Disassembled Unitred "Guts" |
Submitted by Claude Hanssens, Brussels, Belgium (non English) on 2020.01.13
A few weeks ago, I bought a Uni-Tred + Space Bubble package on E-Bay.
Unfortunately, the Uni-Tred was not functioning: when switched on, it produced a horrible creepy sound and refuse to go forward. I decided to fix it.
By design, the Uni-Tred is fully sealed by glue: no screw. I carefully open it using a combination of tools: stiletto with various blades, screwdriver,…
I managed to separate most of the seals, but I also had to cut through some of them. Because most of the seals are under the track, when rebuilt, it will be invisible.
The Uni-Tred gear
As in the Space Crawler, Mattel put in the Uni-Tred an advanced gear system.
When advancing on a horizontal surface, the Uni-Tred goes full speed. On steep slope, it automatically switches to a lower speed with greater power.
Here is a description of the functioning of the gear.
Here above you see a picture of the engine and the gear system. |
3D drawing of the gear |
Basic function:
- Engine (grey + white wheel) turns the purple wheel;
- The purple wheel turns the tallow wheel;
- The yellow wheel turns the orange wheel (large wheel).
Till now, this reduce the speed of the engine. - The orange wheel turns the light green and blue wheels.
- The blue wheel turns (loose connection) the light green wheel.
- The light green wheel is connected to dark green wheels that turn the track.
- Large connected to the yellow wheel
- Medium (n° 1) connected to the light green wheel (n° 3)
- Small (n° 2) connected to the blue wheel (n° 4).
Now the orange wheel (small part N° 2) turns only the blue wheel.
Matt Mason – Filling gaps
Styrene Model Kit Sprue |
- Cut the plastic in small parts (a few millimeter long).
- Put the parts in a glass jar with of top.
- Add Cellulose thinner (to almost cover the plastic).
- Close and wait.
The plastic will melt down to form a paste. The more thinner you added, the more liquid the paste will be. You have to experiment.
Use this paste to fill gaps, scratches, … It will harden in a few hours – a day. You can then sand, polish, …
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