Resurrecting a 25 year old RC10 GT

[high plains drifter]

ahh. Aluminum A-Arms, and plastic steering bellcranks. Those were the days!
Can't wait to see the results.

@Fallen or @Fricker08 or somebody was mentioning in another thread about aluminum arms transferring load/ stress ( a crash) to the chassis or other components and although I've never had an issue, it did put me in mind of maybe running the factory plastic arms. I'm not really sure but one thing that I don't like with the plastic arms ( factory or even RPM) is that if you have a hinge pin that's just ever so slightly bent or if the holes are dirty it really causes binding and hinders free movement. The aluminum arms utilize plastic bushings and I do use graphite on all hinged parts but still... even with the shock-springs pushing down, I've had issues with plastic arms in the past getting hung up or not fully/ freely traveling.

One thing that I'm constantly keeping in mind is parts availability throughout every aspect of this project. I need to make one last ebay sweep because even though I have just about every part x2 or x3, there are still a few things that I want because once they're gone... they're gone for good. Not too many people left that are finding RC10GT's in their attics or basements and parting them out for ebay listings.

Thanks for taking a look... much appreciated.

 

[diezel666]

Yup, I've bent plenty of hinge pins and kept 4x in stock as spares at all times due to it.

 

[Fallen]

I don't think I've ever had an aluminum A-arm damage a chassis. But that may be because I stopped using them due to the logic behind it.

If you're driving slowly enough that the crash wouldn't generate much force then they wouldn't hurt anything. They'd be a performance upgrade too.

But if you plan on going fast enough to break an A-arm during a crash, using plastic will probably save your chassis if you care about that.

 

[diezel666]

But if you plan on going fast enough to break an A-arm during a crash, using plastic will probably save your chassis if you care about that.

From experience: The aluminum arms, generally meant less bent pins, but upped the chance that if you used the ultra light aluminum screws from Team Associated, you usually sheered them off. Hope you brought a dremel and didn't use loctite on the bulkhead screws.

 

[high plains drifter]

Since this project is one more of nostalgia, the plan is to go easy on the throttle... although we all know how that goes lol.

I've upgraded the four 8-32 aluminum FH bulkhead screws to stainless and I've upgraded the front bumper to a thicker RPM bumper that started life as a T-Maxx skid-plate ( 4.26 mm). I was never crazy about the several RC10GT bumper variants as they were really thin and didn't offer much front-end protection. I'll crash into something eventually but hopefully the improvements that I've made will minimize the potential for catastrophic damage. Will just have to see how it goes.

 

[Fallen]

From experience: The aluminum arms, generally meant less bent pins, but upped the chance that if you used the ultra light aluminum screws from Team Associated, you usually sheered them off. Hope you brought a dremel and didn't use loctite on the bulkhead screws.

Yeah, the aluminum supports other parts much better than plastic. It'll prevent driveshafts, shock shafts and hinge pins from bending where the flex of plastic allows for those items to get bent out of shape.

With an aluminum chassis and conservative driving, the aluminum A-arms make more sense.

On my bashers I prefer a "hard in the middle, soft on the outside" build that protects my chassis by having it surrounded by plastic cushions which are cheap and easy to replace.

 

[high plains drifter]

@Fallen I sincerely appreciate your insight here. Even though I've built three RC10GT's, it was long ago and doesn't mean that I was necessarily taking the best approach in various aspects of the builds. Thanks again for your expertise and experience.

And I'm limited on hinge pins... There are some still out there but most or all are used ( likely tweaked a bit) and as with everything else RC10GT out there... expensive.

My hopefully last ebay search I'm going to try to grab a diff-thrust assembly ( new), another transmission case ( new), and chassis ( used but looks straight). That should hold me. If I could find an RC10GT sticker sheet that would be nice but so far no dice and it's not really a necessity. The vintage sticker sheets that I have seen are crazy expensive as well and they're not what I'd want. Would probably be cheaper to see if someone could just print some of the old-school logos.