Hey, you there!
Who, me?
Yes, you! I know that you love the idea of steering on a slot car but you don’t need a chassis that leans in the corners. You could use a PCS32 or Slot Classic chassis of course and fit the steering system from this page, but what if you need something smaller? Maybe for a 1:43 car, or a really small 1:32 car with no overhang. Maybe something like this.
Now, chase-cars has a solution for you, the amazing new small chassis. How small? Print off this pdf on A4 at 1:1 and check it for size on your slot car bodyshell. Here’s another to suit the Mini pictured above.
The chassis is just the rear section, the front is whatever width steering you need from this page. It uses the running gear from a Carrera Go car, these can be found very cheaply as used cars so you can get running very easily. The chassis section supplied looks like this.
First, cut out the middle parts, if you’re building it into a Mini you can discard them but for the moment let’s cut them out carefully.
Everyone knows what side cutters look like, see below
But my life was transformed when I found flush side cutters, the jaws look like this, ground flat.
They allow you to snip very close to what you’re cutting and saves a lot of work with a scalpel and files later on.
Take a sharp cutters and cut through the 3 ribs where it joins the main chassis. Make sure you don’t cut the motor spigots!
Next remove the rear section in the same way.
Take a scalpel and carefully remove all traces of where you cut. Be careful of the motor spigots which need to stay on there!
Next, take a Carrera Go car, we only need the motor and rear axle.
Remove the screws from underneath.
We need to remove the rear wheels from the knurled axles. There’s no pleasant way to do this so remove the tyres and get brutal with your cutters.
You need to cut the plastic where it grips the axle, be careful not to damage the axle.
Now remove the axle from the chassis by cutting the chassis itself.
You can cut the motor wires next.
And make one more cut to remove the motor.
Flex the chassis and remove the motor.
That’s all you need.
Check the orientation carefully, and assemble the rear axle as shown.
Push the axle all the way through.
Then back through the other hole. If you find that you’ve bought a Carrera Go car with a rear axle that’s too narrow (some of their F1 cars for example) you can push the black gear onto a plain 3/32″ rear axle. You will need to open up the bearing holes in the chassis to 2.4mm.
Motor next. Push it back onto the spigots as shown.
Then gently squeeze the motor until it clicks into position.
And you’re done.
Head over to the instruction page for the steering system and build it. Go on, I’ll wait here for you.
Measure the wheelbase you need and if necessary cut the front end to suit.
This is going onto the Mini, trim the sprue from the wheels as shown.
You need to clean the powder out of the Minilite spokes with a toothbrush. This isn’t going back in your mouth afterwards.
Fit the rear wheels onto the knurled axle, hold in place with some superglue.
The Mini wheels are very small so the guide will be at it’s lowest setting. For a Scalextric guide, you need a large and medium spacer positioned as shown, a 4mm drill bit keeps everything in line while the glue sets.
Back to the rear chassis, put a screw into the fixing post but leave it sticking out a little.
Now push the front and rear together to suit your wheelbase, and tighten the screw.
If it’s going under the Mini bodyshell, some black paint helps.
And you’re done! Hit the track, and try to get the wheels in line when you’re approaching the bus.
If you want to use this chassis to fit any other chase-cars bodyshell, now is the time to use those adapter pieces we cut out at the very beginning.
Trim the link parts as shown.
Clean the powder out of the slot.
And then slot it into the chassis as shown.
Check the fit is smooth and hold in place with superglue.
Now for the front, trim the link parts again.
Make sure you get the orientation right; the cut-out part is clearance so should face towards the guide. Below the steering is upsidedown and the hollowed out part faces up.
Use the mounting screw to hold it in position and that’s it, you can now fit this under any other chase-cars bodyshell.
Once you’ve taken it on a test drive, you might find it’s a bit tricky to keep on the track with the small wheels and so much power. You can either change your controller for this, or reduce the voltage across the motor. This is insane for racing, but makes for a more useable car at home, here’s how you do it. Get yourself a 10 ohm resistor, about 2W if possible. Arrange it like this on the chassis.
This gives lots of space around it, then connect everything up as before.
It doesn’t matter which wire has the resistor connected. If you’re doing this with the Mini and got some weight up front, you can position the resistor on the rear and hold in place with some glue.
