Mardave Meteor Questions: Manual, Pinion Gear, General Advice?

[jamesbeat]

When I was a kid growing up in Birmingham, England back in 1988, I lusted after a Mardave Meteor.
I think it was the race pedigree, the fact that one of my teachers had one (making it a 'grown up' car) and the fact that it was relatively affordable, meaning that the prospect of owning one was at least remotely realistic.

Well, I never had much money, and life moves quickly when you're twelve, so I never did get my Meteor

A lot has changed since then. I'm 40 years old, I have a wife and kids of my own, and I now live in New York.
I never forgot that Meteor though.

My boss is into drones, and that got me thinking about RC in general and cars in particular, so I decided that I would try and buy a Meteor.
I discovered that Mardave never exported the Meteor to the States, so I was limited to searching for one from the UK.
They don't turn up on ebay often, or at least not from sellers who are willing to ship to the States.
They were also surprisingly expensive, especially when factoring in international shipping.

I had come to terms with the fact that I would be waiting a long time, or that I would even have to resort to buying parts bit by bit from the UK until I had a whole car.

Then, last Friday, I was idly browsing on ebay, and I found it!
A Mardave Meteor, short wheelbase (I think?), with the old-fashioned body shell with cutouts for the battery pack - the exact same version that I had drooled over in magazine adverts.
The best part was that it was from a seller in Texas, so no international shipping costs.

I put in a huge bid at the very last second so that I couldn't lose the auction, and won it for a very reasonable $77.

The seller told me that he had got it in a job lot of stuff that he bought from the Netherlands, so that's how it ended up being on this side of the pond.

The car is missing one rear wheel, but I'm going to replace the wheels with some modern red dished ones so they will look correct but take modern tires.

It does not come with a motor, so I'll be needing a pinion gear too.
I am also unable to find the manual online. I hear that it is more like a leaflet and isn't much use, but I'd like to have one anyway for the sake of completeness.

Does anyone have a pdf of the manual they could upload or email?

What size pinion gear should I buy? (I know nothing of tooth pitches etc so please explain like I'm 5).
This car is going to have an easy life as an occasionally-run shelf queen with a silver can motor, so I don't want a crazy pinion gear.

Any other information that I might not know would also be appreciated - I know there are some Mardave fans here.

I haven't got the car yet, but here are some photos from the auction.
Is there anything missing that I didn't notice?:

[wildoliver]

I'm a massive Meteor fan and have far too many for my own good, I was watching that auction too.

Personally I wouldn't try to use alternative wheels, the Meteors have quite unusual wheels, most that I try on don't fit too well, I haven't tried RC10 wheels yet but original wheels aren't particularly pricey and the tyres aren't hard to get.

Re. Tyres the original ISR/VSR tyres are quite rare in good/unused condition, I suggest using alternatives to run on, were original RC10s a 2.0 tyre? I'm sure I recall they were in which case they will be easier to get than Schumachers in the US.

I think I've got an original manual somewhere, if no-one else has one on PDF I'll dig it out and scan it, however they are simple in the extreme.

32dp pinions needed.

You are missing the rear bumper/motor guard, I assume also the C clip to hold the wheel on and the drive pin.

Also missing the top plate across the battery holders and the mechanical speedo. Top plates are fairly rare as are speedos as most people went electronic and the top plate made changing batteries even harder. I suggest just leaving a battery in it and charging it up in car, it's all I did for years as a child.

Looking at it you might get really lucky, your rear bearings are proper bearings, as kit the standard car had bronze bushes on early models and horrible all plastic rear uprights on late models, someone has upgraded your rear wheels to bearings this is a bonus, also it appears you may have the fairly rare bearing front wheels which are great, if your really really lucky the gearbox will be the full bearing version with the bearing laygear etc.

At least you can repair/repaint the body easily too as it's just hard plastic and painted on the top, unlike lexan.

Generally it doesn't look a bad buy, Unless your really set on going full collector I'd probably just hunt a wheel and speedo top plate and run an esc in it and enjoy it, if you start hunting out original boxes etc. It will get expensive fast!

[jamesbeat]

Thanks for the info, looks like I got lucky!

It looks to me like one of the battery holders has been cut on the top, presumably to allow removal of the battery without unscrewing anything.

Do I really need that top plate? I'll be running an ESC.

Thanks for the information about the wheels, I'd like to keep the originals if possible, so if there are current production tires that gives me options.
If I do end up needing new wheels, I had assumed that I would end up making new axles anyway, so fitment won't be a big deal.
I may end up making new axles either way, because I would like the ability to use wheel nuts rather than E-clips.

It's a shame about the rear bumper.
I did suspect that this was missing, but then I found some photos of another Meteor that didn't have one.
That made me think that this was one of the differences between the SWB and LWB versions, but I guess it must just have been that the car in the photo was missing its rear bumper too!

The body is something that I am still thinking about.
I'd like to do a box art version, but there have been a couple of different ones. Do you happen to know which particular box art version is the correct one for my model?

I'm seriously toying with the idea of using the current body to make a vacuum forming buck.
All of the repo bodies I've seen appear to be the newer style with the rear fender things on the sides.
I think I'd like to mold the body so that I have the ability to replace it if it gets damaged.
It would be nice to have an ABS one for display and a Lexan 'stunt double' for when I run the car.
I'm not going to be bashing this car, but ABS is pretty fragile compared to Lexan, especially when it's decades old.

If you have it handy, I would really appreciate a scan of the manual.
I feel like I have combed the entire internet with no luck

[DerbyDan]

Another big Mardave Meteor fan here too

Congratulations on your purchase... I too saw that on Ebay.US & though how strange that an example of the classic British buggy should end up on the other side of the pond, I guess its quite poetic that it should come into the possession of another ex-pat!

Regarding the rear wheels, the offset is such that the drive pin sits very close to the inside line of the wheel rim - I can't think of wheels from any other buggy with such a deep offset fitting. Of course you could machine up your own axles (which would need to be shouldered with a sleeve) - to allow for the alternative fitment of a wheel from a different buggy, but you would also need to machine in the drive cup to accept the end of the driveshaft. The dished red Meteor wheels are 2" - Schumacher still sell full spike & block tread tyres in 2" fitment which in the modern compounds work well on track - personally I'd try and find another Meteor wheel & run the Schumacher tyres.

Real early Meteor kits (with the three piece hole design wheels) it seems didn't come with a rear bumper - yours appears to be a mid-period car with the later 2" single piece wheels & corresponding tyres, but has the adjustable camber/steering links & bearing/bush rear hubs - which were also features of the older kits.... so in theory it should have had a rear bumper fitted... this was always a separate part to the main chassis on SWB cars - only the LWB chassis incorporated the rear bumper.

On the Meteor I've been racing this year, I trimmed one of the battery cups so that I could slide a rounded stick style LiPo battery in from one side, a pair of good strong rubber O'rings are wrapped around the end of the battery & the remaining element of the battery cup. I did make a plate that sits above the battery like the original mech-speedo plate, but I extended it so that it braces off the gearbox providing greater rigidity to the rear of the chassis.... but having a plate is not essential - there is plenty of room otherwise for the mounting of an ESC.

Penguin's reproduction of the SWB Lexan shell is period correct for your car - it was available as an option part from Mardave (its on the parts list I have from Jan 1988) - I also had a couple on my original Meteor BITD! That said I'm sure there's someone over here that is/was reproducing the kit style bodies in the original ABS material - it wasn't Kamtec, someone over on Tamiyaclub I think?

I've got a PDF scan of the instruction 'manual' - message me your e'mail address & i'll send over to you

....& here's my Meteor thread over on RC10Talk - which might give you some ideas http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=33237

[fidspeed]

thought you pop up on this one Dan

Dan is THE MAN for all things Meteor his thread on Rc10 is definitely worth a look

hope to catch up some time dan weve been collecting vintage like nutters lately !!

dave an mitch Fid

[jamesbeat]

Ok, I've had a little time to do a brief 'autopsy' on my Meteor, and have learned the following:

Upon careful examination, it seem that one of the rear wheels is missing

There is no pinion gear, but Dan gave me the info I need to find the correct one, and they are cheap.

The spur(?) gear is not the type with the spaces for bearings.
In theory this is no problem, because I have a lathe.
In practice it may be a problem, because I only have one gear, and getting a replacement is more difficult than usual because I live in the States.
I may make a piloted reamer on the lathe and cut the pockets by hand. That way I can practice on scrap plastic until I know it will work ok.
I could just leave it, as I won't be running this car much and it will have a tame motor.

The front wheels do not have bearings, they have bronze bushings. They wobble a bit too.
Does anyone know what size bearings I would need? Hoping they aren't some weird non-standard size.
I'll have to pop them out and get the calipers on them I guess.

Other than the above, the car is in remarkably good shape.
All the plastic parts appear to be intact, and the chassis has very few scrapes on it.
The bumper has some battle scars, but I think I can eliminate most of them.

The steel parts have surface rust, but this appears to be cosmetic only, no deep pitting.
I may look into replacing all the steel screws and pins with stainless ones, but part of me wants to keep it as original as possible.
One thing preventing that is the fact that many of the steel pins etc were originally bright zinc or nickel plated, so that will be difficult to replicate. If they had been blackened it would be easy.
I may tumble the steel parts to clean them up and keep them safe, and use stainless replacements on the car.

I have yet to fully strip the gearbox, so I'm hoping there are no nasty surprises in there.
The diff feels a bit weird, but I don't know if that is normal for these cars.

When I turn one of the rear wheels (or rather 'wheel'), the axle on the opposite side turns in the same direction. If I hold the axle still and turn the opposite wheel, the diff clicks and slips.
Does this sound right, or is there something wrong with the diff?

This is my first car with a ball diff, so I'm not sure what to look for.

I'm kind of nervous about dismantling the diff because I'm worried I won't get it back together again.
There's not much info out there, so any tips or instructions would be most welcome!


The shocks are really funky and filled with old black oil, so they will have to be stripped and rebuilt.
In fact, the whole car is covered in a thick layer of grime, so I'm going to strip it down completely and clean every part.


The main problem right now is the missing rear wheel. If I manage to get a wheel, the car will at least be complete.

Does anyone have a wheel for sale, or know where I could get one, or do I just have to keep searching eBay until one shows up?

[dinglem]

I had a lot of fun with my Mardave Meteor bitd. I purchased it from 'Mike's Models' in Kingstanding and raced it at Perry Common Buggy Club. Very early racing days for me, but it was quick and set me up for bigger things a few years later. We had a Shinwa rolling road (just posted it in the 'show us your vintage collection' thread), and the Meteor was the fastest car we ran on there.... From memory it had a Reedy 21double - Silver Dot in it geared on a 15 tooth pinion.

If you're going for the standard silver can 540 motor then stick with a 16 tooth pinion.

We eventually made our own LWB chassis for ours and added Option House shocks too. Went pretty well. I sold it on to a friend so I might have to contact him and see whether it is still tucked away in his parents loft....

[jamesbeat]

Originally Posted by dinglem

I had a lot of fun with my Mardave Meteor bitd. I purchased it from 'Mike's Models' in Kingstanding and raced it at Perry Common Buggy Club. Very early racing days for me, but it was quick and set me up for bigger things a few years later. We had a Shinwa rolling road (just posted it in the 'show us your vintage collection' thread), and the Meteor was the fastest car we ran on there.... From memory it had a Reedy 21double - Silver Dot in it geared on a 15 tooth pinion.

If you're going for the standard silver can 540 motor then stick with a 16 tooth pinion.

We eventually made our own LWB chassis for ours and added Option House shocks too. Went pretty well. I sold it on to a friend so I might have to contact him and see whether it is still tucked away in his parents loft....

It was pretty surreal for me sitting in my office on Long Island, New York and reading your post about Kingstanding and Mike's Models!

I was born in Kingstanding.

I lived in Cranbourne Grove (off Cranbourne Road) and went to Kingsthorne School.
We moved to Sutton when I was around five, but I used to go to Kingstanding quite often, and visited Mike's Models whenever I was there.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane

You should definitely get hold of your friend and see if you can get your old Meteor back. Sounds like you have a lot of fond memories of it.

[dinglem]

Yeah, I got my hands back on to my old car. It was the very first car I raced, so it only seems right to use the Meteor for my return to the track after all of these years. I have another thread running on the car, but after a rebuild here it is.

Lots of mods from BITD, and a few more still to do.