With all the recent changes, I couldn't wait to get the SR5 Truggy out on the rocks.....but that excitement was short-lived. It didn't take much time to conclude that the 4.19 tires were simply too small for this rig. I can get away with small tires on my TRX4 because of the Portal axles, but the VP 10.2 Curries were hanging too low with the Class 1 KLR MT/X tires, and the skid kept getting hung up on the rocks and roots.
The shocks worked OK, but they definitely need to be tuned more, the truck was just too bouncy.
About 1/4 way up the mountain, I noticed my steering wasn't quite right....upon closer examination I could see the Samix front shock hoop / Panhard mount had cracked and bent outwards. I was able to somewhat correct the steering with my radio sub-trim and carried on until the inevitable happened! I continued up the mountain for another half hour or so and the Panhard mount was still intact. I changed out to my Twin Hammers that was in my backpack for the majority of the 5 hours we were out crawling.
With all the distractions, I didn't even really get a chance to notice if the overdrive front axle was effective or not. I will pay closer attention next time when my 10.2 is repaired and hopefully more dialed in.
I reverted back to the 10.2 for the ascent down Mt. Work and surprisingly, the cracked aluminum Panhard mount held up the whole 1.25 hour trek to the bottom....about 5 feet from the trail head and I was trying to PIT maneuver my buddies 10.2 and rolled and the mount finally snapped!
As far as I am concerned, Samix is one of the top RC parts manufacturers that come from Asia, so I was surprised to see this failure. For the record, my truck didn't take a nasty fall or roll when this happened, it was just rock crawling. I emailed Samix (in Hong Kong) Saturday evening to explain what happened and in the morning, there was a response asking for pics. I sent pics and they replied again promptly indicating they will replace the Panhard mount for free, I just pay the shipping which is $13.00 USD from HK to Canada. Yes, expensive shipping, but I will do it. I have to say, I'm impressed with their customer service so far which means a lot to me, and with that, I will continue to be a Samix customer.
In the mean time, I have a STRC front shock hoop/Panhard mount on it's way from AMain.
So with all that, I'm going to revert to larger tires and set the shocks up to be semi-droop. I'll have to raise the body a bit, but that's OK.
I have yet another set of tires coming...but I will leave the details for a surprise!!! ;-)
Here's a few pics from Saturday's session.
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