Yet another hobby?

At the weekend, my father in law gave me a Nitro RC car. 

He hadn't been able to get it going last he'd tried, and it was quite a few years old.

I knew nothing about them (still don't), but I accepted it as something interesting to fiddle with.

The idea of a remote controlled car that runs on methanol sounds.. interesting. It also has a controller that runs in the 11m band. At least until I swap it out. 

It's been an interesting.. and expensive.. 24 hours.. which is how long I've been fiddling with it.

I started yesterday trying to start it - after hours of working out that I needed to charge the glow plug igniter first, and procrastinating about the suggestion that the fuel was stale (they don't even make this fuel that colour any more).
I did actually start it once - briefly, whilst the engine was unmounted, without the air filter on and without much clue of how to kill it other than starving it of fuel. 

I later discovered that I'd managed to cross thread the plate the glow plug sits in. The pull start is also knackered.

There was most of a spare engine in the box. Sadly its starter isn't a direct swap, and I lack the spares to resolve that. 

The carburettor is also a bit filthy. I do have a replacement that looks better, but alas.. I don't know how to get it off.

I wound up buying a new engine and some fresh fuel. It's on the low end of the power scale.. which might be ideal for the backyard. I can at least start fresh with that, and it's a cheap engine so killing it won't bug me too much.

I've since ordered a new fuel tank as well. I've been trying to clean the residue out of the original since yesterday without much luck. It's small, hard to clean and generally sealed so I can't get all of the detritus out of it. It seems silly to risk a $150 engine over a $26 fuel tank. I also ordered a fuel filter. The filter isn't an OEM idea, but I note that pressure for the fuel tank comes from the silencer - essentially the exhaust system.  Looking at the detritus build up, it's evident that crap can get into the fuel, so a couple of extra dollars is here nor there. 

I've polished the silencer. It would have once been chrome, but was rather dull when I received it. Now it's shiny again, as is mount that feeds it from the engine.

The gears that hang off the engine are a little rusty. Currently sitting in a bath of WD-40. I will endevour to hit them with a wire brush. I'll have to dismantle that assembly when I change engines. I'm not sure I'll enjoy that so much. There are indeed a whole heap of components hidden under there. 

I probably need to dismantle the clutch as well. There are components in there with some surface rust. I may not do this yet. A coating of WD40 though will happen. There's plenty of dust and dirt up around there that I need to clear off too. 

I'm hoping once the new components arrive, that I have enough new bits to get this operational. The electronics side seemed to work when I tested it at least. The old transmitter and receiver are old AA battery driven - using a total of 12 batteries between them. I'll attempt to run them off NI-MH batteries and see how that goes. Otherwise I'll replace the transmitter and receiver module with a modern 2.4GHz version with lithium batteries. 

I still don't really have my head around how to tune this thing yet. I figure being able to get the engine to fire and spin the wheels is probably a more pressing issue. Getting it cleaned up and operational is certainly the minimum I need to get done. I do look forward to giving it a go, though I suspect even with the .75 horse power nitro engine on it, it's going to be a little too much for the backyard. We may find ourselves needing to find somewhere with a lot more space. 

Then I may well be stuck thinking about the possible tech upgrades: GPS speed tracking, shoehorning a camera on it (I may already have a plan) and exactly how I can fit a remote fuel cut off to kill the engine - the current method seems to require being able to drop the car to neutral, get under the shell and squeeze the fuel line until it cuts out. 

So, certainly not a planned hobby or something I've honestly ever considered before, but something that seems interesting from the point of view of working out how to make it work (my weakness I'm afraid) and probably something that will appeal to my inner bogan. Plus, the father in law seeing that I've done something with it will always be good for brownie points. I've never really played around with an engine before - beyond replacing a fuel pressure regulator and installing a pod filter on an old car and changing the spark plug on the lawn mower, so this is actually interesting.