The box

The front of the box – iconic picture but the modern logo is added

OK, I know the box might not be the most interesting part for everyone, but for all the RC nerds out there the outside of the box is pretty interesting. (and no, it’s not a bad thing to be a nerd about anything!)

At first glance, the kit (supplied by the good folks at

Modelsport.co.uk)looks like something that was shrink-wrapped in 1983 and kept safe in someone’s loft, and only just discovered. But once you start actually reading the text and looking closely at the pictures, several things jump out at you.

The side of the box that opens – you have to read the text to catch the differences from the original!

To help celebrate the 30th anniversary of the RC10, Associated used vintage photos for the action shots, the same fonts and old logos, but the cleverly changed the wording on the kit box. When you get up close and personal, you can quickly spot words and phrases like ‘30th anniversary’, ‘2S LiPo’, ‘NiMH’ and more – which is a brilliant touch, I think! The biggest thing that might jump out at you is the picture of the assembled chassis with a Reedy 2S LiPo and brushless speed controller mounted in it – but it’s practically a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of thing!

The opposite side of the box – play Spot the Modern Electronics!

The end result is that from arm’s distance the box looks like the original, so it’ll slot right alongside any 80’s kits you might have on your Shelf of Pride, and you’ll only spot the differences when you look real close.

The box ends – can you guess if the original box had a barcode?

One of the really cool things you can pick out on the box is that the ‘RC’ in RC10 doesn’t come from ‘Radio Control’ as you might have thought (and yeah I admit it, I thought so too), but from the name of the designer: Associated’s founder Roger Curtis. In case you’re wondering if they’re proud of this car and their track record…hell yeah they are!

The bottom – in olden times, there were no graphics on the bottom!

So that’s the outside of the box covered…I’m sure you’re wanting to know what’s inside, though! Let’s just crack that factory seal…

The box

Let’s carry on with the review for the RC10 Classic re-release from Team Associated! I’m sure you’ve been dying to see what’s inside the box since the last installment, so let’s break that seal and jump right in!

Last time round, we showed you all 6 sides of the retro-styled box and teased you with this shot of the broken seal:

And we’ve already shown you what the box looks like when you first open it…but what about your other senses? What about…how the box smells?
You know that smell you get from a brand-new record? Oh, wait, that was a while back, probably before your time - how about when you unwrap a brand new tape cassette from your favorite band? Ack, that’s a pretty old reference too… How about when you open up a music CD for the first time? DOES ANYONE STILL DO THAT?! Do you even understand the reference??

You do? Great! …err, you don’t? Bugger. Anyway – what’s the first thing you used to do – or (…wimper…) the first thing your parents used to do, when that tape or CD box was first opened? You get a big, deep breath of that plasticky, papery smell. You don’t get that these days when you just click ‘buy’ or whatever on oMusic or whatever it is you whippersnappers are logging out to. Get off my lawn!

…I digress. Apologies. My point is, that first whiff of a brand new kit is just magical, especially if it’s one you once longed for back before you could even afford it, and double that if you’ve been waiting (seemingly) for ages for it to arrive on your doorstep. The RC10 Classic kit has that smell – the rubber of the tires seeping through the plastic bags, the cardboard and ink smell of the inside of the box…well I suppose all RC kits have that but let an old man reminisce!

So now you’ve seen the inside of the box, let’s run through real quick what exactly is inside. Maestro, VIDEO!

Now if you’re a proper old-timer geek and still read stuff, you’ll want to have some close-up looks at all those bits! Let’s start with the big bits first!

The very first thing I pulled out was the body. Look at those lines! I imagine I’ll be saying ‘retro’ quite a bit (like I did in the video) but that is such a vintage look to the shape of the body, it really did define what RC buggy bodies looked like for the next 20+ years. And a driver figure! Awesome! They are tricky to paint right (unless you go for a single-color job or just leave him out entirely) but when done right they look fantastic. The wing is small in comparison to today’s wings, but still very chunky-looking.

Opening the bag containing the manual, the next obvious thing to pull out are the decal sheets. Look at those colors! Note the window netting – I’m told the body is a bit thinner than the original body, so cutting out the windows isn’t actually recommended, so the window netting is there to replicate the actual cloth netting used on the box photos.

And here we’ve got the manual. How cool! A drawing of the RC10 on the front, with of course a very well-deserved championship trophy next to the buggy. Note the part number and ‘RC10 Classic’ clearly noted on the front – carrying on the theme from the box, at first glance it looks like a period piece, but these little details let you know this isn’t the original. (of course, it helps the collectors and owners of the original car maintain the value of their cars, too!)

Inside the manual, we’ve got CAD drawings! I don’t think these were around back in the day! Well, not outside of NASA maybe. I really don’t remember what the original kit manual looked like, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t as cleanly put together as this. I haven’t built an Associated car in decades, so this will be a re-learning experience!

Also in the bag with the manual and decal sheets are shock building tools, those horrible L-wrenches you really should just toss out, a camber setup gauge (hey that’s pretty cool), a very long antenna tube (gotta use that!) and double-sided tape for the electronics.

Here’s a closer look at the tools you get. There’s wheel nut wrenches, shock building tools, a couple more small wrenches that look like they fit Associated turnbuckles (ha! wait till you see what you get with this kit!) and again the L-wrenches. I still have my super-old Bolink hex wrenches I used when I used to race my RC10 Worlds and RC10T…those wrenches were among the first things I bought when I started racing! I don’t use them any more but I’m going to have to dig them out for this build.

Ah, here we go! That classic gold-anodized tub. Did Roger Curtis know that it would be so iconic? And that nosepiece!

DAT NOSEPIECE

And now for the tires! Look at these things! People used to RACE on these hoops! Can you even believe that?

I mean really – look at the squared-off edges of these front tires. These are the original Pro-Line Edge tires. They are so skinny, and so square, they ought to be hauling a Macbook to Starbucks while wearing square spectacles and a check shirt and rubbing a 3-day growth of beard.

The rear tires, on the other hand – these look like they’ll kick dirt in your face and take your lunch money while you cry for your mommy. Forget bar-type tire patterns, mini-pins and pink compound rubber – these tires are from when men were MEN. And from when I was but a wee lad.

The front wheels, like the rears, are 3-piece wheels that bolt together. The hoop at the bottom left fits into the tire, then you bolt the inside and outside of the wheel around the tire bead. Not too shabby. I’ll be assembling these and running the car on the tires, but I’ll be thinking seriously about getting the Associated option part for this car that allow you to run modern 2.2? wheels.

NOPE

Yes! I understand why bushings were included, and obviously I get the whole retro thing, but forget running on bushings! I want to run like the champs! So luckily Modelsport included a set of these rubber-sealed bearings to completely outfit the car.

The rear wheels are pretty much the same as the fronts, but there’s no bushings that support the wheel. Like today’s buggies there’s a drive pin in the axle and the wheel bolts onto the axle, which is supported by bushings. Or bearings.

And here’s the rest of the parts in the kit, in their original bags. They won’t be unopened for long…

Bag A contains the steering arms and nosepiece support. I gotta say, seeing those gold-anodized screws brings back some memories! Memories of stripping those bad boys – they’re made from aluminum from what I remember, and my junky screwdriver didn’t really want to screw them in properly. And those steering arms have got to be the strangest design I’ve ever seen. But hey, if it wins championships… Bag AA is the nosepiece and front shock tower (which is shown below) – Bags A and AA are used in the first couple of assembly steps.

Bag B hold the front suspension arms, steering knuckles, hinge pins and related hardware. Clearly the car is built from the front to the back.

Bag BB has the uprights. Not sure why this single parts sprue is not tossed into Bag B, but whatever – nostalgia, right? Bags B and BB take up 4 assembly steps and look pretty straightforward to put together.

Bags C and CC make up the next 3+ pages of the manual – that’s TEN steps. And obviously there’s a lot of parts in this page. AND an addendum to the manual (with an unfortunate typo). Over 3 pages, 10 steps…basically, take your time and follow the instructions clearly. This is pretty much the entire drivetrain, so it’s a pretty vital part of the build.

Bag CC is the gearbox support, motor spacer and greases used in the transmission. This is the last piece of gold-anodized aluminum you’ll be attaching to the car!

Bag D is the rear bulkhead, rear body post, wing wire supports and a bunch of screws to attach the transmission case and bulkhead to the chassis.

Bag DD is actually just the rear shock tower (the one on the left), but it’s all on its own, I figured the front shock tower should really keep it company – the front shock tower is bagged with the front nosepiece in Bag AA. Bags D and DD are used in 4 steps over about a single page of the manual.

Bags E and EE make up the rear suspension arms and driveshaft bits. Are those springs in that bag with the driveshafts? Well so they are. I’ll have to show you where those things go later on!

Bag F contains all the camber and steering link pieces. Ever wonder why turnbuckles are on just about every car nowadays? This is why. These things SUCK. …but again, nostalgia! Honestly, they’re not that bad. They’re just difficult to make fine adjustments with, but for driving and whatnot they’re OK.

Ah, here we go. The shocks! Well the internal parts of the shocks anyway. Bag G (above) basically all fit inside or just outside of bag GG (below).

OK I lied earlier. THESE are the last gold-anodized bits you’ll be attaching to the car! These are so chunky and so…dare I say ‘iconic’ again?…they just have a look about them that captures a really long period of RC history. Of course, as soon as you showed up to the track with your gold-tub car, you spotted a sponsored driver with a dark greeny-grey anodized chassis and shock bodies and you wanted THAT…but hey that’s how it always is, isn’t it?

Bag H has the battery holder, antenna tube mount, nosepiece braces and the strap that goes across the battery box to hold the battery in. Not hugely exciting but essential nonetheless!

Ah here’s some exciting stuff! The spur gear cover, the wire wing mount, those classic knock-offs for the wheels (how cool were those?!) and…what are these? Yes! LIGHTS! Well, mock lights, to attach to the body. Sweet! …and wait a sec, what’s that in the bag – I think those are wheel nuts in case you don’t want to use the knock-offs. Pretty cool, if that’s the case! And of course the kit includes the wrenches to put those nuts on and off.

Ah. And we’re back to another not-so-exciting bag, with the servo mounts. If you are ‘of an age’ you may remember having to drill out the servo mount blocks to get your servo mounted in your car. That’s right – you bought tiny, solid blocks of plastic about the size of a 1×2 Lego block and had to DRILL YOUR OWN HOLES in the plastic. At least, I remember people doing that at my track. Either they were crazy or I’m insane.

And…oh wait that’s it. That’s all the parts in the RC10 Classic kit!

So what’s next? Well, we BUILD!



First steps

We are ready to start building the RC10 Classic from Associated! In the last post (above), we showed you an extensive unboxing (including video!) that gave you a close-up view of everything you get in the kit. This time, we’ll complete the first steps of the kit assembly, starting with bags A and AA!

The first two steps of the assembly process have you open bags A and AA. You can clearly see what’s to be done. It’ll be interesting comparing this build to modern kit builds and assembly manual expectations. So far it’s looking good, but a little strange to see modern CAD drawings used for old-style parts!

The back page of the manual conveniently folds out so you can get the true size of the hardware you need to assemble each step. Very handy! Here, I’m holding one of the gold screws to its representation in the manual – a very handy way to make sure you’re installing the correct parts…and I did have to refer to this a couple of times, since I accidentally used the wrong screws in one area!

Here’s all the parts that are in bags A and AA. Strangely, you don’t actually use all of the parts and hardware in this step, but the leftovers are used in the next series of steps.

And we’re off! There’s the first part installed – the front body post! Woo-HOO!

Attaching the nosepiece to the chassis – this is where I’ll hold my hands up and say I initially used the wrong size screws here, however referring to the parts size reference got me going in the right direction again. The manual tells you to use threadlock on these 3 screws, but it’s not included with the kit. I’m not sure if Associated include threadlock with their kits nowadays, but I did have to go digging around my toolbox to find some. I’m just used to kits that include a tiny tube of it! These modern racers and their expectations, lemme tell ya…

Here’s the steering arms with the ball ends attached. The kit includes this plastic wrench that works fine to install the ball ends into these soft plastic pieces, but I’m not holding out much hope for the rest of the kit… Be careful as the hex part of the ball end gets close to the plastic of the steering arms, because that wrench WILL start to strip out.

Installing the steering arms into the chassis. No ball bearings here! Just fit the nylon nuts and tighten them down with the wrench shown, then back off the nut a bit until you have about a half thread of the bolt showing. Check that the arms move freely back and forth and you should be fine.

With all the steps completed, here’s what the underside of the chassis looks like for now – the screws aren’t completely flush with the chassis but they’re not going to snag on every bump in the ground, either.

Here’s how the steering arms look after installation – notice how much thread is showing.

And here’s the video showing the completed steps:

Next up, we start to attach the front suspension parts!



Front suspension

We are continuing with the kit build of the Associated RC10 Classic, carrying on with assembling much of the front suspension! Last time around, we showed you how the first steps of assembly went, complete with up-close pictures and even a video! So let’s carry on and keep truckin’ on with the rest of the front end.

Bags B and BB are the next ones we’ll cut open – the parts are used in the next four steps, consisting of the third step at the bottom of the left page and all three steps on the right page.

Here’s all the parts in the hardware bags – the bag contents are separated B1, B2 and B3. Bag BB consists of the plastic uprights, seen above next to the steering knuckles. All the remaining hardware from bags A and AA in the previous steps are used up in the next few steps.

First things first, screw in the ball ends to the uprights. These aren’t labeled ‘L’ or ‘R’ so, you have to look carefully at the picture in the manual to see which way to install the ball end, because the mounting hole goes all the way through. In the picture above, though, the left upright is on the left and the right upright is on the…wait for it…the right!

The steering knuckles take a couple of steps: you have to push down hard on the axle to get it through the plastic knuckle so the e-clip can be attached. The e-clip goes on fine with a flat-head screwdriver, but don’t lose any – you get exactly the number you need (ten) to do the front end, and that’s it. You need to make sure the ball ends go the correct way in, too, otherwise you’ll end up with two lefts or two rights. The ball end is screwed in with the wrench and then use the larger wrench to attach the nut on the opposite side.

If you end up with mirror-image parts like these, you’ve done good so far! The uprights and knuckles are ready to be attached.

Here’s the right-side suspension after installing the kingpin (the upright pin) and the outer hingepin (the other pin), ready to be attached. Again, you get exactly the number of e-clips you need (no spares), so don’t let them go pinging off across the room, you’ll never find them! If you’re not used to attaching them without a specialist e-clip tool (like Tamiya’s e-clip wrench) hold the parts in a towel or spare T-shirt so if the clip springs off somewhere it hopefully ends up in your hand.

The left side and right side suspension pieces. The picture in the manual may confuse you when you’re trying to figure out which arm goes to which side, but look at the box photos if you have to (or just use this guide).

I have to point out that the outer hinge pin on the right side was an absolute bugger to fit through the hole in the upright. I actually had to gently force the hinge pin through before installing it properly, then I had to use a pair of pliers to get it out again – so another nasty-looking set of scratches on the end of the hinge pin. Not good! I’m pretty sure the holes in the upright are meant to be a tiny bit tighter than the holes in the arm, so the hinge pin rotates in the arm instead of in the hinge pin, but they are almost certainly not meant to be that tight.

In any case, a reamer through the hinge pin holes wouldn’t be a bad idea (assuming you have the correct size reamer or drill bit), and neither would polishing the hinge pins (securing them in a power drill and rubbing them in a rag with a bit of polishing compound). Polishing the pins is something I’ll probably do before I run the car properly.

Here’s the shock tower ready to be installed. The black bolts need wrenches to go through the fiberglass, but they go in pretty easy, and the plastic ball endwrench finally gave out trying to screw the ball ends through the material – I had to use a pair of pliers to finish them off.Like in the last step with the hinge pins, I’m not sure if the original kit was this way when it was released, but it’s interesting that the kit is like this upon its re-release.

Here’s the front end after installing the shock tower…

…and the topside view. All that cream-colored plastic and the gold chassis is starting to come together!

Another view of the assembly so far.

And the final step is attaching the arms with the inner hinge pins. The arms are heavy enough that they flop down easily enough, but the uprights and steering knuckles are a bit stiff still. It might be a little early to tell if they’ll free up after a couple of battery packs have been run through the car, but it still wouldn’t hurt to do the polishing trick on the pins.

There’s that scratch on the fiberglass around the ball end. I know it doesn’t affect anything and probably no one will see it but me after the car is fully built but I’ll know it’s there.

The underside of the car with the front bits attached. (I’ve always wondered why that one screw is the natural metal color instead of the gold-anodized color. I know the large gold screws are aluminum and that little screw is steel, but still. At least it’s centered and not off to one side – that would just set off my RC OCD!)

It’s starting to look like a car, eh?

Here’s the video showing how this series of steps went:

Well, we hope you enjoyed that!



Transmission Build

We are continuing with the kit build of the Associated RC10 Classic, carrying on with assembling the entire transmission! Last time around (see above), we showed you how the front suspension is assembled, complete with up-close pictures and even a video! So now I’ll be showing you how the rest of the kit goes together.

Here’s the steps we’re looking at…

…and they’re spread over more than THREE pages!

But have no fear, it’s actually not that bad – let’s go!

Here’s all the parts that are needed for these steps – Bags C and CC. Bag C are the bits on the left under the addendum sheet. The plastic transmission halves are in the main bag, and bags C1 through C7 are the hardware bits grouped together, plus the spur gear. Bag CC has the gold-anodized motor mount, greases and the gear plate that goes inside the transmission.

The first step is to attach a layshaft to the gear plate. This is another step where you need some threadlocking compound – don’t put too much on the threads, you don’t want any on the plastic gears you’ll be installing in a couple of steps.

Another layshaft, this one attaches with a funky large curved E-clip, which you may be able to just make out in the picture.

Now for the outdrives, or as some manufacturers call them the drive cups! Very interesting to see that the outdrives actually have gears directly on them. This is the first area of the transmission where we swap out the oilite bushings for the bearings supplied by Modelsport – look at how much rotating weight is being saved right there!

If you don’t have a C-clip wrench, don’t worry about it, just do as I did in the picture above and put a thumb securely over the C-clip and carefully use a flat head screwdriver to press it into place.

Now for 2 more gears of the 6-gear transmission – again replacing bearings for the bushings. These are held in place with four screws each – can you imagine putting this amount of rotating weight in a modern buggy transmission?!

So here we’ve got the outdrives installed on the lower layshaft…

…and on the shorter layshaft we put the two plastic gears – it’s starting to coming together!

And now for the start of the thrust bearing and the final two gears. Handily, the thrust bearing is pre-assembled, which is quite nice.

The thrust bearing set uses a couple of different sizes of bearings, so make sure you double-check the fit and placement. Unfortunately the manual doesn’t have a size reference for the bushings the way it does for the screws, so use a ruler or pair of calipers if you can’t spot the difference between 3/8? and 1/4?.

And here’s the completed thrust bearing set! One thing to note is to make sure you pay attention to the addendum sheet that’s stapled to Bag C, which tells you to lubricate the metal-to-metal surfaces – very important! If you forget to do this, you’ll have to disassemble the entire transmission to get to see this bit again…another area where you’d miss the modern convenience of today’s insanely easy to maintain drivetrains.

Silicone grease and 1/8? diff balls go into the spur gear easily enough!

Yes, that is an off-road buggy spur gear with diff balls, you’re not looking at a pan car spur!

Then slide it onto the thrust bearing assembly.

Compress the very small spring a couple of times with a pair of pliers, then secure it on with the locknut. Make sure the face of the locknut is flush with the end of the bolt.

Now we slide the thrust bearing set through the motor plate and through the right side of the transmission case, meshing the gears with the assembly we made earlier. Here’s where you can see the guts of the 6-gear transmission all together for the first time. Again (and sorry for harping on this constantly, but it is a ‘retro’ kit!) it’s just amazing what modern car transmissions are like, with buggies having belts and instantly accessible spur gears and transmission adjustments. But hey this sucker won the Worlds, so who’s going to argue about the technicalities?

Attaching the e-clip on the end of the thrust bearing assembly – the clip holds in the bearing that supports the opposite end.

The manual suggests putting a notch in the case to make the e-clip easier to install, which is a good idea. I didn’t have to do this really but for getting the clip off the notch will definitely come in handy!

And now, installing the wool felt outdrive seals! Yes, wool. On a world championship-winning model car. Go figure! But hey, it does the job…and it’s sustainably sourced as well!

Attach the transmission to the motor plate with four bolts and job’s a good ‘un!

And there we go – the transmission is ready to install.

Now, here’s the video showing how all the steps went together:

Rear Bulkhead

As we carry on with the kit build of the Associated RC10 Classic, we move on to installing the rear bulkhead, shock tower and transmission on the chassis. In the previous installment (above), we showed you how the transmission went together, so let’s move on with the next steps: Bags D and DD!

Here’s the steps in the manual…

…not too much to do, really, and these steps go pretty quickly after dealing with the transmission.

All the parts used in this step. Bag D has all the parts except for the shock tower (that’s in Bag DD) with the metal parts separated as shown in Bag D1 and D2.

The first step is screwing the shock mount bolts into the place – again, you have to use threadlocking compound on the nut.

Then bolt the shock tower into place on the rear bulkhead. Make sure to measure the bolts you’re using in this step to make sure you’re using the right ones! I encountered a problem here in a later step (which will be posted soon). The ball ends also go into the correct camber mount locations at this point.

Now the rear bulkhead is put into place. Two more of the large screws on the bottom…

…and one 4-40 bolt on each side.

Now the transmission is installed, using more of the large gold-anodized screws.

The rear body mount is installed on the transmission brace.

Then the brace is installed, using 4 bolts.

Finally, the wing posts are inserted into the bulkhead. They do take a bit of persuasion, and the manual actually tells you to use a bit of CA glue to make sure they stay in place.

And that’s it for Bag D and DD! Here’s the car build so far – ready for the drivetrain, shocks and electronics.

Now, here’s the video showing how these steps went together:

In the next installment, we finish off the drivetrain!



Turnbuckles

We carry on with our review of the Associated RC10 Classic kit build! In the previous step, we showed how the rear suspension arms and driveshafts went on the car, and this next step, Bag F we build the camber and steering links. It’s not pleasant but at least it’s a quick series of steps, and it must be done…The goal with this step is literally to just power through it and forget it ever happened. On we go!

There’s only 4 steps to the turnbuckles, and here are the first two! First up is the rear camber link, then the single drag link for the steering.

Then comes the front camber links and finally the steering links.

Here are all the parts used in these steps – I’ve arranged the threaded rod in the order that the steps call for them, so do the same thing and you’ll know which lengths of rod go in each step.

The rear end links go on first, and assembly of the ball cups onto the threaded rod was about as tedious and painful as I’d expected. The RC10 Classic is supplied almost exactly as it was when it was first released – remember no threadlocking compound? – so there’s no ball cup wrench like you get in self-assembly kits these days.

I used a pair of wire cutters to hold the threaded rod (you can see the marks in the middle of some of the turnbuckles) and started twisting on the ball cups by hand, which got really tiring after about the first ball cup. By the 14th ball cup, I was using a towel to keep the pain from crippling my thumb and forefinger. Why didn’t I use a pair of pliers? Well, part of me was trying to get it built ‘old-school style’ (before I had proper tools) and also I couldn’t find my second pair of needle-nose pliers.

The front end gets 5 links all its own, that’s 10 ball ends to wrangle on. Ugh! Seriously. Just painful.

Well, we’re getting there! The car is really starting to come together with the front and rear suspension nearly completed!

Here’s the video showing how this step went:

In the next step, we assemble the shocks…which provides us another lesson in how far RC car tech has come in the last 30 years!



The Shocks

Now for the next step in our review of the Associated RC10 Classic kit build, and this time we’re building the shocks! In the previous step, we did the mind-numbing job of assembling the turnbuckles, and with Bags G and GG we’re going to show you how the shocks go together. ‘ere we go!

There’s several steps to building the shocks, and (again) at the risk of sounding repetitive (again!) you’ll probably look at the installation steps in a bit of bemusement if you’re used to what I can only call ‘modern’ RC shock technology.

There’s many steps and yes FOUR shocks that need to be built, but I like to approach shocks in an assembly-line sort of mentality, doing one step on every shock so each step is finished for all the shocks and then move on to the next step. Luckily, that’s how the manual tells you to do the assembly, so score!

Here’s all the parts needed for the shocks, Bags G and GG. Bag G held the shock oil (silicone, posh!), white plastic bits and shock pistons, with G1 through G3 containing the shock shafts, internals and external hardware. Bag GG had the springs, shock bodies and caps.

First, the shock pistons are installed on the shafts using the e-clips. Again, you only get exactly the number of spring clips you need, so don’t lose any! Trust me, it sucks to have to stop building a kit so you can drive to the shop to get something you’ve lost – or worse, in this day and age, order online and have to wait several days to get your part!

Ah, the old familiar Associated shock building tool. Make sure to coat this with a couple of drops of shock oil before installing them into the shock bodies. And if you don’t hear a loud SNAP! it’s not installed properly, so really press down hard!

There’s a properly installed o-ring set.

The manual doesn’t tell you to do this, but this is a tip I picked up a long time ago – to prevent the threads of the shock shaft from damaging the o-rings, put a drop of shock oil on the threads so you can push them through easily.

Once the shock shafts are in place, you fill up the shock body with oil. The picture above shows how to add the shock oil without getting a gigantic mess of air bubbles in your shocks – use the piston as a spout for the oil, and it will draw the oil underneath and onto the shaft. When the body is nearly full, pull the shock piston down from the bottom and most of the air will escape through the dry piston holes before the piston gets covered in oil.

Here you can see the half-wet, half-dry piston just before it’s completely covered in oil – most of the air that would have gotten trapped under the piston (if you’d pushed it all the way down and then added oil) is gone and you can carry on with your life without pulling all your hair out trying to get rid of every single bubble of air in the shocks!

I like to rest the shocks in the springs in a shock building stand, or failing that, the wheels or tires that come in the kit. Push the shock shafts so the pistons are near the top (therefore any air bubbles are near the top) and let them rest for a few minutes after giving them a couple of taps with your fingernails to dislodge any pesky air bubbles that might be resting near the bottom. After letting the bubbles rise for a bit, pull the shock shafts down sharply to get the air bubbles on top of the piston and let the shocks rest again.

When you’re ready to put the cap on and you’re happy with either no bubbles or just a couple left here and here, pull the shafts all the way down and put the black sealing o-ring on the shock body. Put a drop of shock oil on the threads of the shock cap and then top off the oil in the shock body – I mean really fill it up so it’s a nice fat bubble over the threads! Remember there’s no bladder or piece of foam to help bleed the shocks or compensate for the reduction in oil volume when the shocks shafts are pushed all the way out – this is old-school shock building here!

Use the tools helpfully provided to tighten the shock cap on all the way. There shouldn’t be any threads showing on the body above hexagonal section. At this point, you can rejoice in the fact that Associated even provide the tools for tightening the shock cap – they certainly weren’t in the kit I got way back when! I still have my old RPM shock building tools…

If you’re just building this to play around with or for display, you’re done. You actually didn’t even need to be that worried about air bubbles – or if it’s just for display you probably didn’t even need to put in oil!

But me, I decided to do this ‘properly’ – and that means I needed to listen to every single shock and if there was the tiniest squeak that meant AIR BUBBLES and the shock needed to be opened up, filled and bled again. And when it was properly bled with no air bubbles, I had to make sure the rebound (see below) was equal on each pair of shocks. Oh yeah, this was a massive pain and turned a simple night of assembly into an hour or so of agony. But hey this is for science! errr, not really, it’s just for fun!

So here’s the shocks after I’m completely happy with them. The rebound (that is, the amount the shock shaft ‘bounces’ back out of the body after being fully compressed) is almost exactly the same with each pair of shocks and the plastic parts are ready to be installed now.

Shock ends and pivot balls, oh my!

And the fully assembled, butter-smooth shocks read for installation. Strangely, the distance the front shock spring collars are meant to be from the hex on the shock body is listed as 6mm – I don’t know what the original instruction manual said but considering every piece of hardware in this kit is in SAE/Imperial measurements, seeing metric in there was a bit of a shock!

The front shocks install on what is basically a hinge pin that goes through the front arms. I’m pointing at the funky set screw that holds the hinge pin in place.

The front shocks fully installed!

And the rears as well.

We are almost, but not quite, at the ‘rolling chassis’ stage. I assume the instructions follow the original manual very closely but I’m used to seeing a nearly-complete car at this stage – and for whatever reason Associated had you put in the electronics after installing the shocks, instead of building the tires next, which would at least give you something you can push around and go ‘vroom vroom’ with. But no matter! The car’s getting built!

Here’s the video showing how this set of assembly steps went:

In the next step, we install the nose braces and put in the electronics, which gives us a nice break from assembling stuff. Plus we get to play with more new stuff!



Installing the Electronics

We’re nearly finished with the Associated RC10 Classic! In the last step, we assembled and installed the shock absorbers, and in this series of steps we open up Bags H and I so we can install the nose braces and battery box, then for Bag I the electronics install.

Bag H involves just a handful of screws and a couple of metal parts to get the nose braces on the front of the chassis and the battery box and antenna mount installed in the chassis.

The instructions to install the parts take just a single step in the manual.

The parts bag for Bag G is pretty small but has a couple of the larger pieces of the kit.

There’s the nose braces installed…

…and the battery box and antenna mount put in the chassis.

For Bag I, the steps have you install the electronics in the car.

First up, servo is installed with the old-school double Z-bend rod.

Once the servo is put in, the other electronics are installed with the supplied double-sided tape (I was trained to call this ‘servo tape’ in time-honored tradition).

The double Z-bend rod has to be as straight as possible, not twisted at all.

The Z-bend ends have to be set at 90 degrees as shown. Any other way and you’ll have to contort the rods in unnatural ways!

The Savox servo fit in perfectly – it’s no high-performance monster servo, more of a ‘period piece’ that is approximately as powerful and about as fast as the better servos you could find back in the day.

HPI Racing provided a set of their Flux electronics: the

waterproof Flux Reload v2 speedo and the

Flux Shot brushless 4300KV motor, equivalent to a 9-turn brushed motor. POWAHHH!

An 18-tooth pinion was fitted to the motor as suggested in the manual.

Finally, an Absima CR4T was sent to us from

Spire Model Distribution , Absima importers for the UK – there will be a complete review for this radio set soon, but for now you can see the first impressions in the video down below!

HPI also provided the

Plazma 2S LiPo battery we’ll be using throughout the review. Although the speed controller can handle 3S LiPo easily, I didn’t want to go crazy on the horsepower – the RC10 Classic isn’t about wheel-spinning and tail-sliding, it’s about RACING and control…so not too much power!

Here’s the car so far! Just about ready to drive :) We’ll be fitting the wheels on next!

And the video showing how everything has gone together, plus a ‘first look’ review at the Absima radio set:

Next step: installing the wheels and tires!



Wheels and Tires!

The Associated RC10 Classic build continues! In the last step, we installed all of the electronics and even did a mini-review of the Absima CR4T sent to us from

Spire Model Distribution, and in this next step we quickly get to terms with the 3-piece retro wheels, install the tires and fit them on the car for the first time!

The instruction steps to assemble and install the tires are really short and sweet, not much to add here…

Bag J has all the wheels and tires, plus the hardware to assemble the 3-piece wheels…and bushings that we will not be using!

The inner ring goes into the front wheel pretty easily. The tires are made from a hard rubber – no M3 rubber here from Pro-Line! Tires ‘back in the day’ were quite hard to be able to bit into very loose dirt by today’s standards.

The inner and outer rings go on pretty easily – lining up the screw holes can be a little time-consuming, but as an assembly process this wasn’t as bad as some other steps in this kit build!

And the finished front wheel – note the bearings installed instead of the bushings!

Now for the rear wheels – the inner ring goes in…

The outer wheel face goes in, and an extra retro tire inner ring that the instructions tell you to use for retro-style tires.

The inner wheel goes on, and the bolts are screwed in until the thread is just flush with the face of the wheel.

And there we are! A pile o’ wheels.

I went with the cool knock-off wheel nuts just because they look awesome! You have to screw them on by hand, though, so when you’re first putting them on you’ll need to be extra-careful that the axle goes into the knock-off as straight as possible.

The rear wheels installed…

…and we have a rolling chassis!

The view from the back

Just waiting for the body to be painted now!

And the video showing how the wheels went together (we promise it’s much shorter than the last video):

Join us soon for the next step: painting and installing the body!