Bought and built in 1984....

[catrpilr]

...Being a toyota fan out of high school I kept seeing this model advertised in RC Car Action; Tamiya Bruiser. Back then mail order wasnt as easy as today all correspondance was done through the snail mail. After about two years of searching for this model; obviously it wasnt availible in the US at that time (backordered). At least noone on the east coast had one. In 1984 I found a kit that included truck, radio, rechargable batteries and charger. The hobby shop was in NYC and the owner would not sell it unless I picked it up personally. It just so happened that year i was engaged to get married and her parents gave us a wedding present, a trip to NYC for the day Christmas eve 1984. I got in that shop owners face and bought that truck that morning. I lugged that thing around for the next 10-12 hours until we got back to her parents place that night. I spent the entire Christmas night assembling the truck. Without paint it took me about six hours to complete and was ready run it the following morning. Well the future wife and parents werent too happy with that, fact they thought buying such a toy at my age was quite irresponsible especially at the price I paid to get it. Just had to have it. Still have the truck and the future wife and parents moved on to more mature things.
The bruiser was run only in the drive or road it never saw any offroading because back then I had no clue what to do with it not like today. It was fast and tended to roll over at the slightest turn effort. I placed spacers behind the front wheels to widen its stance. That helped a great deal but when new shocks were added it handled the turns a bit faster without rollover.
For what little the truck was run the steering king pins wore out very quickly. That was solved by installing bearings in the place of the cheap aluminum pins. Then the next parts to go were the brass u-joints in the drive shafts.
The truck was then put on the shelf until years later about 1990 I was back in school for machine shop training. As a side project i was able to machine a set of steel u-joints. I never understood why they used brass in that area. And parts were very hard to get back then. Always backordered from Japan. Kept the brass joints for giggles. But the life of the NICAD batteries had spent, so from about 1991 until today that truck sits gaining a thick layer of dust. Shelf queen for now.

Thanks for checking out my thread.

[rocpede]

Nice bruiser. Are you going to keep it stock or make it a little different.


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[cartronicshn]

Great story, i had my 1984 hilux then sold it a couple years later, regretted it so much i had to get it back, got it back about 4-5 years ago, i still have the og electronics minus the radio.

[catrpilr]

There are no plans for this bruiser it will probably remain a shelf queen for now.

[fourspeed45]

Just curious how much did bruiser cost back then

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[catrpilr]

It was a combo deal including the truck kit a futaba attack four channel crystal stick radio and nicad battery with charger. Paid $500 brand new.