Repair-It

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Radio-Shack-Sag ... 1389415460?

I have had one of these since 6th grade or so. Needs new rear tires. I have upgraded the front wheels to bearings, from nylon bushings.

Kinda fun to see a near mint one. I need to get mine going. Would be cool for Ian to play with it some day. It does give some credence to expensive toys, as this was a $100 RC car, which is a lot for a 6th grader. Except I still have it.

You could get replacement parts for it at one point. In fact I did just that a few times, including a new body.

If Ian got this toy, would he get in trouble for not "driving seriously" enough assuming he would be like most kids and just try to make it go as fast as possible and see how sharp of a turn he can get it to do (and then realize that going that fast and taking that sharp of a turn will just lead to the car crashing or smashing or flipping over?

Correct. This is not the kind of toy you smash into everything with and see how many times you can get it to roll over. Consequently, it still works after like 22 years. And doing shenanigans on pavement is why the tires wear out. It also doesn't work on grass (not tall enough) so, yes, serious use is required.

Somehow I forgot to update this thread. I ended up ordering a whole unit, just because I needed two rear tires for mine to get it to drive again. So I bought this last May:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/172215888538?

But then I lost my Sagitta, and couldn't find it after tearing the house apart.

This morning we found it in a beach cooler. So I finally decided it was time to open my package from eBay. It still had the tape on it. Here's what it came with: - A complete car
- Two original NiCad 7.2V packs (probably pretty dead)
- A remote - but surprise! It's band 3! My car and remote is band 6. So if I got another two rear tires, I could presumably have two functioning Sagittas that can be driven together. Did not expect that.
- A NiCad fast charger (I have something similar)
- A NiCad slow charger (ditto)
- Spare lug nut wrench

It even came with (dead) Radio Shack batteries in the car. The remote also had batteries and that actually turned on. Honestly this car is in far nicer overall shape than mine.

Here's my band 6 remote: I realized what the "spare" spring and suspension rods were from... The pin must have fallen out in shipping. Fixed! Here's my car: The bodies are all the same, so the 3 on the body is not related to the radio band.

Years ago (EDIT: wow, 7 years) I upgraded the front wheels to actual wheel bearings that I specified myself by measuring brand new nylon bushings. They work far better than the nylon bushings that the cars normally use. It also retains camber instead of the tire flopping over while turning. Way less drag, too. Overall, a noticeable performance upgrade. I have pics somewhere that I can post. The very sad old rear tires. Time to pull that nastiness off. The newer tires are flat spotted unfortunately. Not too much I can do about it. What I really need to do is figure out if I can get some universal tires, or even universal tires + wheels. I have no clue. Years ago when I had rejuvenated interest in this car and did the front wheel bearing upgrade, I found out that Radio Shack still sold an upgraded 3300mAh 7.2V NiMH battery pack. So I slapped it in my quick charger (15 minute quick charger, 8 amps, with a cooling fan!), put 4 new AAs in the car, and just ran with the batteries I already had on my remote that have probably been in there for years.

So did it work? Yup! The only issue this car really has is the remote. The speed control level/pot/whatever is flakey. After some fooling around, it worked a lot better and I was driving around. The flat spots on the rear tires seem to make it spin out very easily when turning. Plus it's cold as balls outside anyway.

Anyway, success!! I am still impressed with the quality of this car. I mean it is pushing 25 years old and has not had an easy life. Basically I would call it very entry level hobby grade.

I will try to get some video at some point.

I have some memories of playing this car when we were little. It's cool that you still have it.

That's pretty awesome. I still have my 5th grade era RC car awaiting restoration as well. Is this officially the oldest vehicle in your household?

The Ranger might be a year older.