Madkoifish
Quarry Creeper
Well I went down to Auburn (Cali not Wa)with my old Ti-TLT crawler, promptly snapped off my C's and the servo mounts tore out etc, the old TLT axles just have gotten brittle over the years. So without a crawler I met up with a bunch of guys running AX-10s. I had planned to replace the TLT axles at some point with some other brand. I was excited over the Losi rig. But with advice from LHC and other crawlers, I was lead back to the good ol AX-10. Seeing a creeper at the LHS was tempting but the drop in price to 180$ had me wondering what support or reliability there was for it. I got a Orange one since they had no kits in stock.
Right now I have been fooling mostly with set up. I bought arms lower links and a few other items. Only things I have fabbed up are 4 link plates out of leftover Boeing "titanium alloy" I think it is a ti nickle blend, it really rings when it hits concrete and doesn't heat up like ti alum alloys, it is very stiff though and slightly springy. (w/e it works and is stiffer than 6061 from ace)
Im starting this thread to get some feed back and opinions, In the auburn area aired tyres were the hot thing. As well as HEAVY crawlers. I think most of the rigs were in the 8lb range. I know the experience was very different than Here in Seattle so, many of the things I have on my rig will have to change. But I might be returning to Auburn to live. So who knows. I did experience how different crawling was in different areas from Seattle to Oregon, Tahoe, Auburn, Sacramento and San Jose.
Upgrade paths:
Chassis:
I might run a dig, I would like a comp rig, but I am not sure if I would pursue anything outside just bashing. I guess the type would depend on the chassis direction I go.
Ok now that I have written a wall of text on upgrades here is the crawler.
Aired Rovers with lead inside and proline (?) 2 stage foams. The links are in backwards since most of the rigs were like this in Auburn. Not seeing any of it here on the site so, I am unsure if there is a benefit to it. There was less axle crawl and axle damage. The silly springs are mostly to avoid a huge stack of spacers to retain the main springs and not any attempt at "progressive rate". I also lengthened the servo link after seeing the article here. (seems to help the servo)
I have since added custom 4 link plates relocated the upper link holes and modded the lower skid to inboard the lower links. I need to order some longer axial links to clean the links up (less pile of spacers all over)
I am currently looking at lowering it some say to 2.6" or so I might return to the 3 link uppers on the front.
Oh and a set of dollar tree book lights (thanks Dave) For night crawling. I also have a set of key chain leds with lockable switches from Rebies (basically a NAPA) They come in red blue green and white. I was introduced to night crawling in Auburn since there was some nice trails near the house. Prior to this I never thought about doing such a thing. Quite fun Especially if your running a trail you have never seen during the day time. I really enjoyed this as well as the run near the American river. Water and Crawling is always fun.
Auburn set up, and horrible bounced light from the street. Mess of decals that mean nothing now. :O
Side view showing the patch work to cover a million mounting holes in a 4yr+ body. (I need a new body)
Night crawling!
Top view showing the electronics layout
rear end showing the aft 4 link plate. Made this mostly for something to do VS buying a part.
Shows front blocks. Venom, I know I should have used stock and mail ordered better knuckles 3weeks later when I got back to Seattle. 14$ brain fart.
Bottom showing skid mods. I later cut more off the narrow the links more. (motor gets in the way so I have to resource delrin or buy a plate later. Depends on what chassis I finally decide on)
Ride height. A bit tall I suppose.
side view. Shows the reversed links. They are bent in towards the Drive shafts for side clearance. I have since reversed the rear links for clearance.
Just under 12.5" should be 12.5 once I lower it some with my old bigbores or spacers.
Front servo plate (kinda ugly and only 3 link choices will be replaced when I do batt on axle.)
Scary artic, I need to work on this. Everything I have tried stiffens it too much or reduces the on the rocks movement so I end up with a wheel in the air or a flipped rig.
back of the pack, camera + radio makes for a slow driver.
Here are some images of the old chassis and axles, it is in the stages of being shortened from the old 12.5" to a more 1/10 scale wb so , links shocks etc were not what I had when I was running this. I planned to convert this into a scaler, either just junking it all except the axles and tranny, but with these tlt parts breaking left and right and the costs to beef them up is costly and requiring a lot of mods I might just junk it all and keep the losi tranny and get some axles from a sc10 or some other brand vs replacing the cases. But this is the AX10 board so I will take her to a appropriate board on the site when I get to that build. I expect this one to be more enjoyable since most of it will be custom work. even with all those pre-made blister pack accessories that they have now.
Nasty electronics.
Rear plate and a grand bodge job on the broke parts.
doubt this will work for a scaler. Shows extensions for rear shocks (don't have anything the right length) And it shows the rear tranny brace. Losi tranny lack any real hard mounts.
Uglier bodge job, but worked better.
Right now I have been fooling mostly with set up. I bought arms lower links and a few other items. Only things I have fabbed up are 4 link plates out of leftover Boeing "titanium alloy" I think it is a ti nickle blend, it really rings when it hits concrete and doesn't heat up like ti alum alloys, it is very stiff though and slightly springy. (w/e it works and is stiffer than 6061 from ace)
Im starting this thread to get some feed back and opinions, In the auburn area aired tyres were the hot thing. As well as HEAVY crawlers. I think most of the rigs were in the 8lb range. I know the experience was very different than Here in Seattle so, many of the things I have on my rig will have to change. But I might be returning to Auburn to live. So who knows. I did experience how different crawling was in different areas from Seattle to Oregon, Tahoe, Auburn, Sacramento and San Jose.
Upgrade paths:
Chassis:
Plans are to dump the stock chassis. Either it be a tuber or TVP or a hybrid. I am not sure yet. The thing I do want is something NARROW. I really like the chassis in this post. I also need to find out what body that is, the Parma bug I have now has kinks to replicate the real cars seam lines, which are right where tall overhanging rocks rub so it self cuts the side panels off the body. My old Ti was fairly narrow and I liked how it cleared things and felt over the wider stock AX10. I really like the tuber look but Im seeing that they seem to be aimed less at comp then TVP chassis. I need to replace the Axel C's and alum rear caps (to rid the slop that's been building up over time. Things have changed in crawling so much over the last 4 years, you could so easily just off the shelf an entire rig without any fab or shop time. not sure how I feel about it but it was nice to keep going after my old rig exploded on me.
I plan to get a goat system soon, since my old 55 seems to be acting up and the old LRP esc seems to have lost some BEC resulting in an erratic servo etc. (I hope it isn't the RX TX) I do worry about the Goats can length, and any possible narrow chassis plans. Since all of my electronics are OLD, even the new stuff is OLD and this is a issue. So a lot of upgrades are having to back seat to electronics buys. The old FM Futaba seems to dislike sites with bridges around, annoying trims etc. Hoping to afford the 300$ for a DX3 (s or r) Have to research what the differences are since there is a fairly large cost diff. I also am looking at li-pos of some sort to get the batt on the front axle. The cost of the lipos seem cheaper than getting new ni-mh cels to build saddles or a stack.(most of my batts are crapped up) I just need to know what balancer I need for my 989. Last electronic buy would probably be replacing my hitec 5645mg, but this depends on if the sluggish response is just the servo or my BEC. It is slow and just has no beef to steer while parked.
I might run a dig, I would like a comp rig, but I am not sure if I would pursue anything outside just bashing. I guess the type would depend on the chassis direction I go.
Ok now that I have written a wall of text on upgrades here is the crawler.
Aired Rovers with lead inside and proline (?) 2 stage foams. The links are in backwards since most of the rigs were like this in Auburn. Not seeing any of it here on the site so, I am unsure if there is a benefit to it. There was less axle crawl and axle damage. The silly springs are mostly to avoid a huge stack of spacers to retain the main springs and not any attempt at "progressive rate". I also lengthened the servo link after seeing the article here. (seems to help the servo)
I have since added custom 4 link plates relocated the upper link holes and modded the lower skid to inboard the lower links. I need to order some longer axial links to clean the links up (less pile of spacers all over)
I am currently looking at lowering it some say to 2.6" or so I might return to the 3 link uppers on the front.
Oh and a set of dollar tree book lights (thanks Dave) For night crawling. I also have a set of key chain leds with lockable switches from Rebies (basically a NAPA) They come in red blue green and white. I was introduced to night crawling in Auburn since there was some nice trails near the house. Prior to this I never thought about doing such a thing. Quite fun Especially if your running a trail you have never seen during the day time. I really enjoyed this as well as the run near the American river. Water and Crawling is always fun.
Auburn set up, and horrible bounced light from the street. Mess of decals that mean nothing now. :O
Side view showing the patch work to cover a million mounting holes in a 4yr+ body. (I need a new body)
Night crawling!
Top view showing the electronics layout
rear end showing the aft 4 link plate. Made this mostly for something to do VS buying a part.
Shows front blocks. Venom, I know I should have used stock and mail ordered better knuckles 3weeks later when I got back to Seattle. 14$ brain fart.
Bottom showing skid mods. I later cut more off the narrow the links more. (motor gets in the way so I have to resource delrin or buy a plate later. Depends on what chassis I finally decide on)
Ride height. A bit tall I suppose.
side view. Shows the reversed links. They are bent in towards the Drive shafts for side clearance. I have since reversed the rear links for clearance.
Just under 12.5" should be 12.5 once I lower it some with my old bigbores or spacers.
Front servo plate (kinda ugly and only 3 link choices will be replaced when I do batt on axle.)
Scary artic, I need to work on this. Everything I have tried stiffens it too much or reduces the on the rocks movement so I end up with a wheel in the air or a flipped rig.
back of the pack, camera + radio makes for a slow driver.
Here are some images of the old chassis and axles, it is in the stages of being shortened from the old 12.5" to a more 1/10 scale wb so , links shocks etc were not what I had when I was running this. I planned to convert this into a scaler, either just junking it all except the axles and tranny, but with these tlt parts breaking left and right and the costs to beef them up is costly and requiring a lot of mods I might just junk it all and keep the losi tranny and get some axles from a sc10 or some other brand vs replacing the cases. But this is the AX10 board so I will take her to a appropriate board on the site when I get to that build. I expect this one to be more enjoyable since most of it will be custom work. even with all those pre-made blister pack accessories that they have now.
Nasty electronics.
Rear plate and a grand bodge job on the broke parts.
doubt this will work for a scaler. Shows extensions for rear shocks (don't have anything the right length) And it shows the rear tranny brace. Losi tranny lack any real hard mounts.
Uglier bodge job, but worked better.
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