Tamiya XR311 (1977, 2001)

By rcgrabbag | Jan 28, 2010

The XR311 was Tamiya’s first off-road vehicle and it’s 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!

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Originally posted 2008-07-20 20:42:02.

7 Comments so far

robert whiteaway February 3, 2009 2:09 pm

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.
rcgrabbag February 3, 2009 3:19 pm

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?
robert whiteaway February 3, 2009 4:34 pm

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.
MIKE March 19, 2009 1:46 pm

Can you please help i am looking for some spare tyres for my tamiya xr 311
Thanks mike
rcgrabbag March 20, 2009 4:16 pm

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.
Alan January 28, 2010 5:33 am

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
rcgrabbag January 31, 2010 10:00 pm

Thanks, I used Testors Olive Drab. Glad you enjoy the site!