Bob Welch from MRP/Jerobee

I HAVE MY SON’S(JIM WELCH) NATIONALS WINNING MOD GAS 1/12 ROAD CAR. IT IS A HYBRID PROTOTYPE WITH A JOMAC BRICK RADIO AND A TEE DEE .049. ANYONE INTERESTED, LET ME KNOW BEFORE FEB 4TH.

Hey Bob,

Jerobee.com is very interested in the car, as I am sure others are too. However, you didn’t leave a way for anyone to contact you

Please send contact us. We will keep the information private if you like, and send the contact info for interested parties to you. Or, we can publish the info here on Jerobee.com so that people can get in touch directly.

Thanks!

Former Team JoMac/Jerobee member wins big!

Just received word from Don McKay about a former member of Team JoMac / Jerobee:

Ralph Burch Jr. can add another few notches to his RC racing resume with his recent success at the ’04 1/8 Scale Gas US Nationals. According to his father Ralph Burch Senior, not only was Jr. quick enough to be Top Qualifier (TQ), he also won the event!

Congratulations to Ralph Burch Jr. on a job well done!

On a side note, Ralph Burch Jr. was voted the “Greatest RC Driver of All Time” by readers of RC Car Action magazine back in ’01. Certainly not the most up-to-date piece of information, but pretty impressive none the less. Click the ‘read more’ link for a complete list of the finalists and a link to the info at RC Car Action.

Blast from the past!

Mike Hess remembers meeting Don McKay back in the ’80’s.

We meet Don McKay when we were at the gas nationals in Oakland somewhere around 1980. My wife was the ROAR director for then, region 4. Together with some other people we had started a gas car club and it was going fairly well. We told Don we were going to start an electric car club soon after we got back. He said he would contribute a complete electric jerobee car to use as a promo.

Soon we had the jerobee and between heats we would let kids and grown up kids too, from the crowd try their hand at driving. It was a great promotional tool. Thanks Don.

Mike and Kitten Hess

Team JoMac reunion a success!

Jerobee.com just received an e-mail from Don McKay about the recent Team JoMac reunion in Dallas, TX. Here’s what he had to say:

Thanks everyone for making the reunion and Tamy’s and my weekend wonderful. It was so good to see you all again. I missed you all more than I knew. There were times as I would see another one of you, for the first time, that I would almost cry.

We have been up to our eye balls at work making up for the week we were gone. My CD RW is out on my computer so I have not been able to cut the CD disk with pictures yet but will. I have over 100 really good photos to share with you.

All of you are invited any time to Redmond to visit. You get here and we’ll provide the food and logging. We want to get together again and not wait another 20 years.

I got to run now more later.

Don

Team JoMac reunion!

NOTE: This reunion took place in 2004

I just received an e-mail from Don McKay about a “Team JoMac” reunion!

Don McKay, Ralf Burch Jr. & Senior, Mrs. Burch, Tina Burch, Mike Hamilton, Bob Rule, Tamy Stadel, David Johnson, and maybe Larry Bradshaw. That is all but two of the original Team JoMac/Jerobee. Will meet in Dallas Texas on Sat March 13th 2004 at a place to be determined.

Those that want to join contact, Don McKay.

More info will be added as soon as it is available!

NICAD Replacements – Race Car World, Jul/Aug ’78 issue.

This information comes from an article published in the July / August 1978 issue of Race Car World. It should be used for research and entertainment only!


“Racing Tips”is a regular column where any advertising manufacturer can express new ideas involving their products or tell racers the latest tips. This column is not a new products listing but rather a pipeline of information from those who should know to those that want the knowledge.


 

NICAD REPLACEMENTS
Greetings from the quality world of BOLink! We’re here to give you ideas and tips to make your car run faster and more reliably.

Our intent is to do these columns on a regular basis and would appreciate hearing from you, both as to what you would like to hear about and any tips you would care to share.

For a beginning we will start with a very simple task, which isn’t quite as simple as it seems. We are going to replace a battery in your motor power supply.

But first let’s give you some background on these batteries. Most of our cars have either 4 or 6 sub ‘C’ size nicads (except for you cheaters out there who run 8 cells to surprise your friends).

We don’t use just any old nicads, they are internally welded, low impedance, cells with an almost instantaneous collapse rate. They are only made by G.E. All other nicads have a higher impedance to make them run longer but they will not pull more than 8 amps so they do not get the torque that the G.E. cells will. We are telling you this so you don’t rush down to your nearest war surplus store and buy a mystery cell because it looks the same.


“…do not solder a new cell into an already charged pack.”


Now before you go ripping off wires, make sure you have a dead cell and not a broken wire. Push, pull and wiggle everything to see if it might start working. If you have a Volt Meter it’s easy to run down the individual cells. If not, then we are going to have to work some magic. If you have a flashlight bulb, hang a wire off one side and see if it will light by putting the center to one pole and running the wire over to the other pole and see if it lights. These batteries are rated at 1.2 VDC and when charged will show a plate voltage of about 1.4 VDC.

Okay, you’ve determined one cell is a dud and you know which it is. Before you unfasten it we want to discharge your pack.

Whatever you do, do not solder a new cell into an already charged pack. What happens is the charged batteries will seek an average so will all discharge into the one new uncharged battery. More good cells are ruined this way.

If you have a charger with a discharge setting, then use it. If not, then run the car until the motor dies. If the bad cell has infinite resistance, then put a jumper around it. Just get the good cells down.

The bad cell is now out and the new cell is ready to go in. Be sure and check the polarity. The negative side is flat and the positive has the little button. All the batteries are wired in series, that means positive to negative. A battery put in backward can be driven into reverse, not helping matters at all.

You’ve determined the direction, got your soldering iron hot and are ready. So take your Xacto knife, or whatever you have, and scrape off the goo that always seems to be on the end of these things, then heat up the tabs and tin them. That means run a little solder around them. Do not use an acid core solder or acid flux on an electrical joint. Sooner or later it will corrode things and boy will you be sorry. I prefer Ersin 60/40 tin, lead.

A couple of things for you to watch out for: First, on the positive side, notice the black ring outside the button. Don’t let solder get across that ring and to the case because it shorts out the works. Also notice outside that ring, a tiny hole. Do not, for any reason, plug that hole. As a byproduct of charging, these batteries give off hydrogen. That hole is the vent and if you block it, you will have a bomb on your hands.

Okay, the battery is tinned, now tin the inside of the jumper tab, set it against the battery and heat the outside until the solder melts. Hold until it cools and you are ready for recharging.

One note on recharging.The manufacturers recommend that you discharge these batteries to the point they no longer run the car before each charging. They will take the rapid charge very well but will not take an overcharge.

Overcharging is taken up in heat. At 115 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit the plates will start warping, internally shorting the battery, thereby ruining it.

Also the hydrogen gas buildup can be great enough to overpower the vent, thereby causing an explosion.

So now you know the tricks to replacing batteries, let’s hope you don’t need to use them.


As we said in the beginning, drop us a line as to anything you would like to hear about or tips you may have. The address is: BOLink Race Tips, P.O. Box 80653, Atlanta, CA 30341.

Lightning 2000

Vistor jonnywynns wrote:

The JoMac Lightning 2000 Model R/C Car was the car to beat in 80,81,82 in Oklahoma and Texas but we had trouble with the Delta Phazer whenever we traveled  up north.  Anybody got any old racing stories?  How about Associated or Bolink.  How did the JoMac compete against them back in the day in your part of the country?