Chapter 1 - Viewing of the first RC10 prototype
Going though some boxes tonight and found these parts. This is an early Team Associated RC10 prototype car tested and raced by Gil Losi Jr. I have a few of the old original prototype parts. Looks like I need to clean it up. Get it all back together and restore it. I don’t think this car has ever been photographed.
We built three cars originally. One for Jay Halsey, one for Gil Losi Jr. and one for AE factory testing. This will be quite a project. Time to find the missing pieces.
Chapter 2 - RC10 original Prototype Chassis.
I got the chassis cleaned up a bit. This was one of the first RC10 chassis made and used for testing. Not too pretty and never photographed that I can remember. You can see how the sides show the wrinkles in the aluminum.
This started out as a flat piece of 6061-zero condition aluminum. Then formed around a 1 inch thick aluminum pattern. Using a rubber and brass mallet, hitting, pounding the sheet around the pattern. As the sides formed, the aluminum would gather to form the wrinkles that you see. In mass production these wrinkles aren’t seen. Mass production uses a huge hydraulic press to form the chassis. I assure you I got better forming these the more I made. The chassis was then heat treated and aged to get the full hardness needed.
This was the beginning of the RC10. From here we could make various front and rear arm mounts, suspension arms, front kickups, etc. to test with. Gil Losi Jr. and Jay Halsey were Team Associated test drivers at the time.
Roger Curtis was the brain behind the design. Me, Curtis Husting was the one making all the prototype parts. All hand made using manual lathes, mills and such.
My father Gene Husting, designed the wheels and managed test sessions and driving as well. This car was a team effort.
Chapter 3 - Transmission
This is one of the original 6 gear RC10 prototype transmissions. Check the date on the drawing 12/6/83. That’s about 40 years ago. Roger would always make an assembly drawing to better visualize the concept.
Looking at the Top Shaft Diff assembly, you can see there is no Slipper Spring. The first iteration had a Belleville Cone type spring and large Diff Nut. This was similar to what we were using at the time for 1/12 on-road car Ball Diffs. Future versions we changed to a spring that was used for production. If you look close on the drawing, Roger had penciled in a spring sketch.
Looking at the Diff Shaft, you can see it had a larger diameter (.140”) than what was used in mass production (.125”). Many of the parts changed along the way with slight changes and more prototypes.
Looking at the Spine Plate assembly again, Roger drawing an assembly sketch to visualize with the Dogbone, you can see the Steel Outdrive Gears were smaller (18t) and the plastic gears were bigger (24t). This was changed later to get a better overall transmission gear ratio. None of these parts are molded. Everything was hand machined.
The Transmission Case looks very different from production.
Chapter 4 - Rear Suspension
Here are some shots of the Original RC10 Prototype rear suspension. We used DuBro Ball Cups and Pivot Balls.
If you look close on the Arm Mount you can see an additional 4-40 size hole. The hinge pins were at zero degrees with no toe-in. If you took out the back 8-32 screws and put in the 4-40 screws, this would add 1.5 degree toe-in on each side. This was a quick and easy way to test.
The Top Brace looks quite a bit different than final production.
Next step will be the front end.
Chapter 5 - Front Suspension
These are pictures of the Original RC10 Prototype front suspension.
It looks close to the final production but slightly different.
Front Arm mounts only have 2 mounting holes. The Steering Block arm is on top where the production ones are in the center. The Front Axle is a smaller diameter. This was so we could use Tamiya wheels. We didn’t have any Front Wheels at the time. Again, using DuBro ball cups.
Chapter 6 - Shocks, Wheels & Steering
For the first prototype RC10, Associated did not have off-road shocks available, so we initially used RC500 shocks on the front, although they were not ideal due to their small piston size and oil capacity. For the rear wee used other Kyosho shocks. Roger Curtis was in the middle of designing the RC10 shocks so we had to use what was available. Unfortunately, the original Kyosho test shocks are now lost, so I used the early RC10 rear shocks and removed the gold anodize for this build. I did get a set of Kyosho shocks from a good friend Cedric Devillers. I need to strip them and get them ready to install later.
I actually had two sets of Front Shock Towers in my prototype parts box. One used RC500 shocks which we ran first and a second shock tower made for bigger bore shocks. I built up the second shock tower with early RC10 shocks. You can see a picture of the second front shock tower built using early RC10 front shocks.
The springs used are not original but I needed something to put on the shocks.
We designed a 3 piece type rear wheel to fit Tamiya tires. The Tamiya tires were very popular back then. With a 3 piece wheel you could disassemble the wheel and change tires. Reuse the same wheels over and over.
For front tires we ran the Tamiya Sand Scorcher or Tamiya Rough Riders with Tamiya front wheels.
For the front steering servo saver we made a test mold with one pivot servo saver. We quickly learned we needed a second pivot to get the proper geometry and bump steer. I’m still looking for the original single servo saver parts. The one on this car is not the original.
There are not many pictures of the first prototype test cars. I’m having to use the prototype parts I have and memory to recreate the car.
Chapter 7 Speed Control, Electronics and bonus machined RC10 prototype parts
When first running the RC10 Prototype car we used a Wiper Arm / Resistor, mechanical type speed control. This was popular at the time for 1/12 on-road racing which we were heavily into. ESC were just picking up around the same time. We quickly switched to ESC soon after.
The aluminum resistor mount was also the servo mount. I probably made one only one of these. You can see the shape of the chassis had to be wide enough, and shaped to fit two servos side by side and leave room for the battery. This is why the chassis is shaped the way it is. It also had to be wide enough to fit the batteries and battery mounts sideways. The body was then shaped to fit this chassis shape.
The Resistor Mount was changed so the Steering Servo could be moved forward and the Throttle Servo could be moved back.
You’ll also see some more RC10 prototype parts I have. These are most of the original RC10 parts that have been saved. I’m hoping to find more to add to the collection.
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