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Good to hear!
Glad I'm not the only one! :ror:
Thank you!
:lmao:
The manual is definitely the worst part of this kit. The good news is that everything else is good!
Yeah it is interesting yours is different. I also agree the pitch on the idler looks very odd - almost like a well used gear. I only greased where the manual called for it. I did add more grease to the idler and spur though. Against my better judgement, I did not lube the dig because the manual didn't call for it which I thought was odd. But with the inconsistent operation of the dig I figured adding sticky grease would only make matters worse. We'll see how hot and how quickly I see wear on my shift fork and diff locker or whatever that part is called. My transmission is quieter and smoother after being installed in the truck and it seems OK.
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mewalsh100
I wanna be Dave
Nice write up and build notes Jato! I had one of these plus all the accessories sitting in my cart at RPP. Planning on a Winter build, but knowing myself, if I order it this early, I'll have it built by next weekend! :lmao:
After completing the assembly of the transmission you put it on the skid plate. The skid plate does some of the job of holding the transmission together. There's a nice interlocking design between the standoffs on the transmission and the skid plate. Standard stuff, but everything fits nicely.
This is where I noticed the first design fail IMO. The motor and pinion cover is held on by three screws. You can't access the lowermost screw while the transmission is mounted on the skid plate! This typically won't be a big deal, but if you ever need to check gear mesh you're going to have to pull the trans off of the skid plate. This isn't a huge deal and it may be a non issue for some, but I've checked or adjusted gear mesh more than once. I've also changed pinions on more than one occasion. In this case it's not a simple affair. As our Russian QC inspector would say, "Me no like."
After the transmission assembly is on the skid plate you next install the dig servo. The mounts are small, spindly pieces of rubbery plastic. They allow way too much movement of the dig servo. These mounts plain suck. I hope we get an aluminum upgrade sooner rather than later.
But even if we had rigid dig servo mounts the skid plate is also way too flexible. I'm not a fan at all. The junk dig servo mounts coupled with the flexible skid leads to inconsistent operation of the dig. This little servo should not be able to flex its own mounts and the skid plate this much!
The dig servo mounts need a redesign of different plastic compound and the skid needs either a different compound of plastics or some reinforcement ribbing or something.
Once the skid is screwed to the cage chassis that should help stabilize it, but I've never seen a skid this flexible.
The servo saver has no business being here IMO. I want to find an aluminum horn that is short enough to work for the dig. If anybody knows of one please let me know!
Next up is the Wildboar driveshafts. The manual is really lacking here.
It even shows the driveshafts assembled out of phase! Rich touched on this in the unofficial Capra thread and a revised manual is supposed to be available today.
These driveshafts are standard Axial stuff, but hopefully they are made of different plastic to be more twist resistant this time around. I was hoping for a redesign of the driveshafts. I don't see any need for the sliding center section. This could be built into one of the driveshafts halves, something like Traxxas has. This would prevent that center section from popping out and getting lost on the trails.
Now you might say the center section shouldn't pop out if the driveshafts are the correct length. That may be true, but I don't think we got correct length halves in this kit. I had both the front and rear center, splined section fall out while moving the axles/transmission/links/driveshafts assembly. I didn't have any Axial Wildboar parts at home or I definitely would have made some changes.
Assembled per Rich's markup drawing.
Next up is assembly the axles to the transmission via links and driveshafts, but I don't like this big spider of a thing flopping around on my bench so I save that step for more towards the end.
Next up is the cage. There are a lot of pieces and a lot of screws so either get your electric screwdriver ready or be ready for arm pump. The good news is that it is made from rigid plastics. It has an odd, dusty, matte finish on it.
Once it's assembled, even partially as seen here, it's a very rigid structure. Me like!
Before I could assemble more of the cage I needed to paint which is my absolute least favorite part of building RCs! So let's continue onto my second least favorite...
Time to build shocks. If you ever built old Axial shocks you know you wasted your time because the oil would leak out anyway. Horizon, on the other hand, tends to make really good shocks and with the new design I am hoping for a lot of improvement! They certainly can't be worse.
I knew that I wanted to add internal limiters to the shocks to drop the ride height after seeing other builds. On a rig like this I wanted the lower links to be parallel to the ground. After doing research on here, the Facebook group and asking questions I decided on 5mm internal limiters.
I realized I did not have any fuel tubing at home which I typically use for limiters. So I set off to find plastic spacers. I found this old Axial parts tree with a variety of parts including their plastic hollow balls. Hmm...
It turns out that trimmed hollow plastic balls around about 5.6mm which falls right near the size of the limiter I was searching for. I finally found a use for these junk, plastic balls! And cutting them and making use of them on the new Axial is kinda my slap in the face to the Axial of old.
:lmao:
It's not that serious. I just thought it was funny.
There seems to be a new trend of using super thick shock oil and I don't quite understand it on crawlers. Is it their way of trying to gain more stability from the soft suspension? I'm not sure, but it doesn't make sense to me so I'm not trying it yet.
Axial supplies 35 weight silicone shock oil which is always a good start in my opinion so I will be using it for this build.
I really wish Axial would have upgraded to X-rings in the shocks instead of o-rings. X-rings have twice the sealing edges while having less stiction. It's a win-win so hopefully they make this move soon. I thought about using Traxxas X-rings, but instead I stuck with the stock kit o-rings. I want to see how well the Horizon flavor Axial shocks work as designed. I lubed up all of the o-rings with greens lime.
Bleeding emulsion shocks with bleeder caps is easy - so easy that it feels wrong. Emulsion shocks are much easier to bleed than bladder shocks for me. You do lose a lot of oil in the bleeding of these shocks and I often think I'm doing it wrong. But all of these shocks rebound about the same so I'm going to count it as a win.
Had I known the shocks would have been that easy I may not have not have procrastinated.
I do wish they would have designed a recess for and included an o-ring seal for the bleeder screw. I am concerned this will be a leakage spot.
They did include captured spring retainers this time and that's a huge win. No more losing spring retainers in a bad rollover out on the field and having to gangster lean for the rest of the day.
The aluminum shock bodies are also much higher quality than the old Icon shocks. These shocks look good and hopefully they perform and remain mostly leak free.
This is where I noticed the first design fail IMO. The motor and pinion cover is held on by three screws. You can't access the lowermost screw while the transmission is mounted on the skid plate! This typically won't be a big deal, but if you ever need to check gear mesh you're going to have to pull the trans off of the skid plate. This isn't a huge deal and it may be a non issue for some, but I've checked or adjusted gear mesh more than once. I've also changed pinions on more than one occasion. In this case it's not a simple affair. As our Russian QC inspector would say, "Me no like."
After the transmission assembly is on the skid plate you next install the dig servo. The mounts are small, spindly pieces of rubbery plastic. They allow way too much movement of the dig servo. These mounts plain suck. I hope we get an aluminum upgrade sooner rather than later.
But even if we had rigid dig servo mounts the skid plate is also way too flexible. I'm not a fan at all. The junk dig servo mounts coupled with the flexible skid leads to inconsistent operation of the dig. This little servo should not be able to flex its own mounts and the skid plate this much!
The dig servo mounts need a redesign of different plastic compound and the skid needs either a different compound of plastics or some reinforcement ribbing or something.
Once the skid is screwed to the cage chassis that should help stabilize it, but I've never seen a skid this flexible.
The servo saver has no business being here IMO. I want to find an aluminum horn that is short enough to work for the dig. If anybody knows of one please let me know!
Next up is the Wildboar driveshafts. The manual is really lacking here.
It even shows the driveshafts assembled out of phase! Rich touched on this in the unofficial Capra thread and a revised manual is supposed to be available today.
These driveshafts are standard Axial stuff, but hopefully they are made of different plastic to be more twist resistant this time around. I was hoping for a redesign of the driveshafts. I don't see any need for the sliding center section. This could be built into one of the driveshafts halves, something like Traxxas has. This would prevent that center section from popping out and getting lost on the trails.
Now you might say the center section shouldn't pop out if the driveshafts are the correct length. That may be true, but I don't think we got correct length halves in this kit. I had both the front and rear center, splined section fall out while moving the axles/transmission/links/driveshafts assembly. I didn't have any Axial Wildboar parts at home or I definitely would have made some changes.
Assembled per Rich's markup drawing.
Next up is assembly the axles to the transmission via links and driveshafts, but I don't like this big spider of a thing flopping around on my bench so I save that step for more towards the end.
Next up is the cage. There are a lot of pieces and a lot of screws so either get your electric screwdriver ready or be ready for arm pump. The good news is that it is made from rigid plastics. It has an odd, dusty, matte finish on it.
Once it's assembled, even partially as seen here, it's a very rigid structure. Me like!
Before I could assemble more of the cage I needed to paint which is my absolute least favorite part of building RCs! So let's continue onto my second least favorite...
Time to build shocks. If you ever built old Axial shocks you know you wasted your time because the oil would leak out anyway. Horizon, on the other hand, tends to make really good shocks and with the new design I am hoping for a lot of improvement! They certainly can't be worse.
I knew that I wanted to add internal limiters to the shocks to drop the ride height after seeing other builds. On a rig like this I wanted the lower links to be parallel to the ground. After doing research on here, the Facebook group and asking questions I decided on 5mm internal limiters.
I realized I did not have any fuel tubing at home which I typically use for limiters. So I set off to find plastic spacers. I found this old Axial parts tree with a variety of parts including their plastic hollow balls. Hmm...
It turns out that trimmed hollow plastic balls around about 5.6mm which falls right near the size of the limiter I was searching for. I finally found a use for these junk, plastic balls! And cutting them and making use of them on the new Axial is kinda my slap in the face to the Axial of old.
:lmao: It's not that serious. I just thought it was funny.
There seems to be a new trend of using super thick shock oil and I don't quite understand it on crawlers. Is it their way of trying to gain more stability from the soft suspension? I'm not sure, but it doesn't make sense to me so I'm not trying it yet.
Axial supplies 35 weight silicone shock oil which is always a good start in my opinion so I will be using it for this build.
I really wish Axial would have upgraded to X-rings in the shocks instead of o-rings. X-rings have twice the sealing edges while having less stiction. It's a win-win so hopefully they make this move soon. I thought about using Traxxas X-rings, but instead I stuck with the stock kit o-rings. I want to see how well the Horizon flavor Axial shocks work as designed. I lubed up all of the o-rings with greens lime.
Bleeding emulsion shocks with bleeder caps is easy - so easy that it feels wrong. Emulsion shocks are much easier to bleed than bladder shocks for me. You do lose a lot of oil in the bleeding of these shocks and I often think I'm doing it wrong. But all of these shocks rebound about the same so I'm going to count it as a win.
Had I known the shocks would have been that easy I may not have not have procrastinated.
I do wish they would have designed a recess for and included an o-ring seal for the bleeder screw. I am concerned this will be a leakage spot.
They did include captured spring retainers this time and that's a huge win. No more losing spring retainers in a bad rollover out on the field and having to gangster lean for the rest of the day.
The aluminum shock bodies are also much higher quality than the old Icon shocks. These shocks look good and hopefully they perform and remain mostly leak free.
Thank you!
Why wait for snow, when you'll want to run it before then? LOL
Thank you!
It's a fun build. Fairly easy as well.
I built my shocks with the included 35wt oil too. I didn't do the limiters, but I definitely have like 3 of those plastic ball trees I could use :ror:. For the driveshafts, I kept the front the same but used a longer female end on the rear.
I thought I had a HobbyWing WP 1080 ESC in my personal stock, but I did not. I had to order one which also helped delay the build.
If you're like me you just can't order one thing by itself. So I also picked up the SSD brass wheel weights for the front and also washers to shim the front knuckles.
The washers didn't fit. The knuckles are so tight in the C-hubs that I couldn't even shove these washers in there to space them out. Oh well.
Not much left to do now other than put it all together!
I like the spacers were included for the axles. I've seen this on other models, but I'm not sure if it was previous Axial offerings or some other brand. This little part eliminates a bunch of slop at the end of the axle.
And regular wheel hexes instead of the stupid, stepped "Wraith" things. Yes!
When installing the links and shocks onto the axles I noticed that the provided screws for the uppers links were too short. I believe they are 14mm long and in reality they should have been closer to 16mm. I hope these screws don't pull out during heavy use. I doubt it'll happen though.
I simply could not get the stock servo horn splines onto my Savox 2290. This was also a bastard when I had it in my Rock Rey build. I think the splines on this servo are machined incorrectly or something. So I picked through my servo horn drawer and found a Racer's Edge aluminum servo horn. This went on easily. Racer's Edge isn't known for making the absolute toughest aluminum so I hope this horn holds up.
As I stated earlier, I overtightened the dig hoop which caused a bulge in it. Even after I removed this it was still too tight for the post on the servo. I had to clean it out with a knife so the post would slide freely in this hoop.
This cutout in the interior for the included LED light bar was a little touch, but it is awesome. These little features are what makes an average build a well thought out build. The designer deserves a raise just for this! :ror:
I only had minor issues after this point.
The first is that the holes in the Lexan didn't match the hole locations on the chassis. This happened two or three times, but it's not unusual. It's also nothing a drill or body reamer can't fix in seconds.
The cutout in the fuel cell receiver box wasn't large enough for the ESC, servo, light bar and programming wire. I made it larger by cutting it at an angle with cutting pliers. The fuel cell isn't waterproof so no harm no foul here.
Speaking of waterproof, why the hell isn't it waterpoof?! Very, very odd oversight here.
Now back to the programming wire. The HobbyWing 1080 has a programming port on it. I ran a servo extension from this port to the receiver box. This way I can program the ESC without having to drop the skid plate from the cage. Smart thinking on my part for once! :lmao:
The SSD wheel weights are very nicely finished as always with their parts. SSD claims they do not increase track width, but after pulling out my drop-calibrated calipers I don't agree with this. These are roughly 1mm wider than the stock hubs per side. And the hex recess is no deeper on these optional weights. I don't think a track width increase of 2mm is going to be noteworthy though.
The weights are barely noticeable when installed which is good.
The battery tray is cramped. The height and adjustable depth are fine, but it's too narrow. They could have easily expanded this a little bit and made many more batteries fit. This is probably the most disappointing part of the design and kind of a fail.
My personal quest is to find a good spot for the HobbyWing WP 1080 switch that needs a zip code of its own.
We're getting close! Are you as excited as I am? :mrgreen:
If you're like me you just can't order one thing by itself. So I also picked up the SSD brass wheel weights for the front and also washers to shim the front knuckles.
The washers didn't fit. The knuckles are so tight in the C-hubs that I couldn't even shove these washers in there to space them out. Oh well.
Not much left to do now other than put it all together!
I like the spacers were included for the axles. I've seen this on other models, but I'm not sure if it was previous Axial offerings or some other brand. This little part eliminates a bunch of slop at the end of the axle.
And regular wheel hexes instead of the stupid, stepped "Wraith" things. Yes!
When installing the links and shocks onto the axles I noticed that the provided screws for the uppers links were too short. I believe they are 14mm long and in reality they should have been closer to 16mm. I hope these screws don't pull out during heavy use. I doubt it'll happen though.
I simply could not get the stock servo horn splines onto my Savox 2290. This was also a bastard when I had it in my Rock Rey build. I think the splines on this servo are machined incorrectly or something. So I picked through my servo horn drawer and found a Racer's Edge aluminum servo horn. This went on easily. Racer's Edge isn't known for making the absolute toughest aluminum so I hope this horn holds up.
As I stated earlier, I overtightened the dig hoop which caused a bulge in it. Even after I removed this it was still too tight for the post on the servo. I had to clean it out with a knife so the post would slide freely in this hoop.
This cutout in the interior for the included LED light bar was a little touch, but it is awesome. These little features are what makes an average build a well thought out build. The designer deserves a raise just for this! :ror:
I only had minor issues after this point.
The first is that the holes in the Lexan didn't match the hole locations on the chassis. This happened two or three times, but it's not unusual. It's also nothing a drill or body reamer can't fix in seconds.
The cutout in the fuel cell receiver box wasn't large enough for the ESC, servo, light bar and programming wire. I made it larger by cutting it at an angle with cutting pliers. The fuel cell isn't waterproof so no harm no foul here.
Speaking of waterproof, why the hell isn't it waterpoof?! Very, very odd oversight here.
Now back to the programming wire. The HobbyWing 1080 has a programming port on it. I ran a servo extension from this port to the receiver box. This way I can program the ESC without having to drop the skid plate from the cage. Smart thinking on my part for once! :lmao:
The SSD wheel weights are very nicely finished as always with their parts. SSD claims they do not increase track width, but after pulling out my drop-calibrated calipers I don't agree with this. These are roughly 1mm wider than the stock hubs per side. And the hex recess is no deeper on these optional weights. I don't think a track width increase of 2mm is going to be noteworthy though.
The weights are barely noticeable when installed which is good.
The battery tray is cramped. The height and adjustable depth are fine, but it's too narrow. They could have easily expanded this a little bit and made many more batteries fit. This is probably the most disappointing part of the design and kind of a fail.
My personal quest is to find a good spot for the HobbyWing WP 1080 switch that needs a zip code of its own.
We're getting close! Are you as excited as I am? :mrgreen:
Topher Builds
I wanna be Dave
I didn’t even notice that notch in the interior for the wires, that is very well thought out. Axial/Horizon really did their homework with this project and I’d say they knocked it out of the park.
Have you gotten to drive yours yet Jato?
Haha, I like how each day you inch closer to the inevitable BMow Capra build as the days pass by.
Have you gotten to drive yours yet Jato?
Haha, I like how each day you inch closer to the inevitable BMow Capra build as the days pass by.
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Thank you!
I don't like negativity in my thread. You mean when you get yours! :lmao:
Yeah it's a mostly well thought out design for sure!
Maybe I have... :wink:
Panther6834
I wanna be Dave
My personal quest is to find a good spot for the HobbyWing WP 1080 switch that needs a zip code of its own.
Here's an idea for the ESC power switch:
The 'navigator' has a screen in front of him (probably many as a GPS). You could make a cutout where the 'GPS screen' is, and mount the power switch there, from underneath. It's not working the "scale aspect" of things...but, then again, the Capra isn't intended as a "scale vehicle".
~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place
That may happen if I ever have to tear the rig apart. I'm too lazy to do that without any other reason to take the cage apart. :lmao:
I'm working on a 3D printed solution now.
Panther6834
I wanna be Dave
Alternate idea:
Under the hood, in the vicinity of the battery.
~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place
That's where I have it in the photo...
It also happens to be where I'm planning on putting my 3D printed mount.
Topher Builds
I wanna be Dave
WHITE-TRASH
I wanna be Dave
The drivelines are double female with a male center for strength. The male ends tend to break at the shoulder but running a single male center eliminates that problem.
Bomber, yeti etc all came this way due to high power setups. Traxxas has been doing them that way since the trx4 came out too. ;-)
Rig looks good so far, I'm right there with you on the servo mounts. I don't suspect it'll be long before VP makes them and I'll grab a set. :lol:
Bomber, yeti etc all came this way due to high power setups. Traxxas has been doing them that way since the trx4 came out too. ;-)
Rig looks good so far, I'm right there with you on the servo mounts. I don't suspect it'll be long before VP makes them and I'll grab a set. :lol:
Attachments
My ESC is mounted up front on the back of the battery tray or just under the dash. However you want to say it. No way the switch reaches back there.
I totally forgot the TRX-4 had those. People think I'm kidding when I said I forget what I had for dinner yesterday...
We can buy plastic car ramps that hold 12,000 pounds so I'm sure we can design stronger 2-piece RC driveshafts. LOL
Thanks. Yep, I'll be grabbing aluminum servo mounts as well. They are a must have.
What servo horn are you using for your dig servo?
WHITE-TRASH
I wanna be Dave
I have a zip tie holding it in 4x4 . :lol: I bought a traxxas 2065 and was setting end points when the gears let go. I'm not spending $20 on metal gears for a $22 servo.
I need to finger out what I want to do servo wise, I've driven sporty so much dig hardly comes to mind but I'm sure itd be handy to have.
Edit:
Just noticed something. Use the stock servo arm on the dig servo. The shoulder on the metal splines insert fits the hole on the servo saver spring pocket nicely. Put the arms face to face and use the saver to pilot the hole.
I need to finger out what I want to do servo wise, I've driven sporty so much dig hardly comes to mind but I'm sure itd be handy to have.
Edit:
Just noticed something. Use the stock servo arm on the dig servo. The shoulder on the metal splines insert fits the hole on the servo saver spring pocket nicely. Put the arms face to face and use the saver to pilot the hole.
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Brake Weight
I wanna be Dave
The little janky steering servo from the Yeti Jr fits the slot. I tossed the horn when I swapped servos and now can’t locate one that’ll fit the spline.
