I still remember looking through the catalog form the toy store and seeing the Sand Eagle from Nikko. This was a month or two before Christmas, so in the letter I wrote to santa clause that year this car was on top of my list. The joy was enormous when I opened the Christmas package and I got the Sand Eagle. I’m so glad that I still have this car, it’s a miracle that it was not thrown away or sold during all these years.
For about a year ago I was so lucky to find a donor car, so that I could fix many of the things that is broken on the car.
This is how far I have gotten today.
The electric gold wing doors are just so cool. That said, I have not tested that they are working, fingers crossed.
Front uprights broken on both sides, but in good shape on the donor car.
The front headlamps are pretty banged up, not sure how to fix this, without having to paint the body. I could take parts from the donor car. My car is also missing the two lenses for the light but I got one ok from the donor car and one is broken in two, but I think I could just glue this one
Both the rear lights have been broken of. I do have one of them but the Mounts are broken. Luckily both the lights are ok on the donor car
Manged to take them of without breaking them.
The gearshifter is broken and I’m missing the rear bumber
Another great thing with the donor car is that it came with the box. Ok it’s pretty rough in the edges, but it’s just fine for me.
This I as far I got, before other duties called.
Started with taking the steering apart on the donor car.
Once I got the steering of, I noticed that one of the uprights were broken 
I glued it and reinforced it by gluing a piece body lexan to it. I know this is probably not gonna last forever, but since it will be a shelf queen I think it will do.
The front bumper has a little piece broken of, so I decided to use the one from the donor car.
The donor car front bumper was full of stickers, i used 3M citrus spray to get the glue from the stickers to dissolve
After some work I got it to look like this
Body off the chassis, pretty simple the more difficult part will be to fit it back on again, when it comes to the gold wing doors.
The inside of the body had some mud on it, and since some electronics still are on it i could not just scrub it in the sink.
Most dirt removed
A fun little effect I noticed when taking off the Tamiya sticker, ghost painted nr 6 🙂
The back window on my car had some universal glue on it, so i decided to go with the one from the donor car, since this one only had some stickers on it
Again I used 3M citrus spray to dissolve the sticker glue, and a quick round with polish.
I have done quite a bit now and actually I’m done for now with the car, since the remaining thing to do is to fix the head lamps, and that will require that i paint the body, which will require that i get new decals made, so i will wait with this.
Chassis need a wash, but will be a light wash
Chassis washed
Ceramic grease on the gears
This is the gear shifter, not quite sure how fix it, so it will have to wait until i learn about 3D printing
The hardtop sure need a good wash
finished washed
The tires didn’t look to good so i decided to do something about that
Tires got a round of VRP dressing from Chemical guy’s. This will try up and look nice
No battery lid holder, luckily the donor car had one
Battery compartment lid holder from donor car mounted
It’s done
Hmmm, could this be a future project
I love that car.. amazing jobb. .
Vil du selge bilen eller donor bilen?
Hehe.. mvh Georg
Hei og takk Georg, så bra at du likte den. Desverre så er nok ikke bilen eller donor bilen til salgs, trenger den just in case 🙂
Odd-Arne
Hei! Jeg holder på med omtrendt samme prosjekt Sand Eagle. Jeg måtte handle “delebil” fra Canada for å få ordning på knekt og utslitt forhjulstilling..
Så kult da. Høres ut som at det var en generel svakhet med den modellen. Jeg måtte kjøpe delebilen fra England tror jeg det var, ble jo litt men, helt ok siden jeg nå har en som ser sånn høvelig bra ut 🙂
Vi var 2 i samme klasse på skolen som kjøpte hver vår Sand Eagle i 1982, jeg raserte min, han har sin ennå i tilnærmet mint condition med orginal embalasje og alt… Jeg prøver å få minst en som er i god stand igjen… Vurderer Sand Eagle 2 også etterhvert…
Så kult da, tenker han er lite keen på å selge den til deg. Håper du får fikset en som du kan ha på hylla og bruke litt nå og da.
Kom pakke fra Tyskland i dag, med et veldig bra eksemplar☺ lysa virker ikke pr nå, men det er bagateller og greit å fikse send meg gjerne en pm på Facebook så kan vi utveksle erfaring.. er jo ikke akkurat mange å snakke med om den bilen..
Så bilder av den på Facebook, det så ut til at den var i veldig bra stand.
Hvor meget er sådan en bil værd?
2000kr?
Jeg tror nok ikke den er verdt så mye, da må det være en som er fortsatt ny i esken. Hva en brukt, som er i bra stand, er verdt vet jeg desverre ikke.