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B-MOW's Vanquish H10 Optic Kit
- Thread starter B-MOW71
- Start date
The Vanquish aluminum rod ends arrived. These will add some bling to the front end and should tighten up the steering. The balls are held in with a small brass piece with a set screw and can be adjusted if any slop appears as they wear.
Looks great, but I just can't justify $35 for a few rod ends! Are those rod ends tight on the shift linkage to make the perfect length steering link for the Hydrosteer?
I hear ya on the price. I never had a plan to buy these machined rod ends in the past. I’ve seen others use these on the Optic and thought this would be a good way to get a closer look at them and see how they hold up. I more than likely will never buy these for link rod ends.
They are not tight up against the shift linkage center. There might be another half or full turn to go. There is enough room for more adjustments. I did put a small drop of Loctite on the threads to hold them from spinning.
Thanks for the info. More reason for me to not get these. That space would drive me insane.
On to something I haven’t done since 1988. Back in them days during my 1/10 off-road buggy racing days, we’d use Rit dye to dye our white nylon parts on our Team Associated RC-10 kits. I’d always use black, so dying the parts were really easy.
Here’s my OG 1988 RC-10 with the white nylon parts dyed black. This buggy has been thru many different iterations in its life and still has almost all of its original kit pieces. I restored it back to its original look a few years back.
So now on to my newest adventure in dying nylon parts. I wasn’t wanting to run the stock black cage that came with the Optic kit, so I purchased the gray cage and it’s accessories. The plan is to dye the cage a light blue. I bought the Rit synthetic sapphire blue in hopes to achieve a cool blue look.
Back in the day still living at home, I’d use an old pan on mom’s stove to heat up the water and dye the parts. In these times trying not to piss off the wife, I decided to try this process a little different. I’m using a portable 2-burner hot plate on my workbench.
My local Sam’s Club sells these stainless steel pans. Perfect size to hold the cage and its parts. And it fits perfectly on the hot plate.
So trying to go off of memory from about 37 years ago, I started the process of dying parts. The Rit dye instructions call for the water to be around 200 degrees. With the hot plate I could only get to about 180 degrees. From memory I remember leaving the parts in for roughly 30 minutes to get a nice even color. Back then we had a powder dye and I would add the box to get a good black color. This new dye is now liquid and I had no idea how much to add, so I added about half the bottle.
After 25 minutes I turned off the heat to let the water cool. At 30 minutes I pulled the parts out and rinsed them off under cold water to wash off the excess dye.
Here’s the results. Not the light blue that I wanted, but blue it is! I think I either added too much dye to the water or left the parts in too long or both. This was my first time trying a color other than black. Anyways I make this color work. I may pick up another gray cage in the future and try for a lighter shade of blue next time.
Here’s my OG 1988 RC-10 with the white nylon parts dyed black. This buggy has been thru many different iterations in its life and still has almost all of its original kit pieces. I restored it back to its original look a few years back.
So now on to my newest adventure in dying nylon parts. I wasn’t wanting to run the stock black cage that came with the Optic kit, so I purchased the gray cage and it’s accessories. The plan is to dye the cage a light blue. I bought the Rit synthetic sapphire blue in hopes to achieve a cool blue look.
Back in the day still living at home, I’d use an old pan on mom’s stove to heat up the water and dye the parts. In these times trying not to piss off the wife, I decided to try this process a little different. I’m using a portable 2-burner hot plate on my workbench.
My local Sam’s Club sells these stainless steel pans. Perfect size to hold the cage and its parts. And it fits perfectly on the hot plate.
So trying to go off of memory from about 37 years ago, I started the process of dying parts. The Rit dye instructions call for the water to be around 200 degrees. With the hot plate I could only get to about 180 degrees. From memory I remember leaving the parts in for roughly 30 minutes to get a nice even color. Back then we had a powder dye and I would add the box to get a good black color. This new dye is now liquid and I had no idea how much to add, so I added about half the bottle.
After 25 minutes I turned off the heat to let the water cool. At 30 minutes I pulled the parts out and rinsed them off under cold water to wash off the excess dye.
Here’s the results. Not the light blue that I wanted, but blue it is! I think I either added too much dye to the water or left the parts in too long or both. This was my first time trying a color other than black. Anyways I make this color work. I may pick up another gray cage in the future and try for a lighter shade of blue next time.
Wow. Thats a nice blue. Guessing not going with the green panels?
hnoroian
Rock Crawler
Maybe darker than what you wanted but that took the color extremely well.
Mopar man
Rock Stacker
That’s a great looking shade of blue. Some maté black panels would look killer. Does the cage come with the hardware to assemble it?
FREEDOM83
Rock Crawler
wow!! I just fell in love.... I want to know how that works hahaha, I imagine that in black plastic it wouldn't take the same color, right??
Nice to see you back around ... always with the great informative post and absolute detail in the images. The Blue looks great and more with some dark colored panels even the CF ones too ... I would think for those that got the green panels, a dark green cage will pop with the lime green and even dye your green panels a shade darker. 
....
....89Industries
Quarry Creeper
That blue is vintage Fox (suspension) blue. Before they stole KTM colors (orange and black).
Edit: here's a pic of their old truck shock decals. All the bike stuff was blue up until about 2010 when they did some black and then a couple years later they went orange/black across the board
Blue Fox decals
Edit: here's a pic of their old truck shock decals. All the bike stuff was blue up until about 2010 when they did some black and then a couple years later they went orange/black across the board
Blue Fox decals
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Wow that is a very vivid blue. I love it! Bummer it's not what you were going for, but I think it looks great.
Following in the bg as usual lol always a pleasure to see what build project you got on the go. How far does the dye penetrate (looks good), how deep of scratch can it take before exposing the original cage colour, if any?
Not on this one. Still deciding which direction to go with the green.
It is a nice looking color. I’ll make it work.
Black panels would look good. No the cage does not come with screws. Luckily I have thousands of spare black oxide screws laying around.
No the black plastic won’t take color like the gray. I let you know how it holds up.
Thanks. Nice to be back! CF panels would look great! Nice idea for the green panels.Nice to see you back around ... always with the great informative post and absolute detail in the images. The Blue looks great and more with some dark colored panels even the CF ones too ... I would think for those that got the green panels, a dark green cage will pop with the lime green and even dye your green panels a shade darker.
I do remember the old Fox colors. May keep that in mind for a livery. Thanks!
Thanks. The deep blue is growing on me.
Thanks for following along. I’m not sure how deep the dye is. I should have dyed a piece of the sprue to do the check. I’ll report back once the cage gets some rock rash.
A look at the rear. Installed the DSM Off-road scale bed. Great looking fuel cell. I also added the VP red alum oil plug that is found on the F10/H10 rear axles. I’ll do some weathering on it so it doesn’t look so new and clean.
Also added a 3D printed mesh under the mid cross brace. It is designed to hold the Fusion power switch. I’ll have more details on that later.
Also added a 3D printed mesh under the mid cross brace. It is designed to hold the Fusion power switch. I’ll have more details on that later.
The Optic kit comes with two of the anodized red screw plugs. One for the axle and one for the stock fuel cell.
You’re right. I’ve got other plans for the stock fuel cell with the red plug.
The more i see dyed cages, i think i should have gone that route instead of black.
