Thought it would bring back some good memories for some beings it's been around for a while. I have never made one, so I went online and was very suprised. Some of these people take it very serious. You could spend alot of time and money on a pine board with some wheels. Luckly I live in a small town that does it for fun. Wouldn't want to use any truck money. I only have till sat. to have two of them built. If I would've had more time there would be a fridge going down the track. Slower then all the others so everyone could get a Good Look.

 

Sorry for the big pics. First attempt. Thats the primer stage

 

Thers lotsa tricks to making a pine car go "fast". 2 most important; polished axles, and some powdered graphite on those axles...

 

and add weight low in the center until the car weighs the maximum allowed. A heavy car will go faster than a light one no matter what Mr. Newton says. Just ask Mr. Hotwheels!

 

i remember building one way way back then... when i was just a wee little kid... had fun building the car with my grandpa... and had fun at the races with grandpa.... though i do not still have my car any more... or do i remember if i ever won any of the races... it was only one race though lol...

 

I used to be a Cub and Scout leader and we did these. It gets really compeitive and is alot of fun. I agree you have to polish the axles. They are not round and there is a burr on the back side of the head that will need to come off. Put it in a drill press and file the burr off and polish the axle area till it shines.Brass polish works good to finish them. Next take the wheels and polish the area where it would ride against the body. Make a manrel out of a small bolt so you can spin the wheel and use 400 grit wet paper and clean up the outside of the wheels.Dry graphite works best as lube. Dont use anything liquid.If you cant find any dry graphite take a pencil on some sand paper and sand the lead till you get a nice pile.Work it into the wheels and axles, make sure the area where the wheel touches the body gets lots.Test drive it to make sure it runs straight. you may need to repostion the wheel to get the right alignment. There should be a max. weight. Place it in a hole drilled in the underside just ahead of the rear wheels. Melted lead works perfect. Lastly two wheels are faster than one. Adjust the wheels so only 2 are in contact. 1 front 1 rear.I had 15 kids in my pack and we took all top ten spots against 300 other cars. When we did the semi trucks with the Scout we took everything again.Sittin here getting excited just remebering all the fun.Remeber, Its for the kids. (yah right)

 

My 9 yr old just participated on Sunday. Out of about 30 cars he got first place. I helped him but I made sure he did as much of the work as possible. Like has been said, the first thing to do is polish the axles in a drill. First with a file to get the burrs off, then some fine sandpaper and finally some steel wool. Then of course use plenty of graphite for lubrication. We used 6 115g 9mm bullets for extra weight by drilling holes just ahead of the rear axles and hot gluing them in place.

One trick we used that I haven't ever seen mentioned much was to make the front axles sit about 1/8" narrower than the front so that only the front wheels ever make contact with the center guide strip on the track. If there is no center guide strip but side rails instead you would want to make the rear axle narrower. You don't wan't the heavy rear axle wheels to make contact with anything while going down the track.

 

In my cheating years of derbying (the dads class) we would put the backside axle extension of the wheels in the chock of the drill and pull the trigger on the drill and spin the wheel and with a fine file and make the wheels rounded (inside to outside) so smaller contact area on the track instead of flat tire area touching track surface.

Michigan Rick.

 

I just scratched the surface... Chuck the wheels up in a press and file the tire contact surfaces down to where the car is riding on a narrow ridge of plastic in the center of the tire about 1/32" wide. Like what Rick said, only more so. Aw crap, gotta go.

 

Thanks for all the great advice. I already have the axles filed and some of them polished. I seen on the net where they drilled 3/8 holes and stuck weight in them. That is what I was going to do but they only sell flat pieces that you screw on to the bottom. From the pics above you can see that I don't have much room. Might have to get out the torch and do some melting.

 

Last year me and my oldest boy made a 56 f100...slower than mud but he won the "flat tire" award for the slowest car. It is actually a coveted award because it is a cake.

The picture stinks but it is the only one I had. There was a lot of detail in it including a working bed...the grain of the wood actually looked like the wood slats We thought we would need the bed for adding weight. We ended up having to drill out the bottom a LOT because we were WAY over weight. Pic does not do it justice. There were running boards and we dremmeled out some nice fat fenders, hood, etc. It was my oldests last year for it so we had to go out with something cool. The truck barely cleared the automated timing gate.

 

I considered doing a little tire work until I read the Instructions and I quote: Beveling or tapering or otherwise altering the wheels is prohibited.

 

That is a nice looking truck. Cake is always better then a ribbon. I was going to do my truck but I have two cars to build in a week. Ooooh no I have till sat. afternoon

 

Back when I was a cub leader I held a clinic for my boys on how to build a good car. I gave them the same go fast advice posted above, plus how to make the car look good. I amazed me how many dads showed up, and had no knowledge of how to sand and paint a car! One dad proudly proclaimed a few days later that his son already had his car painted with "primary".

 

I know that feeling...that truck was an all nighter and up to the weigh in the next morning.