*taps mic* is this thing working?

[InsolentMinx]

Hi all

I'm Steve, 36, from London, England.
This seemed like a great source of information, so wanted to sign up and say hello.

I've had a Gen1 Skyline xmod since 2004 when I bought it in the USA as a toy for myself to just drive around while studying.
Loved the modification ability too, but never thought it would be much more than just a toy. I played with it a bit but then it lived in the loft.
Skip forward 16 years and I was reminded that I had a rc car in the loft, so i dug it out again, but....

I'D LEFT THE BATTERIES IN

The battery terminal holders were pretty badly corroded, so I tried to clean them up, but couldn't quite get it to work.
I had steering, and power to the LED light kit, but no forward/backwards.
So I bought some new battery holder contacts, but they were a bit big.
Made them fit, but now they get super hot when I put batteries in, so am wary to use it.

Halfways through trying to fix this one, I tried to look if it was possible to buy a replacement or spares. I couldn't believe how expensive these little things are nowadays!
But I found someone selling a car here in the UK, and it had a few spares with it, so I bought it.
Seems he'd resoldered the battery holders too, somewhat messily, so I cleaned them up, resoldered the antenna and the car worked great.

I signed up to some Facebook groups and ordered myself some Panasonic Eneloop rechargeable batteries on the knowledge that i could get up to an hour drivetime on them.
However no-one mentioned that I probably shouldn't drive it for that long at once!

I guess it was last week i was using it a lot, maybe just 30 mins at a time, and would let it cool down with the body off.
But then Sunday I took it out to play with my son, and after 1 minute I lost forward.
Still have steering and reverse though, so I went home and tried to tinker with it to see what was broken.
Got stressed, took most of the car to pieces, and left it at that!

So now I have 2 non-working Gen1s.

However I believe the issue with the second one is to do with the Fets? So i've ordered some new ones recommended from China.
And I've got some new thermal glue too, as understand that could have been an issue as well...

In the meantime I'm trying to read up and learn about these cool little cars.

So here I am
And here's my working xmod before she stopped working: