Project go anywhere

[E-RevoVXL]

I had the same thing happen with my MERV's rear skidplate... the screw just busted right through the plastic.

Good idea with the CA Glue, though.. very interesting, I may try that myself. Thanks!!



E'VXL

[jeffnohio]

Looking Good twisted! Sorry to hear about all the u-joint mess.. I went to 1/16th slash arms and hardware and haven't had a problem.. well except keeping it off it's lid.. Have to really watch out for high speed turns..I went with a wider humvee body with a lower CG and harder tires and it helps out a bunch and is still a a blast to drive.. Will post up some pics of it soon in my topic. I need to find out exactly what Bearings you are using for the steering.. That sounds like something I wanna buy next..

[twisted]

Looking Good twisted! Sorry to hear about all the u-joint mess.. I went to 1/16th slash arms and hardware and haven't had a problem.. well except keeping it off it's lid.. Have to really watch out for high speed turns..I went with a wider humvee body with a lower CG and harder tires and it helps out a bunch and is still a a blast to drive.. Will post up some pics of it soon in my topic. I need to find out exactly what Bearings you are using for the steering.. That sounds like something I wanna buy next..

i ll have to go check out your truck,sounds very interesting. as for the steering bearings they are listed in the manual.

[jeffnohio]

yep bought them today and posted up some pics.. Bearings make it so much nicer on the steering!!! thanks for the tip

[twisted]

well i have tip for the stock shocks. nothing to extravagant but it helps and its practicably free. i just need to upload the pics.

[twisted]

heres a little shock tip for those that are tired of the stock shocks leaking. this tip isnt a permanent fix but will help slow down the time in between shock refills.

take your shock apart and empty the oil out. pop the bottom cap off exposing the two orings and a plastic spacer(sorry i only have one oring and no spacer in the pic but there are a total of two orings and one plastic spacer)



next find some black grease and smear it liberally on the two orings and the plastic washer ( i used associated black grease)





now reassemble the greased pieces back into the bottom of the shock in this order , oring,plastic spacer,oring and cap.
what the grease does is act like a gasket and keeps the oil in, well for more time then if you didnt use it associated also makes "green slime" for the shock orings. it does the same thing.

[Skyjacker07]

For those of you flipping, on eBay, and probably toys website there some adapters to widen the stance, I don't know if they are good or bad, but they widen them by quiet a bit.

[jeffnohio]

Yeah for the cost of these lil trucks .. they sure skimmped on the shocks.. what ever happened to solid body shocks? or they could at least threaded the cap on the bottoms.. Good tip though.. so far my piggy back's are holding up great.. ( knock on wood)

[twisted]

Yeah for the cost of these lil trucks .. they sure skimmped on the shocks.. what ever happened to solid body shocks? or they could at least threaded the cap on the bottoms.. Good tip though.. so far my piggy back's are holding up great.. ( knock on wood)

yea i think thats why they leak is the bottom not being screwed on. by just snapping on they dont tighten down on the orings enough ?? idk.

[twisted]

found "another" possible fix to the ujoint problem. a little suspension tuning.... read on.

so i think the problem with the merv shafts failing on the summit is due to the angle they are at. there is just to much suspension droop on the summit for the u joints to function properly.

so what i did was i limited the droop. yea i know but loosing a little clearance is better then breaking a drive shaft every couple of runs.

there are a couple of different ways of going about this but here is how i did it. i took the stock push rods off the summit and replaced them with the toe links off a 1/16 slash or rally. here is the difference between the lengths, not much at all but it works.

the top link is stock, the bottom one with the hex in the middle is the toe link from the slash.



in the next to pics you can see how much droop i took out by doing this :

left side stock, right side slash toe link (as you are looking at the truck) :



here is a side shot of one end done and the other end still stock:



now heres the important part. look at the angle of the u joints. stock angle here :



new angle with slash toe link used as push rod here :



so far i beat on it pretty hard and its still holding up. ill do some more bashing and let ya know.

part number for the slash toelinks are 7038

[jeffnohio]

Crossing my fingers for ya man.. makes sense to get them out of such a bind though.. so it should last longer..

I Put the Jeep body back on and took some night vids of the lights and having a little fun in the yard.. uploading them now..

[twisted]

Crossing my fingers for ya man.. makes sense to get them out of such a bind though.. so it should last longer..

I Put the Jeep body back on and took some night vids of the lights and having a little fun in the yard.. uploading them now..

ill have to check them out.

[NFA Fabrication]

Sold my Summit VXL because of continuous axle issues, drove it maybe 6 times total on 2x7.2 nimh, and spent $30 on axleshafts. Hope you have luck with those aluminum ones. Most aftermarket ones loose the through pin design, and go to garbage "Set Screws" to attach to the diff outputs. Had a better option been available, I might still have my Summit. Went slash 4x4 instead, I am too impatient for fragile cars.

[twisted]

Sold my Summit VXL because of continuous axle issues, drove it maybe 6 times total on 2x7.2 nimh, and spent $30 on axleshafts. Hope you have luck with those aluminum ones. Most aftermarket ones loose the through pin design, and go to garbage "Set Screws" to attach to the diff outputs. Had a better option been available, I might still have my Summit. Went slash 4x4 instead, I am too impatient for fragile cars.

since i changed the push rods its been ok.

[twisted]

just ordered some shocks.

[XJoeTheShowX]

What did you get??

[twisted]

some gpms.

[XJoeTheShowX]

Thats sweet!!

[twisted]

heres a pic of my truck at my little backyard course. the whole course isnt shown. it consist of rocks, holes and jumps. here i was trying out the new gpm shocks. sorry not action shots. more on the gpm shocks later.

[DogMilk]

Sweet!

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

[jeffnohio]

NICE!!! I want to do that .. So far all I have is a mud hole though,. you should throw up some video

[twisted]

i got a couple of packs in on the new gpm shocks i put on my summit. the shocks look to be well made and come with 3 pairs of springs.



im not sure what the shocks came with for shock oil weight but its light. so i went to 70 wt. after running a bunch of packs i think that i still have to go heavier in the fluid and softer with the springs .the other springs that come with the shocks are heavier so i might try the stock summit springs.right now the truck is sprung to stiff and doesnt conform well to bumps and changes in the terrain. this makes the truck bounce alot and doesnt articulate well in the rough.



as far as the shocks go they are made of aluminum right down to the bottom shock ends. they have orings in the bottom of the shock body secured by a screw on cap. on top they have a bladder and an oring. they do not however have a bleed hole. no biggie it just makes bleeding a little bit harder. keep an eye out on the top oring, if you screw the cap on to tight the oring will pop out. other then that the shocks are holding oil.

ill be posting up a flex shot here shortly taken on my course and i will also be changing out the shock oil and springs.

[jeffnohio]

So how are the 1/16th slash toe links working out? Did you replace both the front and rear with them? also did it do anything to the steering alignment with the shorter rods?

[twisted]

so far so good and ive beat it pretty good. another guy on another forum did the same thing and he said his went with in 5 minutes..

i had to play with the pillow balls a bit to get all the wheels aligned.

my truck still does everything that it did with the longer pushrods but now it may even handle a little better at high speeds.

[gsrcivic]

you tried heat shrink what about electrical tape on the u joints? do you think that would give enough flex?

[twisted]

you tried heat shrink what about electrical tape on the u joints? do you think that would give enough flex?

it may depending on the tape,the problem is the angle is so severe that the tape has to be able to conform to how the angle changes while the suspension is cycling.

in my opinion, reducing the angle is the best choice.

[twisted]

well i took and changed out springs on the GP shocks. i put the stock blue summit springs on em. alot better but the 70wt is still to soft especially if i put the cage back on.

anyway here is a flex shot with the gpm springs and shock coming out of the whole on my "testing grounds"

[twisted]

new wheels and tires going on the summit. sadly its not a direct bolt on due to the rpm carriers so a little modding has to be done.good thing i got them for cheap. pics to come..

[jeffnohio]

cool deal .. can't wait to see what ya got

[hurley747]

those shocks look real nice

[snowslider]

I'll sub this tread!

[twisted]

time for a update and this one is about tires. ive been wanting to try a good 1.9 sized tire for awhile now and not to long ago i came across a deal i couldnt pass up even if they didnt fit.

i bought a set of losi mini rock crawler tires on losi real beadlocks not the glue on tires that look like beadlocks.

heres the new losi tire next to the stock summit tire :



and a width view :


i had to do alot to get the tires on. the rear beadlock ring would hit the rpm pillow ball carriers and not allow the wheel to sit all the way on. so i had to remove the rear beadlock and the locking ring that sits in the tire for the beadlock and glue the tire on. yea, i didnt want to but had no choice.
so after doing that to all four i went to put them on again and they just barely fit.if you tightened the nut down to tight it would bind up the wheel. so i had to take and put a washer in between the hex and the wheel to space it out a bit. it works.

so here is a pic of the tires on the truck. looks kind of goofy in my opinion :



and here is the truck and wheels out on the course :



so, how did they work ? at 1st they sucked. these tires need to be broken in. after that they grab really well. you loose some ground clearance (and i already lost some using the different pushrods) but it makes things challenging. im gonna put on my tube chassis to see if it looks better and go from there with the ever evolving project.

[hurley747]

I do like the wheels a lot

[twisted]

GPM shock update. they are not leaking ! but.. i think the piston holes are to large. with my new set up ( roll cage back on) i have to use a heavier oil. im using 100wt and the truck is still to springy. not to far off tho. im using the black springs that came with the gpm shocks. i cant use the other springs that the shocks came with because of this :



and the stock summit springs are prolly to soft.

so yea, the silver GPM springs...3 the same size ,one a tad short.. i dint even notice it till i had them off.i looked over and realized something didnt look right. so if you have a set of these shocks, check your springs and if your gonna order a set keep this in mind. other then that so far im happy with them.

[hurley747]

Wow thats wierd - i usually use one hole pistons with 50+ wt shock oil on my heavier trucks

[twisted]

Wow thats wierd - i usually use one hole pistons with 50+ wt shock oil on my heavier trucks

the gpm shocks didnt come with other pistons and im not sure if the traxxas ones are interchangeable.

[twisted]

the cage is on and i also took the bumpers off. the tires look good with the cage.think KOH truck (king of hammers) if you dont know what that is google it .

gonna make some inner wheel wells out of some scrap lexan. ill post pics soon. this is the best this project has looked imo..

[XJoeTheShowX]

yeah i just got some gpms but i noticed that they are shorter than the stock shocks and was sorta upset that it took some of my ground clearance

[twisted]

hmmm, i didnt compare mine to the old ones. ill do it next time i have em off. you are talking about the total length of the shock right ?

[XJoeTheShowX]

yeah the legnth of the shock is shorter on all 4 so i dont know it kinda made me mad cause i thought they would be the same legnth