassis - the AFX, AFX Magnatraction and the smaller T-jet 'Tuff-Ones' cars. Auto World and Johnny Lightning (Playing Mantis) have recently remade these Aurora cars and it looks like you have a few of them in the group.
Most of the modern in-line cars are probably on this sheet I put together for WHO Racing...
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Thank you very kindly, TD and Andy.
I will go through the cars and ID them by make.
Andy. Nice chart! Thank you!
Nothing rubs on the tires that I can see. I can't wait to install black tires for some reason. After it runs of course.
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I assumed that was a T-Jet (the Dino is a great Aurora T-Jet body), but those are AFX wheels... The 50-year-old pancake cars do seize up, so a strip-down, clean, lube and re-build is most likely required. This is what you are contending with in a pancake car...
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A strange armature orientation and lots of gears! The little motor brushes can be cleaned by rubbing on a piece of paper to remove carbon and dirt. The commutator plates on the underside of the armature can be cleaned up with a pencil eraser (on very fine sandpaper if really dirty and pitted).
These are two more modern inline cars (the Tomy Turbo and Super-G+) for comparison...
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Small tools and working in a tray (to catch the tiny pieces) is recommended - as is good eye wear and a bright light.
Andy. Thanks a million!
Those are cool diagrams. My kind of info.
I've tried to identify the cars from the photo for you. The unmarked cars are Autoworld Thunderjets - Aurora TJet chassis clones with TJet like bodies.
Hope you can see this OK. Click on the pic' to enlarge it.
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Tj is a Tjet and Xt is another AW Xtraction.
Oops - missed one. Black and gold #17 is also Tyco (bottom right)
Thank you very kindly TD.
You are spot on as you already know. I could have flipped them over for the photo. But that might have robbed you of some fun.
Here's a few pics of the Ferrari chassis. It tries to run when I put power to the brushes. But the armature is rubbing on something. You can actually hear it when you turn the axle and it starts to slowly rotate one or two turns on it's own.
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The tear-down tray is ready. Nothing gets lost. Everything stays organized until re-assembly. An ice-cube tray from the dollar store cut it in half.
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Could be the carbon motor brushes have popped out, flipped entirely or have turned on their sides. They're devilish things to keep in the right place during re-assembly.
I might be mistaken but it looks as if one or two of your AW Thunderjets on the back row of the photo to the left hand side just have rolling chassis underneath them - no innards. If so you should be able to swap the front and rear axles from those into your Ferrari chassis to return it to a more stock appearance.
Hello TD,
On the back row... The 3-TJ's on the far right are new. 3-TJ's on the far left are new. The 3-TJ's in the middle are slightly used, but perfect runnng cars.
Out of all the cars. The Dino doesn't run. The black 1974 Chevy Vega at the back row, far left corner is new and whines like a chainsaw going down the track.
The rest of the cars run great.
Once I get the Ferrari sorted. I need to see if anything here might be legal for drag racing proxies. Then I need to figure out tires.
Oh, to be a newbie, again...