Tamiya Egress build thread
Tamiya Egress build thread
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Sporky

Original Poster:

9,176 posts

82 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
Wotcher all - vague interest was expressed in a build thread for this, so here you go.

I'd long admired the Egress, but it's normally brutally expensive. Tamico had it for only very expensive in their summer sale, and I am easily swayed.

The brief history, as I understand it, is that Tamiya wanted to take on the serious racing market. They made the Avante in 1988, which had pretty much everything built out of turnbuckles, and was hilariously weird and rather fragile. A fair bit of tweaking later they revised the idea into the Egress. I've no idea if it's any good for racing, but it's odd. As if at each stage the designers said "I don't think we can do anything weirder than that", and then held each others' beer.

Here's what you get (plus some bits I bought):



One thing I've been spoiled on recently is hex hardware - the Egress is an early 90s reissue, and therefore has JIS heads (these are more or less compatible with a Philips driver). RC Schrauben (which you may be unsurprised to hear is German for "RC Screws" make a sensibly priced stainless hex set, with spares included. I'll skip the bit where I measured them all and put them in to little ziplocks for ease of building later.



First the motor goes onto its mount, and the mount onto the rear gearbox housing.



That and some other bits go onto the lovely carbon fibre lower chassis deck (which should have its edges sealed with superglue).



Resulting in this.



Then the first bits of the front gearbox. I'd suggest a bit of masking tape to hold the shaft in as it'll fall out otherwise and then the bevel gear falls out too. There are some weird bolts with holes through their heads. I assume we find out why later.



Onto the deck with you.


Sporky

Original Poster:

9,176 posts

82 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
I've never built ball diffs before, so this will be an exciting adventure. The internet is rife with tales of balls flying everywhere and wailing and gnashing of teeth. But how hard can it really be?



First you press the supplied ball races (the Egress comes with full ball races as you'd expect at this price) into the metal diff carriers, then stick the bearing plates on with some (included) diff grease.



Then nine tiny steel balls go into the ball carrier. I did this by putting some grease in first, then tweezering them into position. It was pretty straightforward. You then bung the carriers on, sandwiching it all together.



Next the thrust bearing for the diff tensioner. Put some anti-wear grease onto the washer, then cram however many of these even-smaller steel balls on. The grease stops them falling off. Then the other washer goes on top very gently so you don't squeeze the balls out. Hush at the back.



That goes through the diff bits we already made, and is screwed together with a spring to add adjustable pressure. These'll bed in over the first ten hours of use and may need tightening after that.



Harrowing moments later the second one is built in the same manner.



Then you stick some bearings on, and stick the outrunners on as well. Which is odd, because you remove them in the next stage because you can't get the diffs into the gearbox with the outrunners fitted. I'd say don't bother putting them on yet.



Then there's an idler gear that goes on a little shaft.



Those drop into the rear gearbox.



The front gearbox is done in a similar manner, except that the idler/bevel bit have a loose spindle that's held in (for now) with some masking tape. I told you it was weird. All of these gears do add some friction, (boo), but they keep the whole thing very low profile. Tamiya were taking the aerodynamics quite seriously.



Covers are attached front and rear - easy to remove for greasing and wear inspection.



Next these bits go together to form the main drive. The chubby cylinder just right of the main spur gear is a one-way bearing; optionally you can lock the main drive. Locked is better on looser surfaces, the one-way is better where there's more grip. I figured a one-way bearing was cleverer than a solid bit of plastic so that's what I did. You get both in the kit.



That assembles into this, erm, assembly.



Which drops into the motor mount rather neatly. Main driveshaft goes in at this stage too, with a dab of anti-wear grease at each end.


Sporky

Original Poster:

9,176 posts

82 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
Rear anti-roll bar. As standard. Not an optional upgrade like Kyosho.



This bit is a little fiddly; the ARB mounts are sandwiched between the top deck and the undertray mount like this. Build this upside-down versus how the instructions show it and it's a lot easier.



Then the top deck goes on - an absolute perfect fit. You might have spotted that the towers that connect the two decks are a funny shape, and laid out rather strangely. They also act as the battery holder, which is quite clever. You're not meant to find that out until later though, so don't tell anyone I told you.



Set up the mesh between the motor pinion and the main drive with a bit of paper as per previous builds, and drop in the bevel gear that transfers drive to the rear gearbox. If you like gears you'll love the Egress. It has lots of them.



And on pops the cover to hide all that sauciness.



Now the real weirdness begins, with a design of rear suspension I don't think anyone else has even considered. Various bits get attached to the two semi-trailing-arms.



And then all of these bits attach the arms to the chassis.



This sandwich sets up the rear mount of the rear arm. I recommend enlisting a friendly octopus to help with this (it's not that bad really).



The front is even stranger. Do the arm end of this first, then the other end of the little S-bracket - much easier that way around than the other.



And that's rear-suspension-lower-arms-wang. I think it was done to give a very particular geometry as the suspension compresses - jumps were big in them days, and as the arm rises you get more rear toe-out, which would increase stability when landing. Probably. It was the TRY (Tamiya Racing Factory) who designed all of this, and their on-road stuff is proper world class even now.

I will say that the ARB works really nicely - there's flex, but the two arms do want to move together.


Sporky

Original Poster:

9,176 posts

82 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
Universals. Fancy.



First you put the little collar into the round bit, with a grub screw inserted part way. Use the shorter grub screws or you won't be able to adjust them.



That goes into the bucket, the pin goes through the bucket and the collar, and then you tighten the grub screw. If you want them to wear out faster add some anti-wear grease.



Rear uprights - this was the point where Tamiya decided that maybe literally every other manufacturer had a point and started using 12mm wheel hexes instead of whatever random arrangement they felt like on the day.



And then you have these.



Two turnbuckles to assemble (I know I've mentioned this before, but having two thread-forming taps, one left and one right, makes turnbuckles much easier), then it all goes together and you have rear suspension. You'll note that the drive shaft goes exactly in line with the lower arm. I assume that's a good thing.



I have no idea what this bit is, but I built it just as they asked.



Ah - it's a thing that goes on the front. With some tower nuts. I don't know if that's what they're normally called, but it's what I'm calling them.


Sporky

Original Poster:

9,176 posts

82 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
Lower front arms - again the drive shafts go exactly in line with the lower arms because reasons. Don't question TRF.



Hurrah! Turnbuckles as standard.



The front arms attach with a ridiculously complex set of pins and E-clips, all to maintain that thing where the drive shafts are in line with the lower suspension arms. I think it's to get the centre of gravity as low as possible while still having good ground clearance.



Time to assemble the front knuckles.



The uprights are quite lovely.



Together they go.



Next is the front ARB, which attaches to the front bumper.



Moments later the front suspension is assembled. Very smooth. No slop.


Sporky

Original Poster:

9,176 posts

82 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
Next is the steering. Yes, all of those bearings are just for the steering. And they're included. No cheap sloppy plastic bushings here, Kyosho (sorry, I'll get over it eventually).



The bearings press in...



And the CF bit screws on. Make sure you follow the instructions and use the thin nut under the ball nut in the middle.



That drops in on some little towers - I found I had to add a washer under each tower to stop the steering link rubbing on the top deck.



Next up are the shocks, in a super-classy gold finish (for some reason Tamiya calls this colour "titanium"). The front and rear shocks are a different diameter as well as a different length, so make sure you pick the right sprues for the plastic bits for each.



Pistons are assembled and locked into the damper bodies - drop of oil on the O-rings as always.



Fill, get rid of any air bubbles, screw the caps on. The adjusters have a hex screw to tighten them rather than the damper bodies being threaded because Tamiya gonna Tamiya.



On go the springs, in an even classier champagne finish.



Next is the rear wing mount.



These bits attach the rear shocks to the chassis, because why wouldn't you make this complicated too?



On they pop, and the wing mount attaches to the same bolts.



From the rear - there's plenty of scope to raise the wing a bit if you want whatever that achieves.



Front shocks mount in a similarish manner - nice that they're on metal balls rather than plastic.



Ta-da. Also the steering links went on at some point and I didn't tell you about it. Sorry. The suspension is very plush indeed.


Sporky

Original Poster:

9,176 posts

82 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
Steering link. This is not a turnbuckle because there's no point in it being one.



Servo attaches...



And on go the rest of the electronics. I took the rear body mount off and put a penny washer under to hold the motor wires in place better.



Wheels! They come in a dark silver, but as a lot of the stickers are blue I sprayed them. Then chipped a load of the paint off because the tyres are very uncooperative indeed.



Just the bodywork to go - this is actually the Black Edition of the Egress, but I went for gunmetal. There's a bit of a gap between the underbody tray and the chassis which scoops up dirt - anyone else making one maybe don't follow the marked cut line, leave a bit more there. This is where you find out what the weird bolts on the gearbox were for - the undertray mounts to them.



Stickers on - not all of them or it looks a bit fussy to me, but just enough to brighten it all up a bit. We're done!



It's amazing how mucky you can get in two minutes. This is brilliant - very quick (only brushed, but a 15T motor), very darty, adjustable with the throttle.



I highly recommend the Egress. A brilliant and unconventional build, and from a quick thrash it runs nicely too.

v8notbrave

97 posts

31 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
Nice build, I love a tamiya, looks a classy bit of kit. Try brush less, made mine comically undrivable as chassis struggled to turn at the speed. Needed new esc if I recall but cheap on eBay. How long can u keep it shiny for??

Sporky

Original Poster:

9,176 posts

82 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
Once I got all the bits of mushroom out from between the chassis and the undertray, and wiped off most of the grass, it was fairly shiny again. So maybe another couple of days.

generationx

8,596 posts

123 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
Excellent thread Sporky, and certainly a similar build to the Avante. Thanks!

Sporky

Original Poster:

9,176 posts

82 months

Sunday 21st September
quotequote all
generationx said:
Excellent thread Sporky, and certainly a similar build to the Avante. Thanks!
I had a look after your question - at a guess the steering and gearboxes look very similar.

tim0409

5,386 posts

177 months

Monday 22nd September
quotequote all
Nice build and looks great in gunmetal grey. I bought the standard Egress from Tamico a few years ago and really need to get round to building it.