I think I have an R/C addiction...

[Bgunner]

So at the beginning of the month I picked up a new Traxxas Summit for beating on in the woods and hill area's that I live in.

Then that pesky upgrade itch kicked in and I installed a few minor upgrades:

Shock socks to help keep the dust and dirt out of the shock seals:

I also put in the rear chassis brace to help stiffen it a little:

While stiffening up the chassis is all well and good but what protects it? Well... Skid plates!

I'm not willing to pay $120 for the aluminum center skid plate yet but it is on the list.

Had to do a little tweaking on the stainless steel front and rear skid plates to eliminate the gaps that became grass catchers but nothing a set of plyers couldn't handle.
I don't like servos that stick out the bottom and the only thing protecting them was a flexible plastic guard.

So I needed to fix that concern:

Some aluminum servo guards were my go to for this one.

Next came the need for the GF to have one so we can run them out in the yard together with the dog. So I got her a Arrma Granite that you can see one of the body's for it in the next Pic. Well the white, red and orange body was just an eye sore so she ordered a blue body for it and is why the other body is in a bag on its box.

Then came the need for a GO box. In my early 20's I had a Plano tackle box that had a deep top compartment, 3 drawers and the bottom one was deep enough to allow me to keep the charger in it with battery's and soldering iron and a few other things in it and I looked high and low for another one and found one of FB market place but in New Jersey. I contacted the guy and offered to pay double asking cost and all expenses for shipping and he blew me off So I spent days running around looking at tackle boxes and tool boxes. Finally one day I said enough is enough and put the transmitter in my hoody's pouch and I set off looking for the perfect for me box. On my second trip to Harbor Freight my GF noticed this wood box with drawers and it locked. I'm still wondering why there is a mirror in the top but, Oh well. This box was 1lb. lighter than the Yukon tool box I was looking at and could fit more in it so... It came home with me. I also grabbed some tools that would fit in the box like a small multimeter, angle finder for setting camber, a rechargeable Pen flash light to stick in my mouth to see what I'm working on, a magnetic 4" tray, a small telescoping magnet to grab them small screws in tight places and a few other odds and ends. Check out this box:

Now this wasn't enough I needed a flat out race speed demon to keep up with my friend with there gas powered cars So a Maxx Slash followed me home and I made the mistake of feeding it 2x 3 cell Lipo battery's. Now its here for good. This thing is impressive, I've yet to to hit top speed with it but it should do 60+mph when I have the room to get it up to that speed.

OK now I needed to try and drive this thing so I charged up the battery's and went out to play in the driveway and yard. All went well for about half a battery pack and as I was coming in to the driveway the pinion gear set screw came loose. Mind you this is a fresh out of the box truck. Well I had no breaks and ended up clipping the corner of the dumpster. Here's the damage report:

1x broken front skid plate. 2 new sets have already been shipped. Currently held together with ca+ glue.

\

Bent shock shaft. I thought all was good after gluing the skid plate but after cycling the suspension a few times and putting the body on I noticed the right front corner was lower than the left so after inspection here is the photographic evidence of why that side was sitting low.

Now I'm positive that the spring should push that shock out with no weight on it but not so much with a bent shaft. Ordered up 4 shocks to change the color of them to green as I'll do green on the chassis and blue body, for now, but at $129 for a new unpainted body I'll hold off for a while on that one.

As you can see in the next set of pictures the body took a hard hit and it didn't help that I hit the dumpster right on the corner of it. There is a raised eye brow on the right side of the hood where the body got dented in. There is spot on the front where a crack is going to start because the body is gouged both on the inside and outside.

SO now I am packing up and heading to the GF because like a brain dead old fart I forgot to change the shipping address for my shock order and 2 of them will be delivered to her house tomorrow instead of mine.

The go box and trucks are going with me so I can play while waiting on my new shocks so I can play with the new beast. The Maxx is down for now but I still have the Summit to beat on for a while. I was able to bind the 2 trucks to the same radio transmitter so that is one less thing to haul around.

 

[Jim Oaks]

Holy crap!

$120 for a R/C skidplate. These companies must be making bank!

I'm not going to lie, if I came into possession of a Camel Trophy R/C Land Rover, I'd probably not get anything else done.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Looks like a good start! I have a bunch of RC stuff, mostly planes but have a whole slew... about the only thing I've used recently is an old Traxxas Rustler that I converted to brushless and lipo with the cheapest motor and speed control I found back in 2017, I took it out to the sand dunes when I was camping a couple weeks ago and put paddles on it and the dang thing would flip over backward on dry sand! My buddy was sure it was going to go slower with paddles, turns out it went faster . One of these days I'll bring out the Traxxas Monster Buggy again, that thing is a beast...

 

[Jim Oaks]

@scotts90ranger do you have a jet??

It's crazy how big and expensive R/C planes can get. Even crazier when you see them cra$h.

 

[snoranger]

Talk to me about an addiction when you buy out the contents of a closing hobby shop.

Anyone need a boat?

 

[Jim Oaks]

Talk to me about an addiction when you buy out the contents of a closing hobby shop.

Excuse me sir, where's your HO scale train stuff?

 

[snoranger]

Excuse me sir, where's your HO scale train stuff?

Ill bring it with me to LBL.

 

[scotts90ranger]

@scotts90ranger do you have a jet??

It's crazy how big and expensive R/C planes can get. Even crazier when you see them cra$h.

Nope, too rich for my blood, I do have some bigger gas powered stuff (Nitro too, but I'm talking up to 50cc gas). I haven't flown in like 3 years and that was just my cheap beater electric plane, I want to get the gas stuff back out but I need to get the rust broke off the fingers and used to what does what again...

 

[Bgunner]

Saturday I went to a friends house to run the RC's a bit and only having the Summit up and running I brought that. As I was trying to crawl up his ash pile from his wood and coal stoves I some how caught a stick and the truck jumped to the side and I heard a snap sound. I immediately said that didn't sound good but I still had steering and the throttle sounded good so I kept going for a while. once I got up to the front of the house I could hear a servo going wild constantly spinning.

Here is the carnage from that one:

The left gear is missing 2 or 3 teeth. Sorry for the fuzzy pic of that gear but it was all I could do to get the phone to focus on the servo and not my pants. Tried on the table first but it focused on the table also. I do plan on getting the metal gears for the 2075 servos so I have spares on hand.

The next morning I hit the hobby shop and $190 later I was putting in 2 new servos in. 2x Traxxas 2255 servos with 400 oz-in of torque per servo. What no tells you, nor the guy at the hobby shop or the spec sheet is that these servos can draw up to 5A each. My speed control on the summit can only put out 2.5A on the BEC so Now I need to get a BEC that can handle around 15A. I don't have issues but I am not getting the torque they are designed for. The red body on them is really cramping my all Blue Chassis upgrades though.

News on the Maxx Slash I picked up. It was fixed, except the front skid plate, for about 3/4 of a battery pack till I hit my foot and turned it into a car tire. Man was I annoyed with myself on that one. Here's the carnage up date:

1 still broken skid plate that the glue could not hold up.
1 Broken Caster block. I'm not the only one that has broke this sides caster block so I don't feel so bad about that. The Cure? Aluminum...

While I was at it I changed out the 4 shocks for all green ones.

My skid plates were delivered today but I believe the neighbor stole them as a different neighbor mentioned they saw the box in front of my door but less than 2 hours later it was gone. SO a new one is on order.

I still have a stream of parts coming for the Maxx Slash though:
1x M2C 1599 SLS Series Chassis Brace: 6061 T6 Aircraft Grade Aluminum
1x Set of VGracing Progressive Springs: Green of course.
1x Wide Maxx Kit: 20mm extended A arms totaling 40mm wider stance. Green in color
1x Set of 4 CVD's: Steel constant velocity axles for the Wide Maxx Kit
1x Set of Hubs to fit the axles: Green aluminum of course
1x Set Hub Nuts: Green aluminum
1x 20 tooth pinion gear: To slow it down and pull longer wheelies on demand. Down from 25 tooth.
1x REDCAT motor heatsink with fan: keep the motor cooler
1x Skid Plate Set: Because the two I ordered were stolen

That about sums up the update.

I am looking at the Castle CC BEC 2.0, 15A Max Output, Waterproof for the Summit and will go from there since I can not find any specs on the Traxxas BEC they have.

 

[Bgunner]

My Wide Maxx kit showed up today and for shits and giggles I installed just the rear springs and moved the rear springs to the front. What a huge handling difference that made right there. I was able to corner and slide without rolling sideways. I had the 2x 3 cell battery's in it and about 3/4 of the packs gone when the darned pinion came loose again. So I scooped it up and went in to see what I could do about it. This time I had to remove the motor and pry the pinion off the armature. Once off I made sure there was no damage to either part and added a little blue thread lock to the set screw to try to prevent it from backing off.

Once I was done with that I got the itch to install the Wide kit. Everything went smooth except the extended axles that come in the kit are actually smaller inner diameter than the factory ones that come with the Max Slash so I reused the original axles, for now, just to get an idea of the handling difference it made. The new CVD's should be here tomorrow which should take care of the axles being extended so far out.

Here's what she is looking like now with the 40mm wider stance:

Being it pushes the wheels out 20mm per side the body hits the tires and some fender trimming is necessary to keep the paint in good shape. I started with the fronts, on the body line where it went strait down but found that was not enough so a little more and I eventually got it so I could turn the tires and hold the suspension fully compressed and it wouldn't touch. In the rear though I needed to go a bit further up the body but was easier than the front since they don't turn side to side.

Once the body was trimmed it was time to see what it actually looked like on the chassis:

I'm liking the green against the blue on this one.
Here is a before picture:

Major has a Vet appointment tomorrow so I will not be home to fiddle with the new axles and chassis brace that are coming in tomorrow. I suppose it will be a late Friday or a Saturday things to install.

OH suddenly my package that disappeared showed up in the front hallway. So now I have 2 sets of skid plates with a third on the way.

 

[broncc]

Hard to beat the sound and smell of a tiny little nitro methane RC! This has the optional 0.18cu big block haha

SHE SUCKS NITRO!

 

[Bgunner]

My friend has a nitro T-Maxx and I love the smell of it. Reminds me of race fuel.

 

[Bgunner]

My Constant Velocity Driveshafts (CVD's) came in yesterday and I got them installed tonight.

I went with the green aluminum hubs and hub nuts. While looking it over I found 3 of the tires starting to separate from the rims so I put some glue on them but this truck has so much torque and speed that it is inevitable I will be buying new tires. This is a common issue with this model.

It's a good thing I ordered the CVD's because the front axles were rubbing on the new aluminum caster blocks on both sides. One side had worn through the green anodized coloring on the inner part of the caster block.

My M2C brace came yesterday also so I installed the new skid plates and the brace. This picture does not do it justice as the lighting keeps you from seeing the engraving in the oval.

Because the stock axles are still good I assembled them to keep as spares just incase. I put all 4 in a ziplock baggy to keep them together and clean.

My custom made mini prying device. This makes popping off the stock hubs so much easier. I've had this little one for years and it only gets used for small prying needs.

Because this thing is so low to the ground the skid plates take one hell of a beating. To get the screws out I hade to use a razor knife and cut the folded plastic away from the holes to be able to remove the screws to install new skid plates.

Still waiting on my Progressive shock springs and motor cooler to show up but they are coming from Arizona and California so it'll be a few more days.