My family plans for the Jato.

             I know I mentioned earlier that RC has been something to help me adjust again to life, and it gave me a good source of anxiety and stress relief.  I didn't exactly mention what some of those anxieties were though.  I did mention I had been in the military, and that is part of it, but really that is just things that have "jump" started everything if you will.  Sadly, now, it is just so easy for me, with my anxiety to lose "calm" demeanor and start to have a panic or anxiety attack.  Now I am having to add a new thing into my life though, which can at times make my anxiety a bit harder to control.  For a few hours a day, not long, I have to stay at home alone with our 3 month old son.  With the welcomed addition of a son, comes a lot of happy moments.  Watching him smile or giggle at something happening can hold relief and happiness just in itself.  Having your first child can raise anxiety, though, in almost anyone, so it has been a rather large change in my already complicated life.  So after this time my wife spends working, I pick her up, and on the nice days we have tried to make it a habit to do something more outdoorsy this year, such as go to the track.  Originally she didn't really mess around with any of my trucks, I didn't know this but I guess it was not due to lack of interest but instead, because she didn't want to break it and I not have something running or we not be able to afford to get it fixed.  She really is awesome.

 

(My amazing family!)

 

 Recently however I purchased a Mini 8ight, with all the money I got as Christmas presents, so thanks to everyone that told me to get myself something fun!  I did!  One night we were sitting in a parking lot waiting to pick my mother up from work once and I had just gotten new Li-po batteries, so I wanted to try them out.  My wife made a comment about how fun it looked, so I offered to let her try it, she declined, but said perhaps at another time.  Well the snow has been melting and we have been making our way to the track more.  One day when I was working on getting the slayer up and running after sitting for the winter, I put the Ni-Mh battery in the Mini 8ight and handed it to my wife, said, "here see if you like this."  She ran it long enough to kill the battery, handed it back to me, apologizing for having played with it so long.  I laughed and said "hun, I think we may need to get you a truck"  Well over the past couple track days, I have let her toy around on my mini, while I tinkered around with my Nitro (was working on a new carb, not stock and had no reference on where to start), but now my Slayer is up and running very nicely, so I handed her that controller too.  Definitely seemed to like the response from the nitro engine better than the electric motor, so we talked it over and decided that since I was looking to rebuild the Jato anyways, I would rebuild it for her, so she had a truck she could drive at the track.  So I covered a little on the Jato earlier, and the condition I got it in from Craigslist.  Since buying it, I have put some upgrades into it, but still not quite the ones needed to help it on this track.  Also the Jato was set up originally, and again later by myself, to run on asphalt, so I will need to basically do a complete overhaul of the Jato.  To me, rebuilding these trucks, can be some of the most frustrating experiences, but they can also be the most rewarding and quite fun if you just take it slow and enjoy it.  So ideally what we will be doing with the Jato is it needs the differential fluids replaced, the shocks rebuilt, the brake replaced, the engine needs to rebuilt and sealed, and I will need to swap some tires from one set of rims to the rims for this Jato.  Hopefully I can cover these pretty well over the build on the blog so everyone gets a good idea not only of what I am doing, but why I am doing it that way, or in other words why I chose the path I did.  At the same time I will continue to do set up and practices on the track with the Slayer.  The review, as promised for the Slayer, will still be a few days before I get it up, but I plan to start typing it out tonight.  I want to spend a couple days making sure I have it right, as there does not seem to be a lot of 2nd hand information out there on this truck...So make sure to watch out for it!

 

(The Jato Project)