While cleaning out the basement I stumbled upon my old 1/16th scale off road RC Car. The fabled JRX Pro which was THE car to have back in the early nineties. Oh the memories of hours spent assembling and then maintaining, tweaking, and enhancing this 1/16th scale off road beast. The memories of driving into downtown Dallas with my dad in the 1971 Corvette with the top down in order to head to the indoor track to race the ol' Pro. Those were fun times.
As I traveled down memory lane I wondered if this car that had been sitting in a box for 15 years could still run. Was it even possible? Would the electronics be all corroded and ruined? Would the servos still work? The idea tugged at the back of my mind for about three weeks before I decided to give it a shot. The JRX Pro had been put into retirement 15 years ago after one of the telescoping drive shafts had snapped. I did some serious hunting on-line to find a replacement and I came up with nada. Very dissapointing. I decided to go one step further before sending the Pro to the pasture and I headed to our local hobby shop to see if they could help. To my surprise and delight - they were able to pull out a very similar looking drive shaft. It would require some re-tooling and modifications but it JUST MIGHT WORK!
Sunday night was spent in my race shop (AKA garage) fabricating new parts to rejuvinate the Pro. I got to pull out the jig saw that my grandfather had given me a couple years ago and trim some parts. Some crossed fingers and finesse work with small plyers later....I had what looked to be a car ready to run. Holy cow!!!! Could this actually work?! I had bought a new 6 cell battery at the hobby shop that I charged on one of my old chargers (also ~15 years old). I put batteries in the Futaba Magnum Jr controller, the battery in the JRX Pro, put it on the ground and pulled the trigger. And off it went like a shot!! Like not a day had passed since our last run.
The girls love my "electric car" as they call it, and Branson hovers between being scared of this little rocket and diligently checking on it under my desk every time he comes in my office. The Pro may have gone from a top of the line, 19 MPH off road racing machine to a kid chaser, but it is still a blast to drive.
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