Yep, here I go again with another Traxxas villain...

[gsbuickman]

Hiya Guy's , it's been awhile ...

As some of you that have been here for quite a while might have guessed, yep, I've went and done it again and got myself another Traxxas Villain, guess I just can't help myself with these things ... This vintage Villain IV Chaparrel popped up on eBay a week or two back for $150 shipped, so I made an offer on it and really didn't think too much about it after that until a couple days later when I took a closer look at it.

It was advertised as an original villain with the servo / radio tray missing, original motors, brass props & a Novak ESC and other than that it was supposed to be really clean. Well, a few days went by and I get a notification from eBay on it and I just happen to have a little free time so I sat down and decided to take a closer look at the pictures that were posted of it. From the way the pictures looked it seemed like it was in really good shape considering it's a 35 or so you're old boat, and right off the bat I noticed that the servo tray that covers the stuffing tubes was indeed in the boat and then the endbells of the motors caught my eye, and I thought to myself, wow, those are definitely not the stock stinger motors. From the looks of the crops that were on it I was guessing they were probably 447's and it had decent prop shafts in it but I also noticed that no one had upgraded the outdrives from the oilite bushings to flanged bearings & they hadn't upgraded the driveshafts either. I thought about it for a little while and figured, okay, someone obviously put some $ into this thing, probably in the 90s from the looks of the Novak ESC and if I don't have to replace the motors, props or propshafts this could be a real inexpensive boat to get back on the water just the way that I like them, especially since I already have another EVX 2 4s lipo ESC for it kicking around, so I bought it...

I've had plenty of other projects going on to keep me busy and I haven't really been paying attention to the tracking number, but I was relaxing in the living room late this morning enjoying some coffee when my mailman knocked on the door and delivered another package I was expecting. I got up, answered the door and sat back down again & not five seconds later there was another knock at the door, so I got up and answered it again & found a deck box sitting outside waiting for me and I knew it was the boat because I wasn't expecting anything else that big. I brought it in, opened it and gave it a once-over and found out that I haven't been disappointed. Overall this boat is in really really nice shape considering its age and it's probably the nicest villain that I've seen yet as new as this abs Hull looks. The Hull look so nice that if I didn't know any better I'd swear it was a newer production villain ex w/ Chapparel decals but those things have been discontinued and extinct for 20 some years now and you'd have better luck finding Dragon's Teeth than a vintage decal sheet from one of them.

Other than that it has the Traxxas propshafts, X447 props, a Novak 824-HV ESC and a pair of Team Associated Reedy motors. How's the expected the bushings haven't been upgraded to flange the bearings and the stuffing tubes haven't been upgraded either. Like my other villains the plans for this one are fairly simple. keep the motors, props and propshafts, upgrade the driveshafts to 11/32's, upgrade the oilite bushings in the boat to flanged bearings, install the traxxas evx motor mounts to eliminate the Flex in the stock lounts & install my EVX 2 ESC. Oh yeah, also need to order a pair of water cooling coils for the motors and a nice water outlet for them. Overall this will be a nice inexpensive boat to clean up and get back on the water and probably shouldn't take more than $35 or so to get it done . ...