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As I mentioned in Part 1, I could have put the Tamiya Grasshopper reissue together without the manual—but I used it anyway. A few short hours after following the steps I had a completed car, ready for some fun. It went together easily and brought back a lot memories for me.

The only thing I haven’t done yet is paint the body. I plan to wait until spring-time to do that, when warmer weather will let me paint outside and allow the paint to properly dry and cure. (Refer to most spray or brush-on enamels and you’ll see they are to be used in about 50-80 degrees farenheit.)

Assembly of the gearbox went especially quick because I had recently assembled the exact same thing for the Lunch Box. The only difference is the motor: in this photo, the small Grasshopper 380 is in front, a standard 540 in the middle, and an old Trinity Monster Stock motor is in back.

The smaller Grasshopper 380 motor won’t run the car as fast as a 540 would. The flip side is that the small motor won’t drain the battery as fast—it’ll last quite a long while!

The Grasshopper reissue kit isn’t exactly the same as the original, and I picked up on a few of those differences:

• On the chassis, the original grasshopper had a little piece of molded plastic diagonally across the battery opening. This piece could be removed to fit a 7-cell “hump pack” battery (something I haven’t seen in quite a while). In the reissue kit chassis, the mold was modified a little to completely fill in this spot. I highlighted the area in the photo below to make it easier to see how the old kit looked.
• The other difference I picked up on is something I’m not 100% certain of. In the original kit, I believe I had to build the steering arm. It consisted of four parts: the plastic arm, the metal axle, the brass steering ball, and small worm screw. The worm screw was used to hold the arm and axle together. In the new kit, the axle and arm are one piece, as in the photo below.

I decided to get a new radio for the Grasshopper: a Futaba 2PL. Installing the steering servo and receiver went easily, as expected. Connecting the Tamiya electronic speed control to the receiver was a little troublesome, however. The Grasshopper kit comes with a paper illustrating how to connect the ESC and it jumped out at me pretty quick that there are plugs for both the channel 2 and battery connections on the receiver. Initially, I only plugged in the channel 2 connector—like most ESCs have—and powered on, which resulted in a lot of beeping!

The ESC’s battery connecter had to be plugged into the receiver, but it was a bit too large. I had to shave down the edge of the connector to get it slim enough to fit. (The shaved area appears a little shiny in the photo.) Once the battery connector was plugged in the ESC worked correctly.

It’s worth noting that the Lunch Box uses the same ESC, but I didn’t have a problem with that one. I used an older receiver—which had a larger plug hole (either by design or from heavy use; I’m not sure which). I plugged both the channel 2 and battery connectors in that without a second thought, and of course, it worked fine.

The whole rest of the chassis went together smoothly, and was finished in only a few hours. Some quick testing verified that everything was working properly. The only thing left to do is paint the body, though as I mentioned in the beginning, that will have to wait until spring. To give the Grasshopper a fighting chance, Part 3 of this review—the driving experience—will also probably wait until warmer (muddier!) weather.

• Tamiya Grasshopper Review, Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• My original 1987 Grasshopper Review

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