Tamiya Avante 2001 Project

Page 2: Assembly

I have no box for the Avante 2001, but I was lucky enough to get the original color instructions so this photo shows what I started with. The plastic parts were in a bin at my side.

The build starts with an FRP (fiberglass) baseplate to which 3 aluminum standoffs are bolted. There are also a pair of doublers which are cemented (Shoe Goo) and screwed to the plate. This is where the rear radius arms attach and has presumably been added to address a weakness in the original Avante design. Note that the original Avante had the wider chassis plate in the middle and the lower plate was only as wide as a battery. Here, the wider plate has been put on the bottom. This is probably the single biggest difference in the designs. One advantage of this is that this plate no longer has to be cut out around the motor. On the right you can see the housing for the rear gearbox with attached aluminum motor mount which looks just like the original.

Here is the cool planetary differential which is used in both the front and the rear. There are four internal planet gears, but each pair only mates with the brass colored gear going to either the left or the right axle while also overlapping each other. All of that makes a lot more sense if you can see it moving. On the right the diff has been installed in the rear gearbox housing. This will be accessible from below the chassis for maintenance without removing the gearbox.

Now we'll build the front gearbox. It looks a bit different than the rear because it includes a set of bevel gears to connect to the prop shaft. All of the gearing is just like the original Avante.

These pictures show the installation of the rear and front gearboxes, respectively. Both just bolt to the lower base plate with countersunk tapping screws.

Now the upper FRP plate can be installed to span the front and rear gearboxes and greatly stiffen the chassis. Because of the swap of upper and lower plate shape since the original Avante, the battery access is somewhat different.

Now we'll start the rear suspension and we start to see some significant changes from the original Avante. All of the big adjustable aluminum rod ends are gone, replaced with plastic. The lower arm is now one piece, replacing the dozen or parts of the original. The upright is the same, but the upper link has been simplified. The way the rear sway bar attaches has also been modernized and is now driven by the lower arms instead of the upper.

There are even more changes on the front suspension. The flexible system to absorb impacts to the front wheels is gone, as are the multi-piece lower arms which are now monolithic plastic. The one thing that I would have thought would be the most obvious thing to change is the cast uprights which are WAY too thin and the weakest detail on the buggy, yet these remain unchanged. The knuckles are original as well, but the upper links and steering links are simplified. On the old Avante, the front shocks lay down low and attached directly to the plastic front bulkhead, but here we have an FRP shock tower which makes the shocks much more vertical and allows for more travel.

The saddest thing to be lost from the original Avante are the beautiful aluminum shocks. These plastic oil filled shocks are not bad, they just don't have the panache of the originals. I bet they're a lot cheaper though.

Now the shocks can be attached to complete the suspension. The rear shocks have been moved behind the lower arms whereas they were in front of them originally. This allows better access for removing the body. As previously mentioned, the front shocks are much more vertical (though still greatly tilted) than they were. The front bumper is much wider than the original. The front sway bar can be seen attached behind it.

The center ball differential is built just like the original. The shaft on the left has a stack of what should be 5 disc springs but my copy only had 4 which explains why the drivetrain was so rough. Luckily they are easy to buy, but pausing my build whilst I waited for them to arrive was not easy. I attempted to substitute some washers for the single missing spring but it didn't work properly.

The Avante 2001 came with a Sport Tuned motor which luckily was in good working order. It drives the center differential directly as shown. The output of one side of the diff is a bevel gear which drives the rear gearbox. The other output is the prop shaft. Except for the choice of motor, all of this is identical to the original.

The last thing to do on the chassis is install the steering linkages. The original Avante used a convoluted longitudinal dual bellcrank system which made for somewhat sloppy steering, but the 2001 uses a more conventional lateral dual bellcrank system.

Once the electronics are installed we have a runner. There was never room for a mechanical speed control so the original used the Tamiya C.P.R. unit. I installed a modern ESC instead. You can also see the Cam-Loc wheels which are exclusive to the original Avante and the 2001, though standard wheels can also be used. My car didn't come with a driver and he is unique to the 2001 so I had to use a re-re driver from 2011 to which I glued some styrene plates. This allows the driver to be screwed to the body. As far as I can tell, he is otherwise the same as the original driver.

Here you can compare the original badly painted body to my fresh new reproduction from Team Bluegroove. Sadly, the repro body is substantially smaller than the original: almost 1 cm. This makes fitting it hard, and it also makes my reproduction decals not line up properly. I ultimately made it work though. The same cannot be said for the under tray. Since it needs to fit the chassis so precisely, the smaller repro version wouldn't attach at all making it essentially worthless. Luckily the original was in decent shape so I was able to reuse it.

And we have the completely restored Avante 2001! Everything is pretty much like new. The new tires are installed, the missing cam-loc replaced, and the new body installed. Looks pretty fantastic. The obligatory picture on the right allows you to compare it with the (2011) original.

Back to Page 1 | Up to Index | Go to Page 3