Vanquish Currie Rockjock 70s on GOM

[RockStacker]

Ordered some VP Currie Rockjock 70s for my GOM build.

After assembling the GOM axles I decided they weren't as beefed up as I would like for this project. Instead of throwing money into a turd polish on the GOM axles, I decided to spend it on the Curries.

Has anyone installed these axles on a GOM yet?

I am going to try and finish the build this weekend and see what needs to be done as far as links and shocks mounting.

I have the currie 70 front axle, scale chubs and knuckles, RCV shafts, incision 43/13 gears and spool, and panhard mount. As for the rear, I have the centered rear axle since I didn't see a passenger side rear pig option. Same incision gears and spool for the rear.

I checked the GOM plus steel driveshafts for fitment on the incision pinions and they fit great. As far as I can tell it will just need some work with the links and rod ends.

I ordered the alum lower links and front upper link for the GOM. I have a few sets of different Traxxas rod ends to try out.

Does anyone know any issues or see any problems I have overlooked?

I will update with some pics as I work through it and report back any problems. Thanks im advance for any advise or help.

 

[txbart]

I tinkered with an AR 60 axle in the front, just to see. The AR60 based axles are overall narrower than the GOM axles, with the link mounts in board by their full width. Everything worked as long as all axle parts were AR60 based & the shocks were mounted to the outside of the link mounts instead of in-between them. The panhard & upperlink will need adjusting as well. The rear is obviously the same without the worry of the panhard

 

[tvih]

Damn, those are some sexy axles. If I could justify buying something like that, I'd definitely go for full AR60 parts on the axles, including knuckles, hubs etc. That would ensure compatibility, and the AR60 axle assembly should probably go onto the GOM chassis fairly painlessly at that point.

 

[thewildblue77]

How do they compare width wise to the GOM axles ?

 

[RockStacker]

I tinkered with an AR 60 axle in the front, just to see. The AR60 based axles are overall narrower than the GOM axles, with the link mounts in board by their full width. Everything worked as long as all axle parts were AR60 based & the shocks were mounted to the outside of the link mounts instead of in-between them. The panhard & upperlink will need adjusting as well. The rear is obviously the same without the worry of the panhard

Awesome! Good info. Much appreciated. I finished building the axles this afternoon, they are truly the nicest, strongest, best fitting RC parts I have ever seen.

Hope to finish the rest of the build tomorrow and see how they fit.

Here's pics of the axles built: All VP parts and their RCV front axles are smooth like butter!

 

[tachikoma1373]

I have say those are a thing of beauty but Christ on a bike they must be expensive and

 

[RockStacker]

I have say those are a thing of beauty but Christ on a bike they must be expensive and

They aren't cheap that's for sure!

But honestly after I added up all the money to beef up the Goms with aluminum when the plastic starts to slop out, it's not as bad. Rather spend a little (or a lot) more and actually have something awesome rather than turd polish the Goms. I bought some spools and a few stronger parts for them for my other project to help them out a little.

Looking back at our old crawlers from 10 years ago, we threw hundreds $$$ at the plastic axles and in the end it's still just a polished turd. I just factored it into my build from the beginning and said oh well this time haha.

 

[RockStacker]

How do they compare width wise to the GOM axles ?

They are pretty close. About 1/2" shorter. I am going to change the SLW adapters to adjust back to full GOM width. I have the .475 VP SLW adapters now, gonna get some .725 that should be just right for stock GOM width.

Here's some more axle porn:

Gom stock rear:

Gom stock front:

VP Currie rear:

VP Currie front:

Swamper TSL SX XLs mounted on VP Beadlocks:

 

[RockStacker]

Progress, had to change a few rod ends to lengthen the upper arms to correct the pinion angles. Also had to space the panhard mount off the frame about 8mm until I can get a shorter panhard and drag link. Both seem to be in the 8-10mm range too long. Otherwise pretty easy install on the axles. I'll post more when it's done.

 

[RockStacker]

Success! Installed a shorter 107mm axial tube for the drag link and a vanquish 120mm link for the track bar. Played with different rod ends to make all the geometry happy.

I was able to sneak in the maddog KOH 4" chase lights inside the rear plastic light cover.

Took it for the first test run tonight. Everything worked great. This rig is a blast to drive. It's fun being able to crawl extremely vertical and go fast enough to jump it with the same rig.

Still have some paint work to do and need to finish the winch mount and axle hook for the front axle suck down on my 4th channel. I'll post up when it's all done.

 

[HumboldtEF]

Nice work! and keep us posted on your winch, mounting points are few and far between so if you come up with a good solution let us know.

 

[soze]

Looks great man!

 

[RockStacker]

Nice work! and keep us posted on your winch, mounting points are few and far between so if you come up with a good solution let us know.

Right now I'm leaning towards fabbing a new base plate and using the 2 holes in the bumper and some zip ties on the back side. I don't really want to drill any holes in the plastic tubes.

The axle is going to be the trickier mount for the hook. I found some perfect stainless eyelet 3mm hooks on Amazon. I can't put it on top of the axle because the suspension cycles the frame and steering all the way down to the top of the truss. No perfect way to do it but I'm gonna see what I can dream up tonight. Probably drill a hole in side of truss and tap it.

Looks great man!

Thanks, hopefully some paint on the panels cleans it up. Also have to mount my T800 driver, he kept falling out on our test run yesterday haha.

 

[RockStacker]

I finally had time to fab up a winch plate from some kydex. It bolts to holes in the Gom front bumper and I drilled some 2mm rear holes in the cross member in front of the motor. It should be plenty strong mounting. Tricky party was mounting the roller fairlead under the frame with the bolt heads blocked off from the winch. Took some time but it worked great. Next plan is to drill the axle for a 3mm hook.

 

[RockStacker]

Finally had time to take it on a full rock test. It did awesome. No issues anywhere but my suck down winch failing towards the end of the run. Over an hour on the venom 3s 5000mah lipo and it still was above 11V even with 40mm yeah racing fan running. The Gom did great. After some torque and stress on the driveline the dig takes a little bit of forward or reverse to engage and disengage when the driveline is loaded up. During my build test it was smooth but that was on poor traction surfaces. On the rocks it takes a little bit to get it to move even with a 400oz servo. Not a big deal as it still performed great.

The VP Currie axles were flawless and definitely take a beating with no issues. Savox 2290 steering servo does great even without a BEC. There was a couple of times steering downhill slowly with all 11lbs of rig weight on the front end where it didn't want to flop over against the rock but I won't hold it against it. It's a great servo for this application.

The Gom is a little tall if you have the preload set to hold it up. I also still had my spare tire as an anchor on the back end. But this rig likes to crawl steep obstacles. It was pretty cool to leave it pre-loaded up and suck the front end down on steep climbs to keep it down. I was very impressed for the weight of this fat girl. Once you get a front hook in it will pull itself up anything that isn't just sheer verticle. I need to figure out a better option for a suck down with better brakes so I don't burn it up. Here's a few pics, sorry don't have good video as I was alone.

Time for some paint so I can keep the battle scars.

 

[HumboldtEF]

I bet it does great with all the extra weight down low.

What was your issue with the winch down, just working it too hard or was it creeping? I just recently found I had been running a winch backwards (made it pretty weak)

Did you calculate the gear ratio using the AR60 axles compared to stock? I'm guessing its close enough, just curiuos.

 

[RockStacker]

Not sure yet on the winch failure, it feels like it may be in the gears. I think part of the problem was having to leave the winch engaged in rev since the hold (brake) on the winch wasn't enough to keep it sucked down with winch in nuetral. I bought an RC4WD zeon winch to replace it. The zeon is twice the strength so hopefully it works better. It's a slightly wider winch so may be even tighter fit. I'll post up when I have a chance to get to it.

I'm not sure what the stock gom gearset is but the low range with the Curries is great. I went with the deeper 43/13 gears.

I am really impressed with how well it crawled with the weight of the spare on the back. I'm going to take it off next run and see how much better it does.

I found a 6mm eye bolt to use for a hook mount on the axle. There is a 5mm hole in the center of the truss that I am going to tap out to 6mm. Hopefully it works well.
I'll post up when I get the winch sorted out.

 

[JatoTheRipper]

Beautiful build, but now you are gonna scratch all those pretty, shiny parts!

 

[RockStacker]

Haha yep they are scratched, but that's ok. Same thing happens to all of our full scale toys.

 

[willyg1981]

Hi Rock stacker ,
Great build and quite inspiring I’m very interested in upgrading my own Gom to this same setup but I don’t have the knowledge surrounding the hub/slw??[emoji848]selection and I’m reluctant to part with funds (being in the UK )unless I know it works would you basically tell me what I need to get these axles please
This is my Gom earlier today I snapped a cv pin though ,..I thought initially,..but at closer inspection I think the ball part of cv has snapped off inside the cup allowing the locking pin to move freely

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