Another GC3A, Oh Yeah

[cagedcbr]

And this thing has lived upto the hype, compared to my hopped up AX10 this thing just walks over anything my AX10 had a struggle with. Here is a list of parts so far to get this beast up and running.

Gatekeeper GC3A chassis
Axial axles (of course)
Felsenfest spools
Gunnar beef tubes
MIP CVD's
3Racing driveshafts
HR c's
VP knuckles
Axial lockouts
Integy 55t
Tekin FXR (R.I.P.)
Proline Chisels
3Racing shocks w/internal droop springs outside







All ready to roll with the body off of my AX10 tweaked a bit for a lower stance and more clearance.

[cagedcbr]

Reason I typed R.I.P. to my FXR is because it caught fire one night after getting the truck back together. Not sure exactly what happened but I had soldered all new wires on it for the GC3A, not sure if that caused it to revert back to factory settings and it wasn't set for the 3s lipo or I also found the capacitor a couple feet away from the truck. I don't know if the capacitor fell off due to faulty soldering or it melted off in the fire. Anyway here's a few carnage pics.





And the biggest damage.

[gatecreeper]

sick build man

[KC_JoNeS]

Wow...that sucks man! Perhaps you should have invested in a scale Fire Extinguisher from Team3Six.












I'm just playin'. Cool build. Get her back together.

Casey

[cagedcbr]

Thanks guys, I have an FXR on loan for the weekend so I can get some time on a local crawling course. I've got 2 traxxas big bores and waiting on the other 2 but I will see how it does with the way I'm set-up now. The shocks were a little to quick before so I've gone with 40/40 weight up front and 45/50 in the rear, seemed to work pretty good before the tekin burned up.

[TrailDawg362]

Nice build I'm surprised we don't see more of them, the chassis just flat out kicks ass! Mine took me from near the bottom of the finish order to mostly top three since I switched. It's been mentioned many times before, but the Axial OD/UD gears really are a killer combo worth considering.

[cagedcbr]

I have had a few people recommend the OD/UD combo. I think in the near future I will be going that route, although I'm not looking forward to readjusting the felsenfest spools they gave me a headache and a half trying to get everything super smooth. Future upgrades will include: OD/UD gears, install big bores with mini-t springs, VP pro comps, and some robinson tranny upgrades if I can't get a r2d in the chassis ect.............. does it ever end

[Highlucks]

Add some junfac shafts to that list too. 3S will make mince meat of those intergy shafts in no time.

Cool build so far

[cagedcbr]

Yes I am contemplating what shafts to go with. I haven`t had a problem with these shafts yet (3Racing not Integy, although I find alot of their parts identical). I have drilled out where all the set screws seat slightly so they don`t slip out of place, since doing that they have been good. No doubt would like to replace them though I was thinking of going with RC4WD Punisher`s.

[KC_JoNeS]

I ran the 3Racing driveshafts for awhile, and now run them on my scaler. I have had zero issues with them so far.

Casey

[DioptricStraw]

Make sure its running for saturday so i can crawl all over it


Definitly go with the junfac shafts. You can see mine on saturday.

Have you thought about a dig unit yet?

[cagedcbr]

Your not suppose to go after another shafty, we're suppose to impose an attack on those XR10's LOL. I am waiting for the store to fully open and I will probably hit them up for a VP dig. It will be up and running saturday though for sure.

[cagedcbr]

Can anyone give me any info on the BTA steering set I've seen a few times in some builds, can't remember which builds though.

[DioptricStraw]

Get a kc jones bta tie rod and use that. In fact i think i have one that i havent had a chance to instal yet if you want it

[cagedcbr]

I wouldn't mind checking it out but I think that peice only works with zero ackerman knuckles? I have the VP high clearance knuckles.

[cagedcbr]

OK got some updates of some stuff I've been working on with this rig, I went ahead and clocked my axles a bit to get the front and rear driveshafts up and out of the way a bit. To do this I needed to get the castor back that is provided if you build the GC3A out of the box, so I did what Sourdough did with his front axle and got about 20 degrees of castor and it has been working like a charm. Some of my pics won't upload on the bucket but here are a few since my last installment.

Beef tubes drilled, before being tapped.



First outing, snapped a CVD pin and didn't realize. I ended up driving the truck home from the park and carved a good amount of aluminum out of my C's.


Got my new spring steel pins cut and held in place with some shrink tubing, but they were to big to fit in my C's now. HMMMM.



So I hogged out my C's a little (which took care of my earlier damage anyways), and VOILA! my CVD's fit perfect and I have the added security of the pins staying put a little better. Oh yeah forgot to mention also before I did this I had a problem with the pins wanting to pop out on one side.



Good shot of my castor.




I also finally got my Losi gold springs in and have been running them all around and hey work magnificantly, I'm still waiting on my VP zero ackerman knuckles, O/D, U/D gears and VP dig.

Oh, one final shot of my shaft clearance now too.

[cagedcbr]

Just picked up some white dot Rovers today to try them out against my Chisels, and looks like I'll be heading back to the LHS tomorrow or Saturday to pick up my O/D, U/D gears. I'm not really looking forward to changing the gears out but we just got smacked with a crapload of snow. So after testing out my Rovers this weekend I will most likely be rebuilding the axles on Sunday.

[cagedcbr]

So I haven't had a chance to test out these Rovers (thank you snow) but I'm not very happy with the Rover foams. I like the sidewall firmness over the Proline memory foams but don't like the fact the Rover foams leave a void in the tread area. I'm maybe going to try the Proline foams in the Rovers. Otherwise what would everyone recommend? From what I've been reading it would seem Crawler Innovations Double Duece foams.

[Dasher]

I run the stock Rover foams, but I also run the stock wheels and o I've got three layers of weights in the fronts - This solves the void issue - unintentionally! I hadn't noticed the void until I read this - the rears only have one layer of weight and they definitely have a void in the tread area.

Very neat chassis build. Are your 3Racing Shocks the 5" ones or have you managed to find some shorter ones? I have a set of 5" and really like them but they're just too long for the Frogger - they're built semi droop which in effect limits them, but not by much -114mm centre to centre. I found them fast too and also changed to 40wt oil - they're still on the stock (ish) rig.

Nice work on the axles too!

[cagedcbr]

Yeah the shocks are the 5 inch version, I've limited them down to 4 inches and also replaced the O-rings in them to stop them from leaking so badly. I'm currently running them with 40wt and Losi gold springs.