The XR311 was Tamiya’s first off-road vehicle and its first kit with a fully independent suspension.
Back in the 70’s, the U.S. Army was looking to replace its aging jeep fleet with something more modern. The XR311 was one of the vehicles being considered. Ultimately, the Humvee won out, but not before Tamiya released an R/C kit. Above is the re-issue released in 2001. It is very faithful to the original design right down to it’s all metal chassis and hard styrene plastic body.
The first thing I did when assembling the XR311, was to replace the bronze bushings with ball bearings.
These are the front steering assemblies going together.
Full front suspension ready for mounting to the chassis.
Rear suspension and axle pieces. The XR311’s suspension is fully independent in the front and rear.
Rear transaxle assembly and housing. No differential in the XR311.
Rear axle housing, rear suspension, and motor come together.
Front suspension assembly ready to be mounted to chassis.
Front and rear suspension mounted to chassis.
Tires are scale in design and include a nice scale three piece wheel design.
Fully completed rolling chassis.
Painted and ready to roll!
[wordbay]tamiya xr311[/wordbay]
Originally posted 2015-07-23 16:28:01.
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hello nice xr311, i`ve just bought the cheetah of e-bay and i was wondering if you know where i can get the rivised torsion suspension of the zr311 from ? if it will fit.
thanks robert.
Where to find the suspension is a tough question to answer because it’s not something that sold as a package. You’d probably have to piece it together from parts. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Cheetah to do a direct comparison of suspension parts. It seems that the only weak link in the Cheetah suspension is the plastic torsion bars. How about seeing if you can pick up some XR311 metal ones from Tamiya?
Hello thank you for your reply, luckly the ones i got on mine are not broken yet i was looking more into the future when they do. I shell give tamiya a try and see if the car or parts are still listed.
thank you Robert.
Can you please help i am looking for some spare tyres for my tamiya xr 311
Thanks mike
Try calling Tamiya to see if they have any in stock for the re-re’s. If not, ebay is your best bet. You can also try the uber Tamiya fan site, Tamiyaclub.com and post a WANTED ad. Come to think of it, you can also post a wanted ad on ebay.
Hi!
Great looking xr311. What colour did you use to spray it? It looks great. I’m ‘doing’ one at the moment.
Keep up the good work with the site. I love reading it at work!
Cheers, Alan
Thanks, I used Testors Olive Drab. Glad you enjoy the site!
Nice site and nice car!
Bought one of these yesterday, a re-re car, and plan to put in ball bearings. You dont happen to remember the sizes and numbers of bearings used? Tried to disassemble the car last night but didnt come too far…
best regards
Martin
I don’t recall all of the bearing sizes, but the manual should list all of the bushing sizes, which would be the same dimensions for the replacement bearings. I believe I bought my bearings as a “package deal” off of a seller on ebay who packaged up different bearings collections for specific Tamiya cars. I just did a search for “xr311 bearings” and didn’t find any listings, but I saw listings for Sand Scorcher bearings. Maybe contact one of these sellers and see if they can package up an XR311 collection for you.
Hi, thanks for the informative post. I too am looking for full bearings for this kit, currently Tamiya are offering the kit with 6 bearings included, which I think are the un-flanged ones in your picture; four 1150 size and two of the smaller ones. I am trying to work out the dimensions of the flanged one in your picture – would you be able to tell us? There are varously sized flanged bearings available and unfortunately I cannot find any “XR311 bearing sets” that include them.
Thanks
Richard, UK
Unfortunately I don’t know the dimensions of the flanged bearings and they are inside the motor case so I can’t get to them without pulling the casing apart. Can’t you measure the bronze flanged bushings for the dimensions?
Thanks for the reply, I have not ordered the car yet and am still considering it based on these and other factors. After a few more hours of searching today I found the nearest approximate size for the front stub axle bearings: “MF85ZZ, 5x8x2.5 flanged” at http://tamiyabase.com/forum/forum/32-vintage-tamiya-custom-builds/16609-project-better-xr311.html But even these are not exactly right.
The other bearings do not apparently have a close approximate standard size so some modification and ingenuity is required, as you can read via link above.
Cheers, Rich
Actually those bearings might be on the axle carriers. If so it should be fairly easy to get the measurements. I’ll keep you posted but give me a day or two.
Great looking build there
And great tutorial as this is not an easy kit to build
Just putting the finishing touches to my re issue kit
I had one 30 years ago and had to have another now
Just got back into rc building
Prior to this I have just built the fast attack vehicle,stadium blitzer and a mini Cooper and they were a doddle compared to this one
Like yourself have gone ballrace bearings but have fitted the sport tuned motor
Its almost ready to roll