A few Questions!!

[Pyrodon]

Hello everyone I got a couple of questions for you

1. Which wheely king should I get the 2wd on or the 4wd?

2. What do I need to start my crawler build with the wheely king and would some one make me a list lol.

[IronRC]

Definitely get the 4wd because it is not as much of a price difference as converting the 2wd to 4wd.
Check out this thread for crawler conversion.
http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63527

[MikeSSS]

Get the 4x4 or you won't do much crawling.

1. Hang the battery under the front of the chassis with velcro (hook and loop) cable ties. Radio Shack has them but they are everywhere. Now the WK can climb many things.

At this point you have a very good trail truck that can do some crawling.

2. Reverse the tires from side to side. This reverses the tread pattern and gives the tires better traction.

3. Get some Poster Putty, the stuff for sticking pictures to the wall. Remove one axle at a time, open the axle, open the differential capsule and stuff in some poster putty and grease if it needs some. This gives you a limited slip differential action. Do this to both axles.

At this point you have an even better trail truck that can crawl better too. Parts to this point are some velcro cable ties and some poster putty.

The next step is more complicated and you will need more parts:

T Maxx axles, they come two to a package so you will need one package. They don't come with yokes but you can use the WK yokes, they will work just fine. You can use the silver cross balls that come with the T Maxx axles (drive shafts on a WK) by drilling out the WK yokes or just use the WK black cross-balls. These T Maxx axles are longer axles that are needed for a lengthened wheelbase.

Longer links: I used a 36 inch long, 6-32 allthread and one package of Traxxas number 1942 ball ends. The ballends have to be drilled out a bit to work with the 6-32 allthread. I made mine 5" long ( center of eye to center of eye) for the four upper links and 5.65" long for the four lower links. It's important that all the uppers be the same length and ditto for the lowers. Besides the four upper and four lower links you also need a steering link to go from the steering servo to the tie rod or steering arm...after you mount the steering servo on the front axle. I used 4-40 all thread for this and it just screws into the number 1942 ball ends with no drilling needed.

TLT Stays: these are hard to find since the TLT isn't made any more. You can buy some aluminum channel of square cross section or U cross section and drill and dremmel it to get something close to a TLT Stay. The Stay mounts to the ball joint on top of the axle and to the screw below the ball joint. You could even bend some flat aluminum or steel to make the stay.

Steering servo mount: I made one from aluminum and one from a plastic pancake flipper. I use the plastic one. It is too flexible but it steers the WK, just not real tight turns and it absorbs the hits that might strip the gears in the stock steering servo. I spaced the steering servo forward with some larger nuts and connected the steering link on the back side of the servo saver so it lined up with the tie rod. The other end of the steering link just screws to the tie rod.

4-40 x 3/4" bolts, you need more than you think. Same for no. 4 washers and 4-40 nuts with nylon inserts. Some 4-40 x 1" and 4-40 x 1 1/4" bolts too. I had some 4-40 x 1 1/2" bolts that got used. Buy too much of this stuff.

4-40 all thread, from LHS. I used it for the replacement cross brace for the chassis end of the lower links. Also used it for the steering link at the front. See my 'simple things' post for pics. (There are many ways to do this conversion, I just copied another WK and went the fast and dirty route.)

After you stretch the chassis you will have a crawler but the motor and esc will get too hot during very low speed climbing.

65T motor (works well with stock gearing): An Integy or other 65T motor will fix that heating problem and still give a 5 mph top speed. The 5 mph wheel speed is important if you need to get a run at a climb or to get some wheel speed when climbing if the tires are slipping. Climbing with spinning wheels is more like scrambling up a rock but it works and sometimes the WK can't do a particular climb without wheel spin.

Wedge the right rear wheel by installing an extra 1/4" pre load spacer for the spring. Don't remove all the spacers from any spring, the springs are not long enough, so when a wheel droops and the spring is not long enough you can loose a spring perch. Gluing spring perches in place is a good idea.

Battery placement note. The stock battery box is just great, very easy and fast to use. I swapped axles front to back so that the battery box was at the 'front' of my WK. The best place for the battery is mounted on top of the top links at the front of the WK. To make this work the best it can you need to reverse the chassis and then remove the stock battery box. Make a pad to sit on top of the front, top links and then sit the battery on top of the pad. Hold it on the links with a few velcro cable ties (easy to find) or releasable zip ties (hard to find). It's bad for the battery to slide forward and hit the steering servo.

Note: if you reverse the chassis you also have to unplug the motor form the esc and reverse the leads so your WK goes forward when you pull the trigger.

OK, it's not a list of materials but it will point you in the right direction. Look at my "simple things" post to see a fast and easy method of doing the conversion.

Good luck and ask all the questions you need to.

Mike S

[phatchantz]

thanks for all of that very good info - I was just looking around and ran into your post..

couldn't be better - I have just picked up the 4wd and was wondering what exactly I should be doing.. now I have a step by step ! !

thanks again !

[Pyrodon]

MikeSSS would you be able to post a link to your truck it would be make it easier for me to see what your talking about.

Thanks Pyro

[Pyrodon]

MikeSSS how did you extend your axle, would i be able to use these to
extend my axles http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXMJG8&P=ML and what do i use again to extend it what rods do i use i see some people use these rods http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXKYC7&P=Z and final Q's is what spur and pinion should i go with!

[FASTFLEE]

the traxxas rods are way pricey,thats the way I went and first run out they look hammered and after thought now I think I would go to the local hardware store and get some all thread that will work just as good alot cheaper.....

[MikeSSS]

MikeSSS how did you extend your axle, would i be able to use these to
extend my axles http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXMJG8&P=ML and what do i use again to extend it what rods do i use i see some people use these rods http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXKYC7&P=Z and final Q's is what spur and pinion should i go with!

Pyrodon,

I used T Maxx drive shafts. The Wheely King Yokes and black cross balls will work with the T Maxx drive shafts, so you can just leave the yokes on the axles and transmission and use them as is. I drilled the holes in the yokes out a bit and used the silver T Maxx cross balls but I didn't need to do that.

Spur gear, I have used the stock 90T and it works fine with the 21T stock pinion, especially with an Integy 65T motor. *** Warning *** the 65T motor is slightly bigger diameter and so it can't rotate far enough to let the stock pinion engage the stock spur gear fully. The motor case hits the tranny housing. The housing needs to be trimmed a bit so the spur and pinion gears can get proper engagement. (Yes, I found out the hard way and now need a spur gear.)

Stock gearing with a 65T motor gives about 4 to 5 mph top speed, that's plenty for my trail walking and it gives enough wheel speed for the WK to "Scramble" when it needs to.

Let us know what you do and how it works.

For top and bottom links I just used 6-32 allthread and Traxxas number 1942 ball ends, one package is all you need.

The 1942's thread on 4-40 without modification. To use them with the larger 6-32 I just drilled the holes out a bit.

The 6-32 allthread is soft and will bend if it takes a big hit. This is a good thing, it prevents the plastic stuff from breaking and the allthread is easily straightened by bending it back, but small bends don't hurt anything.

[SeanD]

I found that if you use the WK cross balls with the T Maxx shaft there is a bit of play because of the slight difference in the required size of holes. I think this slop will cause premature wearing of the yokes. For the the very little amount of work, I think it is best to make the holes in the WK yoke just a bit larger to snugly fit the T Maxx balls. All you need is the right size drill bit (don't know it offhand) and you you can hand drill (twist the bit through the plastic by hand) and you have the perfect fit. Worked great for me.

Sean

[kurt]

is the 4-40 too soft to use for links? I picked up some dubro 4-40 but now i am wondering if its worth my time to cut and make links with,

[ridgewalker]

http://rccrawler.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72395You could reverse mount your motor so you don't have to trim the tranny and can run the smallest pinion you want without any adjustment (gear mesh)problems.