Alpha Male

My Feedback: (11)

I made some modifications to my crawler today, which I'm testing out. Other than having put the ESC on the front servo and added a LiPo battery, this is what I came up with:

1) Losi Mini-T ball ends and threaded rods replaced the upper and lower links. This lengthened and lowered the truck.
2) Cut the drive shafts, put each end in a section of aluminum tube with a little CA and added a section of black heat shrink to cover.
3) Cut small sections of nitro fuel tubeing and slid them onto the output yolks to keep them from snapping off.
4) Drilled out the chassis holes made for the ESC/battery mounting platforms and used them for the upper shock mounts.
5) After removing the tires from the wheels, I cut the foam down to about half and installed lead weights around the inside of the wheels.
6) Installed red Micro-T shock springs (stretched to stock length).

Now it is longer, the wheels are weighted and the foams allow the tires to compress more. It seems better and the COG is definitely lower, but it does bottom out more often. Still tweaking...

The pictures also show a comparison with a stock micro crawler:

djzachtyler

My Feedback: (4)

great job on that thing!!! Lower COG & bottoming out is better than having a higher COG and flipping over backwards IMHO... Crawlers are generally designed to bottom out anyways which I why delrin parts are always nice

Alpha Male

My Feedback: (11)

Thanks! The funny thing is that the course I built was designed around a stock crawler, before I made all of the modifications, and a stock crawler will beat the stretched chassis hands down! [X(]

Something I did has made my motor heat up, too. I mean really heat up. After running the last two batteries I noticed that I could not keep my finger on the motor for more than a second or two.....now the motor is actually smoking. [sm=stupid.gif] I can replace the motor or upgrade easily enough, but first I have to figure out why this has happened. The gearing is the same.

djzachtyler

My Feedback: (4)

I would be inclined to think that maybe one of your mods to the drive shafts may be causing a bit of binding in the drivelines... that right there would be the first thing I would look into.

any resistance in those drivelines will over work the motor and cause exactly the conditions you describe.

Alpha Male

My Feedback: (11)

Hmmmm....

Could be the driveshafts. They don't bind, but they do wobble slightly. The tubes used to stretch them are aluminum, but even that tiny bit of weight might be enough to put undo stress on the transmission and since the motor has to turn the transmission....[sm=50_50.gif]

The local hobby shop turned a BND version of this crawler into a parts truck (broke a shock shaft and bought one from it), so I guess I will buy its drive shafts and shorten my links so that everything fits. Then I can see if I still have the problem. I have a motor from a Losi Micro Desert Truck, but I'm not sure if they are the same, so if that doesn't work I guess I'll buy the parts truck motor too.

DogbreathRacing

I doubt that the extended drive shafts are causing the drag or heating the motor (though I would check the heat shrink and make sure it isn't rubbing or restricting the joint movement)

I did the same mods within the fist week after release and my stretched Comp rig is very capable, the stockers can not keep up with it. The extended length does allow it to bottom out a bit more but the extended length also allows it to grab in places the other trucks can't reach. The lower COG does help a lot with eliminating both backflips and rollovers.
I added considerable weight to my rims, both with internal lead wraps and external plates, the fronts are 39g and the rears are 27g....stock wheels are 11g.

Alpha Male

My Feedback: (11)

It turned out to the the transmission gears that were binding and causing the heat. After I smoked the stock motor from the stress, I managed to eliminate most of the binding and the truck runs much better, now. [sm=thumbs_up.gif]

qoisdhc oqina

My Feedback: (-1)

jeez dog your everywhere lol

traxxaspede

What do you mean by clocking the diffs? And how did you do it?

one more question...since the wheels aren't real beadlocks, do I still have to take off the rings to remove the tires?

DogbreathRacing

I do get around....LOL

Just spreading the word....I do what I do.....


More mods.....







...and my second truck....