Thinkcooper's first R1

[Thinkcooper]

Just picked up an RTR R1, and about to start messing around with tweaks and mods. Really digging the crawler so far - it's a blast to drive.

In the past I've built up a number of RCE carbon Slash configurations, spent too much money, but sure had some building.

Was dancing between a scale rig like an rc4wd FJ40 or a beginner crawler. Drove an R1 a few months ago and knew I was smitten. Bought this one for my birthday last week.

the R1:

And here are a few shots of some of my other RC surface toys...


My shelf queen GT-8 1/8th Porsche 935:

Here's a tabletop of past RCe stuff that's on the shelves and in the drive box.

 

[Thinkcooper]

Money has been thrown at Holmes Hobbies, RPP and Amain to secure a bunch of shiny aluminum , mechanical and electronic bits for the mods. I'll post a list and photog of the stash once it starts trickling in. Once I discovered that my Airtronics M12 has a dedicated 4 wheel steering mixer with direct switched control over the rears I went all in. Ordered a pair of hitec high torque digital metal servos and all the needed axle/hub parts to do a conversion to 4WS. Stoked is the word...

 

[mikemcE]

Get a set of JConcepts ruptures...... Wow! You will have lots of fun.


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[Thinkcooper]

So now I've got an ammo box full of shiny aluminum upgrade parts from Gmade. All the axle bits, for both a standard rear and 4WS too - planning to build up a second axle without 4WS in addition to the rear wheel steering axle... A pair of hitec 5645MG servos are in hand too.

There's a Holmeshobbies Torque Master Pro 540 27T brushed motor and their Trailmaster BLE Pro ESC along with their RX Bypass adapter and a Castle 10amp BEC, all arriving later today.

Bought this R1 as a RTR, with the Gmade white-labeled Flysky radio and binded 2 channel RX, with their generic ESC and servo - they all work fine but I'm swapping them out for better known components.

Discovered that my Sanwa/Airtronics m12 radio has support for a 4WS profile and my RX is a modern 4 channel FH4T RX-472 so it will accommodate the rear servo.

I'm doing my upgrades in stages, the first being updating the front axle. Just installed the 7 degree front C-hub along with the Gmade heavy duty steering rod. It sure looks cool, but there's a rub. Literally. The rod interferes with the stock plastic differential cover at about 85% of the normal steering range. Bummer.

I have four options:
1. go back to the stock steering rods. Sad face
2. notch the stock plastic differential cover to provide clearance for the rod (if the cover is thick enough...). This solution is cheap and "now" with a dremel.
3. Invest in blingy aluminum differential covers with more clearance for the steering rod (not sure if they do have more clearance; would need to order one up to test). This might satisfy both my mechanical needs and bling needs.
edit#1 = 4. Locate the steering rod below the knuckle arms - looks like it would clear the differential cover just fine and not require any alterations at all...
edit#2 - I moved the steering rod to the underside of the knuckle arms; the steering rod does clear the differential cover now, but the it looks too low, like it would hang up on either side of differential pumpkin - it's ever so slightly lower than the axle housing.

Questions for the gmade illuminati in here:

a. Anyone know if the metal covers offer a lower profile versus the standard cover?
b. Has anyone else worked around this issue with the heavy duty steering rod hitting the differential cover at full steering lock? Yes? How did you solve it?

 

[mikemcE]

I think I used a spacer to move the link, I will check later


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[mikemcE]

Hubs ...

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[mikemcE]

I was worried until I installed the 4ws. I turn pretty well now, after I got rid of the "upgrade"cdv s I shattered 3 of 4 in the same spot , so went back to stock shafts and have no issues.
I'm running a sensored 17.5 tekin with my BLE and love the torque and wheelspeed. Only thing I break are the tiny bearings , replace the stock ones and you will be happy. I assembled everything with red and tacky, no real wear on any gears or axles.... just the crappy bearings.


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[TheLetterJ]

Maybe I'm saying the same thing as Mike, but what about keeping the tierod above the knuckle/steering arm, and using a small spacer in between the knuckle and rod end? You could probably run 4mm or so of spacer and still use your current hardware and that might be enough to get above the thicker part of the diff cover. You could also try putting a small bend in the center (or 2 smaller bends closer to the ends) of your tierod to get it further away too. The change in toe-in would be minimal, but you could unscrew the rod ends 1 turn to make up the difference.

 

[Thinkcooper]

I was worried until I installed the 4ws. I turn pretty well now, after I got rid of the "upgrade"cdv s I shattered 3 of 4 in the same spot , so went back to stock shafts and have no issues.
I'm running a sensored 17.5 tekin with my BLE and love the torque and wheelspeed. Only thing I break are the tiny bearings , replace the stock ones and you will be happy. I assembled everything with red and tacky, no real wear on any gears or axles.... just the crappy bearings.


Hang up and Drive

Thanks for taking and posting the pics. Seems like the 7 degree hub is not a good pairing with the heavy duty steering rods in the stock location, without mods to/replacing of the differntial cover. Or spacers to shift the rod.

After pouring through the forum posts, it seems to be a common experience that the Gmade CVAs don't hold up. I bought a set just cuz, but will skip putting them into service and stick with the stock stub axles. As I'm encountering bearings, I've been swapping the originals out for Fast Eddy's. Will stockpile some spares for repairs.

What's red and tacky? A bearing lube?

 

[Thinkcooper]

Maybe I'm saying the same thing as Mike, but what about keeping the tierod above the knuckle/steering arm, and using a small spacer in between the knuckle and rod end? You could probably run 4mm or so of spacer and still use your current hardware and that might be enough to get above the thicker part of the diff cover. You could also try putting a small bend in the center (or 2 smaller bends closer to the ends) of your tierod to get it further away too. The change in toe-in would be minimal, but you could unscrew the rod ends 1 turn to make up the difference.

Good creative options there^^^ "thumbsup"

I'll test with the spacers and see if it works. I like the idea of modifying the rod with bends too. Might try looking into what options there are for turnbuckle TI rods as well. I used TI rods in my GT8 porsche project in my OP, and they were sweet. The turnbuckles are slimmer in diameter than the HD rods, and have left hand thread on one end, right hand thread on the other, which let you adjust the tie rod length to dial toe-in and drag link length to fine-tune throw on the servo horn, without having to disassemble anything

 

[mikemcE]

After pouring through the forum posts, it seems to be a common experience that the Gmade CVAs don't hold up. I bought a set just cuz, but will skip putting them into service and stick with the stock stub axles. As I'm encountering bearings, I've been swapping the originals out for Fast Eddy's. Will stockpile some spares for repairs.



What's red and tacky? A bearing lube?

I blew the same part CVA on the HD driveshafts, back to stock there.
Red and tacky is a gear lube by Lucas Oil.

I got a full set of Eddies bearings.

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[Thinkcooper]

Ah - Lucas! Heard solid endorsements of their oils/lubes. Will have to try it out. My local hot-rod friendly auto parts store sells their stuff. Glad to hear that Fast Eddy's bearings are still a reliable choice.

Being an old school road and mountain cyclist, my go-to lubes tend to be stuff I've worked with forever - Phil's bearing grease. Another throw back thingie? Gotta love the original (weirdly discontinued = now selling on eBay for $75!?!?!?!) IRWIN 4" bent nose locking pliers for holding 4mm nuts in place behind body panels and hard to reach spots on the R1 - there are no shortage of spots like that for big hands. Also been blue loctiting all metal/metal interfaces.

Also, is it just me, or do these fancy bits from Holmes Hobbies look really sweet?


Untitled
by thinkcooper, on Flickr

 

[Thinkcooper]

Still running the steering tie rod in the too-low position. Waiting on some spacers. In the meantime, got the front axle installed, with the 7 degree aluminum C-hubs and the stock (shorter) upper links in the front most link mount. I'm also running the clearance kit. I have a set of the 103mm gmade reservoir shocks to build up, still in the packaging.

The C-hub is designed for more lift than what I'm running. Tuning still needed.

It seems like another forward mount hole would be useful for rotating the axle and steering rods upward. That would help adjust the caster angle.

 

[mikemcE]

Still r

It seems like another forward mount hole would be useful for rotating the axle and steering rods upward. That would help adjust the caster angle.

Noticed in this picture how your servo is mounted, try mounting behind the posts not in front

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[Thinkcooper]

Was able to squeeze in a little time to install all the rear wheel steering mechanical components and servos. Next up? Program a Gmade R1 4WS model in my M12 to test the install.

Tested mounting the servo on the backside of the posts but wasn't happy with the tight access to the inner most servo mount screws from underneath the frame/inside the links. Prefer front access. I can see though how a backside post mount would provide more front clearance for the servo horn.

Also tested spacers at the steering tie rod to clear the differential cover, but no luck with the spacers - the tie rod ended up bumping into the link rod. Finally just took a grinder to the stock diff cover and shaped in the clearance I needed. Success.

 

[mikemcE]

By disconnecting the two upper links at the axle you can rotate things for easy access.... both ends


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[Thinkcooper]

Gotta love this Airtronics M12. The 4WS Mixer is the bomb. It took about fifteen minutes of programming time to get 4WS dialed in, literally controlled with a dial for all four options. The four 4WS Options are:
1. Normal - rear wheels counter steer to the fronts
2. Reverse - crab steer
3. Fronts only
4. Rears only

The radio displays the mode change in an overlay as shown below. The change can be made while driving, sitting, steering, whenever.

Other steps required:
- Naming the model (Gmade 4WS R1)
- Setting the car type (Type VIII = Crawler; with Front Steering on Channel 1, Speed on Channel 2, Rear Steering on Channel 3)
- Selecting Digital SHR for both servos
- Setting the rotation direction on both servos (Hitec servos run clockwise so needed to set Front = reverse, Rear = normal)
- Set center point sub-trim values on each servo to dial in dead center (used a precise little square gauge to get them spot on)
- Set End Point Adjustments for L/R travel for both servos
- Assigning which dial, lever or switch to control the 4WS mixer (I chose the Auxiliary Dial and assigned a value of "1" so each soft click of the switch toggles through the four 4WS modes listed above)

Bottomline? I took a little digging through the Airtronics M12 manual to get all the steps input, but it's pretty damn amazing to have such a simple interface to toggle between 4WS modes.

Next up? Install the Holmes Hobbies ESC an Motor, along with the Castle Creations 10amp BEC and the bypass harness to deal with the servo pair's current draw.

Seeing up the Aux Dial to control 4WS

Interactively testing the steering mode travel variations

The four 4WS modes

 

[mikemcE]

Excellent !!
Been thinking about a new tx..... but with both a MOA and 4WS on different trucks, this might work well


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[Thinkcooper]

By disconnecting the two upper links at the axle you can rotate things for easy access.... both ends


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I found that the long screw connecting the upper links when using the mount's forward most position (best position for the 7 degree C-hub) isn't removable to the left after installing the front axle battery mount plate, and from the right, without removing the servo. That complication made mounting the servo on the rear of the servo mounting posts extremely challenging. I could shorten a 2mm allen key to fit in, but it's kinda too tight for my large hands. Sticking with a front mounted servo seems most accessible.

If I need clearance, I may move to the steering link rod to behind the servo arm. So far, it seems okay though.

 

[Thinkcooper]

Excellent !!
Been thinking about a new tx..... but with both a MOA and 4WS on different trucks, this might work well


Hang up and Drive

There's Crawler mixer set-up with MOA specific controls in the M12. Don't know much about setting up an MOA, but it "looks" like one can assign options to a an auxiliary switch and still retain 4WS, or not. Crazy.

I use my M12 TX to control five cars now; so I just switch model names in the display to select the car I want, then turn on the selected car, and boom, ready to drive.

You'd need to pick-up Sanwa RXs though. Unless other RXs are compatible.