Not at all happy with the performance of my 40$ Kingheads mount

[Freelanceshots]

I ran my truck four times with this new motor mount installed and the bearing failed just as fast as the smaller traxxas bearing. What a jip. The first two times I ran the truck was in a manicured patch of 1/2 inch tall moss/grass with almost no dust 3S battery and then yesterday I took it to a more dusty more coarse sand area and ran one 2S pack and then the 3S again. Very little full speed throttle runs as the areas just did not permit due to space. Pulled it apart today to inspect and the bearing is seized up tight and put major wear on the aluminum bearing adapter. Right after I got KH mount it tore up my center dif as well even thought the bearing had not seized. I noticed that the bearing had a slight bit of slop when inserted into the over sized bearing. KH bearing seals appeared cheap and very thin and flexible.

I even went the extra mile and tore the bearing seals off and cleaned them and re-inserted Silkolene Pro RG2 Racing bearing grease in. No such luck for continued bearing life. What a bunch of miss leading info. I should have saved my money and this is why I feel the need to post my experience. I by no means abuse my truck where I am one of those guys you would get mad at because I won't subject my expense RC toy truck to much.

Pictures to back up my story:

[IMG] Inside bearing failure by freelanceshots, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG] closeup Kingheads seized bearing by freelanceshots, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG] Kingheads Mount with seized bearing by freelanceshots, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG] Traxxas Slash 4x4 slipper by freelanceshots, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG] Damaged center differential by freelanceshots, on Flickr[/IMG]

[XterraTrax]

That's very interesting.
I just ordered a KH last week and this concerns me.

[Tallguy905]

I have abused my truck, and my KH bearing and mount have been holding up superb.

Now, I am not trying to tell you what to do, but do you not think it would be fair to contact the manufacturer (King Headz in this case) and explain the problem to them. This would give them a fair chance to clear their reputation with you, before you go around bad mouthing their product. I have spoke and emailed Jim at KH before, and he was excellent to deal with, this is why I bought the product.

I think if you were to give them a chance they would do their best to try and make you and your KH experience better. Bad mouthing a company before giving them a chance to help isn't fair, if they tell you to go fly a kite then I would think it is now your right to say what you choose about them.

Just may thoughts.

[Freelanceshots]

Bad mounting their product?!?! This is what happened to me in a very short time period under pretty normal circumstances for an RC truck. It speaks for itself. Picture are worth a thousand words my friend and thats why I took the time to take them and post them. Now if the case is they are making cheaper bearings to meet the demand then that might be the case but from the get go I saw that the seals where subpar. When you have to return stuff or get replacements due to problems thats a big hassle where I just want a product to work as described. There is absolutely nothing wrong with me posting my personal experience with a product and that's not bashing if the results are the facts. With that said I will take your advice and contact King Heads company and see what they have to say. I will link them to this post so that they can see the pictures. The likely response will be I used the wrong lubrication but the Silkolene grease is made specifically for any type of bearing that's ran through water and dust with high or low speed.

[Impact]

Is that the 19x10x5mm bearing? Looks small but maybe it's just the picture. I used to replace my stock bearing weekly until I went with the big bearing and now it's been in there for 4 months and still feels new.......Impact

[Freelanceshots]

Yes its the bigger bearing that comes with the KH motor mount. Its all good I don't mean to sound like my life's come to an end but I'm just getting tired of products not performing well. I could have bought many stock traxxas bearings for 40 dollars along with aluminum adapters.

I don't know what to do different to get this problem resolved on my 700 dollar RC truck but it makes it tough to have fun with. Tearing the truck down after every run and inspecting all the parts kind of takes the fun out of it as well. Solution next time Traxxas is the completely seal these areas to the elements. Its a classic design flaw in my opinion.

I've been buying RC cars and buggies since the early 80's and I never had problems with bearings and I was age ten in 1980. How many 10 year olds tear there car and trucks apart at age ten but you can bet that I did. I had the first year gold chassis RC10 and ran the guts out of that car without any failures.

Imapct, I wish mine would have lasted longer. Everytime these part fail it means more time and money at the hobby store where they do not stock the odd parts I need.

[Impact]

Hmmm, strange. My first big bearing was metal shields and it didn't last long but then I went with rubber shields and it's been working great for a long time. They came from Mcmaster-carr and were just standard ABEC-3 rubber shielded bearings. Myself and 4-5 buddys have been running the same bearing and all are still in great shape. I'd just replace it with a decent bearing and see how it goes, maybe the KH bearing is a super cheapo and doesn't seal well........Impact

[Freelanceshots]

I guess that's my only option again. I bought a yellow seal Boca bearing to replace the stock traxxas bearing and it failed pretty quickly as well and it burned up my first center diff on 2S. Bought the plastic diff cup combo traxxas offers but then this KH mount/bearing combo ground away at that so I'll need a new one of those too. Like I said not the end of the world but just makes me not want to play with the truck as much. Working on and replacing parts is not the reason I bought the truck.

[Impact]

I was just looking at KH site and they sell that bearing for $1.00 so that is as cheap as cheap can get, my standard one from Mcmaster was $7.95 and has lasted well. I would think that is why it failed, get a better bearing and you will be all set. Good thing you caught it before it destroyed everything........BB

[Impact]

In the beginning I tryed a bunch super high quality bearings in the 14x10x4 size(stock) and they didn't last any longer than stock, a few lasted less time. One ceramic super awesome bearing only made it 2 batterys before it failed........Impact

[I EAT DIRT]

Did you say you greased the bearing before even installing it in the truck? My KHz mount is great. Gravel, sand, dirt it take's it all. Not everything in this world is perfect, there sometime's are mistake's made. "By everyone". If you link them this thread nothing good is going to come out of it. By what you have written it does sound like you are bashing them. But that is my opinion. Sorry you had bad luck with this product, don't let this ruin your experience with them. Take the time and let them know how meticulous you are with cleaning and the driving of your truck, talk with them see what they will do for you then go from there. I would be surprised if they didn't help you. I'm sure they will.

[Freelanceshots]

Thanks for your time Impact. I'll look into getting the nicer bearing. I would think that if a company sent out a high quality product like the mount part seems to be then why would the skimp and send an inferior product with it. That's not how I do business. Do you re-grease your bearings with grease or bearing oil? The consensus that I've read is the thicker the grease (to a point) the better it works by creating a barrier /seal.

[Impact]

Nope, they last long enough now so I don't bother. Any grease/oil in that area will just attract dirt........Impact

[Freelanceshots]

Yes I did regrease the bearing before I put it in the truck and that was for the sole purpose of safe guarding against a meltdown. The included KH bearings had little lubrication and most likely would have failed even quicker. I wonder what's so different from my surroundings then from the rest of the users. I mean its pretty simple, you install the bearing and run the truck. I'm even running an overtray to keep out all the trash.

My next question is have you guys pulled the sipper out and inspected your bearing lately? I've been doing it between 6 to 8 longer runs every since the truck was new out of the box. You would have never have know the bearing was frozen up as everything seemed to be working properly. The bearing riding on the aluminum adapter does not self destruct like the metal bearing against plastic dif cup like before. One thing I did notice that was fishy on the last run was that the bigger battery did not last as long as the smaller battery and that must have been due to the extra drag of the seized bearing.

[Tallguy905]

El Sob has a neat mod to keep dirt out of that area.

[jathomas3]

I bought two of the Kingheadz mounts a while back and I had the same issue with one of them. After running the truck in a mix of sand/dirt/grass for about a half hour, the one bearing was packed solid with dust. When I took it apart it seemed like it didn't have any lube in it at all. One thing I noticed was that the Kingheadz website shows a bearing with a black seal and both of the mounts that I received had blue seals on them. I contacted Kingheadz about it and Jim said he would look into the problem but didn't offer a replacement bearing. I was a little dissapointed that he didn't offer to send a replacement and I bought a Boca Green Seal bearing. I haven't had a problem since then. The bearing in the other mount has held up fine with regular cleanings and relubes. I think it may be a quality control issue with the bearing manufacturer.

[tobz173]

I'm in the same boat. The bearing definately hasn't siezed up, but with only 2 runs with my kingheads and a brand new centre dif housing, it has already worn the housing rather considerably. But the bearing spins freely with no crunchy sounds, not sure what the go is.

[Freelanceshots]

Thats good to hear about some other having issue as I'm not the crazy man that tries to destroy things intentionally so that I can complain. Not to say that the bad experiences seen by some is good. I went out today and bought two green seal Bocas where they where half off so 2 for 8 and some change. Forgot to get a new aluminum bearing adapter where I'm sure the one that I have in the photo is to damaged where if I continued to use it would lead to the new Boca getting damaged. For the amount of dirt to get into the bearing that I photographed I might as well have been running that bearing without the seal at all. Come on KH look at sending out better bearings or skip sending them at all and lower the price.

[Tallguy905]

Forgot to mention this driveshaft mod helps as well.

http://traxxas.com/forums/showthread...Driveshaft-mod

[Freelanceshots]

Here is the email I left with the KH people:

I purchased the Traxxas King Heads motor mount from you in the last month where I put it on my 4x4 RC truck. The bearing quickly failed with general use. In the process of the bearing seizing or the bearing specs not matching the tolerances of the traxxas parts my slipper and my center diff were damaged. I just wanted to let you guys know my experience. I feel the seals on the bearing where very flimsy as I inspected them before I put the best one of the two from the KH kit onto my truck. I posted the results on the Traxxas forum with pictures. (Link)

[ARMYGUY]

honestly id call them.. i had a few problems with the motor mount and then sent me a new one no questions asked.. there good people from my exp.

[Freelanceshots]

what problems did you encounter Armyguy?

My problem is most likely resolved now that I bought some decent bearings. We will see if the bocas last longer. I may try to come up with a foam/plastic spacer to keep the dirt out. On the bearing thats in the rear section of the modular rear end where the differential/slipper fits into I dremeled one of the body clip plastic spacers to fit in that area and it works miracles at keeping the dust out of it. tried to put one in front of the bearing as it enter the motor mount but the thickness is to much for that area. Something will have to be place in front of the motor mount to block the dirt because this is an issue I'm sick of dealing with. The real kicker is I'm running the JC concepts overtray and it does miracles at keep a large majority of the trash out. When I tear my truck down there is just a very fine film of dust on all the parts. No major contamination or accumulation.

[BrabusBen]

Well just thought I'd chip in to defend KH. I've had one in my truck since new running the "blue seal" bearing lubricated with ACF-50 once three months ago. Now as you will see from the "Low Maintenance Thread" I get my truck real dirty and run in the worst possible conditions of wet sticky mud, dust, sand etc and do NO MAINTENANCE other than the occasional brush off of dried mud, plus a strip down clean about once every two months (I run nearly daily). This is on purpose to try and give us all an idea on how parts perform and we can get more fun/hour maintenance out of our trucks (kills me cos I love a real clean truck lol).

I only run 2s but my KH bearing is as sweet as the day it went in, however it is protected from the vast majority of muck by a proline undertray, an outerwears shroud and a DP slipper guard. These mods mean that the driveshaft area is as clean as new despite never been cleaned and my driving conditions so this may affect why the bearing's still ok but it certainly hasn't seized or just broken on me. Yes traxxas bearings are pretty hopeless (sorry traxxas) so I've swapped all these to yeah stainless steel sealed bearings with ACF-50 coating and they are still sweet - the wheels will free spin still for over a minute! I have ordered a ceramic bearing for the KH only because I plan to go to 3 or even 4s via castle soon and just want the best I can get because I don't want to risk failure but not really because I feel the bearing is insufficient.

Have a look at the "Low Maintenance Thread" even though I wrote it myself I have has a lot of good feedback on how much it improves the durability of this wicked little truck

I also reckon you should speak to KH I've only heard good things about their customer support

I'm done ;0)


The Time I Enjoy Wasting Is Not Time Wasted

[ARMYGUY]

what problems did you encounter Armyguy?

My problem is most likely resolved now that I bought some decent bearings. We will see if the bocas last longer. I may try to come up with a foam/plastic spacer to keep the dirt out. On the bearing thats in the rear section of the modular rear end where the differential/slipper fits into I dremeled one of the body clip plastic spacers to fit in that area and it works miracles at keeping the dust out of it. tried to put one in front of the bearing as it enter the motor mount but the thickness is to much for that area. Something will have to be place in front of the motor mount to block the dirt because this is an issue I'm sick of dealing with. The real kicker is I'm running the JC concepts overtray and it does miracles at keep a large majority of the trash out. When I tear my truck down there is just a very fine film of dust on all the parts. No major contamination or accumulation.

I couldnt get their bearing holder into their bearing.. i has to slightly sand it down to get it in... I called and they replaced everything and sent me a few extra goodies... their good people and will make it right..

[Tallguy905]

I couldnt get their bearing holder into their bearing.. i has to slightly sand it down to get it in... I called and they replaced everything and sent me a few extra goodies... their good people and will make it right..

@ Freelance --> Like I suggested, don't drag their name through the mud (no pun intended) until you have given them a chance to correct the problem. It isn't fair to label any product as junk without trying to be fair to the manufacture. If they said they would do nothing for you, then by all means trash their customer support. Every manufacture has a imperfect product slip through once in awhile. I understand that you paid good money for it, and that you expected it to preform as described, this was the manufacturers intention as well. Look the auto industry, we all pay big money for autos of any brand, and they all at some point have a premature failure of a part or have a recall. Now in this case it isn't right to broadcast that this auto maker is crap because they are not much better then the next guy, but it is how the company fixes your problem to make you the customer happy.

I hope you see what I am getting at. We live in a "now" society and sometimes we have to just slow down, look at the problem and figure out how to fix it before flaming someone else for it. A good company is built on customer support #1, and their products #2.

Sorry for the preaching, I'll step off the soap box now....

[Freelanceshots]

I don't feel like I am doing them an injustice? I just reported my product did not work. Like i stated my life's not been changed and I can still eat and sleep. Do you have something invested in this company? Anyways, I get your thought and thanks for your input. I've purchased new bearings and I'm sure it will be better now. I also sent them an email directly from their site and I have not heard from them or do I expect to be. Life goes on but I have every right to report how my product performed where if it was good we would not be having this conversation. That's what forums and reviews are for.

[OSWHollowpoint]

Would it be safe to say that the motor mount is perfoming well but not the supplied bearing? Just to be accurate? I havent taken mine apart since I installed it a month or more ago. I have fun at least 12 batteries through it. Took it apart tonight after reading this thread. My bearing so on the way out. Definetly siezed up. I was able to free it up but it seems done. Just installed my spare. Have to order more now. I am going to remove the seals and see what condition the balls are in.

Not impressed that the bearing is done.

[Freelanceshots]

My plastic stock Traxxas motor mount that came with the truck worked flawlessly. The only reason why I spent the additional dollars to upgrade was so that I could stop having to worry about this area every other day. This little metal mount is cool to look at but if it larger bearing design does not give you a worth while benefit then it was money not well spent period. I would have been better off buying a C-CVD Kit or part of it. Most people that have this KH mount probably have not even bothered to inspect it in awhile and their bearing has gone south as well. There's not really any huge signs that the KH oversized bearings not spinning so in reality its like a 40 dollar bushing.

[OSWHollowpoint]

In all honesty, the stock bearing didn't even last through my first run. (sorry Traxxas) I could actually hear it fail. Drivetrain noise just suddenly changed pitch.

This larger bearing has improved the life but it still failed. But, it is a man made item and is put through some serious punishment. See how long my spare lasts.