Well finally, the center driveshaft came and got all built up. This thing sits in the bottom, center of the chassis and the car is basically built around it.
It was supposed to take a month to arrive, and the boredom was killing me. So much so, that I did what I know shouldn't be done: paint plastic parts. They always get scraped up and look horrible, but boredom will drive a man to do unspeakable things:
The cage pieces, A-arms, axle housing, trailing arms and front bumper were painted with Krylon Fusion Metallic Dark Gray. It doesn't look that different from the stock gray, which I'll appreciate once it starts chipping off.
Thanks to the RCCrawler search function I found a bunch of info on solving the leaky shock problem. Those rear Kings were super leaky, like lose 1/3 of their oil every battery. I greased the O-rings, and replaced the spacer between the rings with a Tamiya O-ring. Then I Teflon taped the upper and lower caps. Leaks solved (so far).
I mentioned earlier how Castle electronics really don't like plastic drivetrain parts, and will basically seek and destroy them. This chassis came to me with both differentials locked. I planned to drive it as a go-semi-fast rig, so I opened the front using the stock differential which is plastic. The 5300kv motor turned my Yeti Jr. into a 2wd truck, as it shredded the gears on the long output side of the diff.
It took me several tear downs to find it, as the teeth looked fine, and the differential performed normally, until both front wheels were making contact and needing to lift the truck. Then it was like the front wheels had a loose slipper clutch and wouldn't spin. Since an all metal drive train is required, back to the locker in the front I went.
So this is how it sits now, as pictured crawling around in front of my condo:
Since both differentials are now locked, I intend to run this more as a crawling / trailing rig. I ordered a Holmes Hobbies V2 380 Revolver to mate up with my Mamba Micro ESC.
The Axial aluminum upgrades really remove a lot of the slop in the front suspension. My Yeti Jr with all of the stock plastic parts has a ton more slop, which my 3 year olds don't mind. It surprised me how big of a difference these upgrades made.
With this body and wheelset, it's more like a 1:10 short wheelbase Gambler 500 type of vehicle, than a 1:18 rock racer. Oh well, I really like the curves of this Mini body and how it looks geared for offroad.
I don't know if you noticed, but the price on these Yeti Jrs went up from $150 to $175. Apparently they're pretty popular still, so hopefully production continues for a while.
My 3 year old sons still usually sleep with one of these.
