I’ve had every type of car there is from electric RTR, to nitro kits, and I have never really sat down and chronicled my experience. This article will give you a glimpse into some of the tricks and gotchas I experienced when building my first large scale FG 4WD Modellsport Baja Buggy.

SPECIAL NOTE: If you are interested in getting a 2 speed metal gearbox for your FG Model do NOT order from this site. http://snipr.com/fgracing he sells inferior products and has horrible customer service.

To start off when you build a new kit you are always at the mercy of the manufactures instructions. Some manufactures are better than others when it comes to the easy of the build. In the case of the FG Modellsport the instructions were about average. Due to the fact that the car is manufactured in Germany there are some grammar and spelling errors in the instructions. Be that as it may the instructions are for the most part easy to understand even if you only look at the pictures.

Ok, that being said the first thing I always do before building a kit is look through the instruction a couple of times just to see if I see any funky things I might not be prepared for. Second, I layout and look at all the bags to see if there are any special tools i might need. In this case FG Modellsport does not include a single useful tool. In fact the only tool that is included is a Philips head screw driver/wrench that for the life of me I could not find a single use for.

So lets talk about the tools needed for this kit. For starters almost every screw on this kit is a torx head screw. So if you don’t have a set of torx screw drivers you better go get some. Here is a short list of important tools you might not have.

Required Tools
- Torx screw drivers
- Allen wrench
- Ruler with millimeters
- Tooth brush
- Liquid Tread lock ( blue and red )
- Spring stretching tool
- Drill
- A small hammer (rubber if possible)
- patients

During the build I ran across a few head scratching moments. The instructions would say “this would be much easier if you use the FG mounting tool”, but they didn’t include said tool and I had no way of getting this tool. So I had to figure out an easy way to do things. Here is one example I found while putting the front differential together. There are four gears that need to fit in a box the tricky part is trying to keep them all in the right position as you slide them in to that box. Of course FG says if you have there tool it’s easy but I didn’t so here is how you do it.

Slide the gear axle through the differential gear wheel first, then set it on the differential housing and remove the axle. This will allow the gears to be pushed down into the housing with ease. Then tilt it on its end and push in the drive axle.

Once I came to the engine everything seemed to go together pretty easy. There is one thing that I noted that could come in handy to those of you who are trying to install a clutch bell on any nitro or gas engine. When you try to tighten any clutch bell on any engine mount you will find that it turns as you screw it on. One trick I found was that by shoving the end of a toothbrush in the exhaust manifold just above the piston and slowly pinching it in there you can secure the piston from moving with out doing any damage to it. The soft plastic of the toothbrush will not harm the piston and you can crank away at the clutch bell.

The next rough patch was when it comes to installing the servo saver. This little piece is a pain in the butt. If you don’t the right tool here it could take you a while as well as could injure your fingers. This is where the spring stretcher comes in handy. Make sure that the servo saver axle turns smoothly in the bushing or you will quickly burn out your servo.

The last little annoyance I found was the brake guild rail hole was to small and I had to drill it out. Not a major deal just something i noticed.

For the most part it was smooth sailing as far as the build goes. I did have a couple of screws strip out in the soft aluminum so be careful, and I don’t really like the way the receiver box is designed. It is “sealed” sort of, but its in a place that is so hard to get to if you have to do any tweaking to it once it is installed.

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that there are 6 holes in the front axle housing that will allow dirt behind the bearing that hold the belt wheel. These can be easly filled by using small headless screws. I used #8-32 TPI headless screws. First I tapped the holes using a 8-32 hole tap. Then put my small screws in. It took about 20 mins to do and was very easy. A word of warning when using a hole tap. It is best to use tap it by hand but if you do use a drill go very slow! These taps are not that tough and they will break off in the hole if you try to force it.

Working on the car could be a little easier, but perhaps I’m just spoiled and use to working on cars like the Traxxas Revo which is so well thought out.

In summary I love the look of this car. It is such a work of art and was a real joy to build.

This is a the video of my FG 4wd Baja Competition. It took me 3 days to build but you can see it in just over a minute enjoy.