sabo's Bomber

[sabo308]

Originally Posted by SCREAMER

You don't have to grind anything to fit VVDs. I've ran 3 sets and didn't have to mod a thing to install them.

Good to know, thanks!

Just a bit of an update.
I tore apart the RC OMG servo the other day to inspect the gears. All in all they seemed relatively OK. No major strippage of the gears like what happened to the SHV500, however it looks like the teeth have lost an ever so slight amount of material, which would explain the very slight constant back and forth jittering of the servo, as if it can't properly centre itself.
Ultimately, the servo is definitely still usable, as the jittering stops whenever there is load applied to the steering. I will keep running it and see how it goes, as from the very brief test in my backyard today, the servo seems to function perfectly normally. I expect my replacement SHV500 to arrive some time this week, so it will be handy to have that just in case the RC OMG gives up the ghost.
In other news, the Beef Tubes and VP wheel hexes/.475 SLW hubs arrived today.
The Beef Tubes went in relatively easily, with no major hassles. I did, however, have to file down my front C-hub screws by about 1mm, as they were poking through the tubes and fouling on the universal shafts.
The rear tubes went in after filing down the retaining lip at the locker end of the axle shaft, as advertised.
After I installed everything I gave the Bomber a quick punt around the backyard and everything seems to be operating as it should.
I immediately noticed the added rigidity of the Beef Tubes and the extra security that the VP hexes and SLW hubs have added to the wheel mounting assembly.
These things combined add up to a much more predictably steering, straighter tracking, and extra stable Bomber, which is never a bad thing!
I'm super excited to be getting out tomorrow to see just how it tackles some more challenging terrain, so expect an update and trip report after that one!

[sabo308]

So, the replacement SHV500 rocked up and was installed, but things have been a bit busy over the past week or so, and the weather has just been way too hot to get out much with the Bomber.
Today was a nice cool change though, so I took the Bomber out to the local spot.
I got a really good half a battery pack in before the steering locked itself to the left and wouldn't budge.

I got home, disconnected the servo horn and drag link from the SHV500 and wouldn't you know it, everything moved freely again... great.
Soooo, apart came the servo casing...



Yep, another bent centre pin.
This time there was no cartwheeling down a hill or slamming into a rock face at speed, just normal use.
Now, I know two points make a line and not a pattern, but I'm not going to chance it by going with another SHV500.
Which REALLY sucks, because I love HH products and their service. I really wanna love this servo as well, but it's not worth going through the hassle of having to send this away and wait for yet another replacement to arrive that may or may not fail on its first outing. Not having to run a BEC is wonderful, but at the end of the day I'd rather be running one and have a servo that is going to hold up.
I had great success with my Savox 1231SG in my old SCX10 back in the day, so I've gone that route again and ordered up an SB-2273SG and an SA-1283SG from RCMart.
These should arrive in the next few days, so hopefully that should be the end of my servo woes!

[JatoTheRipper]

That's a bummer. That shaft has to be soft, Chinese metal. It looks like it needs to be hardened.

[sabo308]

Well, mark this date, people.
For, today is the day that I DIDN'T BREAK ANYTHING!
Yes, two full packs and no carnage whatsoever!

I went down to the local spot today, and the lake has gone down quite a bit since last time. This meant that there were a whole bunch of new rocks to play on that weren't there before.
Apparently this also meant dead wombats washing up onto the shore...



Super weird... but anyway.

It was a good opportunity to see how the Bomber handled more typical crawling terrain, as previously it had mainly seen U4/hill-climbing terrain and general bashing.
The Bomber tackled it really well, and today hit home just how versatile a vehicle the Bomber really is. The new Savox 1283SG handled everything no problem. I got into some pretty tight binds (slipper was working overtime) and took some pretty nasty tumbles, but it took it all in its stride and made it out the other side without a hitch. The previous two servos that I've had would have packed it in at the first of the big impacts and binds that occurred today, so good signs all-round in the servo department.

I also fitted a set of Gear Head CAC EZ Loc Delrin/Aluminium wheels that I acquired from the Classifieds. These wheels are MUCH easier to mount the Swampers on than the SSD Rock Racers. The beads seated beautifully from the get-go and have held just as well with no issues, I will definitely be buying more Gear Head wheels in future!

The Bomber is now getting closer and closer to the rig that I want it to be.
I've spent A LOT of wrench time on it, way more than I have had running it, but to see each time the improvements that are being made is really inspiring and I'm enjoying it a lot.
Still a few things to do here and there, I think steel links and some SSD trailing arms are on the cards next, also some lighting so that I can get amongst some night sessions.

Anyhoo, onto the crappy phone pics! (Forgot the camera)

[sabo308]

Alrighty!
It has been a while between updates and a few things have changed on the Bomber.
I've found myself crawling a lot more with the Bomber lately, as opposed to hill-climb/bashing as I used to do. As such, I've made a few changes in order to increase crawling performance.
The first cab off the rank was removing the spare wheel and the rear swaybar.
I was always between having the spare mounted and unmounted, and ditching it is a no-brainer for better crawling performance.
I whipped up a rear panel out of some sheet aluminium to fill the void left by the spare wheel mount.



I ordered a Vanquish Stage One kit from RCMart, as they had them for an awesome price ($105 AUD) just before Xmas that was too good to pass up.
Great bit of kit, the front end especially is much more solid than before and I gained a bit more steering to boot.

Next was getting rid of the trailing arms and replacing them with a solid link setup. I fabbed up some links out of solid aluminium rod and shortened the wheelbase in the process, it now sits right at 350mm.



With the bottom of the rear shocks mounted to the axle as opposed to the trailing arms, the top shock mounts were now set further in than the bottom, so I mounted the top of the shocks outboard of the captured mounts to bring the top and bottom mounts in line with each other and on the same plane. I then made up some spacers from some left over aluminium rod and placed them inside the mounts for some extra rigidity and support.



Finally, I wanted to lower the overall height of the Bomber and even out the ride height a bit.
The stock front springs are a bit too soft IMO, and with pretty much all the weight on the front half of the chassis due to the spare having been removed, this only exacerbated the problem. So, I swapped the front and rear springs.
This evened things out A LOT, and is pretty close to the final spring rate that I'm aiming for. The front now needs just a slightly softer spring, and the rear slightly firmer. I have a spring assortment on the way for a set of Pro-Line Powerstrokes that I have on hand, so once this arrives I'll be able to get it all dialled in just right.
Lastly, I hacked up the front shock/link mounts and moved the bottom of the front shocks so that they are now secured with the same screw as the lower links, but outboard of the link mounts.
Doing this produced the same problem as with the rear shocks, so I did the same as with the rear and mounted the top of the front shocks to the outside of the shock mounts and used some more aluminium spacers to fill the void and add rigidity/support.





With all this done, this is how the Bomber now sits at full RTR weight:



I'm quite pleased with how it has all turned out. The ride height is exactly where I want it, and I've managed to get rid of about 65-70% of the torque twist. I expect to improve upon this once I fit the Powerstrokes and get the spring rates dialled in, to the point where I won't really miss having the swaybar at all.
At this stage I have only had the chance to do some testing on some garden rocks in the backyard, but crawling performance has improved quite considerably. Breakover and departure angles have improved dramatically, and I'm enjoying not getting hung up so much on the belly now.
Stability at speed has been reduced due to the shorter wheelbase, however I'm not too concerned as I'm more about crawling performance now. The lower ride height makes up for a bit of that anyway, and it's still no slouch when it comes to balls-to-the-wall bashing around.

Can't wait to hit the local spot to test out all the new changes!

[kinglooie]

love the rear panel rig looks great!!!

[Correll]

Love the look of your bomber. Not sure if its necessary, but I might throw a washer to the outside of that lower rear shock mount bolt. To keep the lower shock end captured. So it doesn't fly off while your flying around! Of course that will only happen if the end gets loose, but i know mine are sloppy.

[sabo308]

Originally Posted by kinglooie

love the rear panel rig looks great!!!

Thanks man! I've got quite a large sheet of aluminium that I'm gonna try and make the rest of the panels out of... it's only super thin stuff though, so they probably won't last long.

Originally Posted by Correll

Love the look of your bomber. Not sure if its necessary, but I might throw a washer to the outside of that lower rear shock mount bolt. To keep the lower shock end captured. So it doesn't fly off while your flying around! Of course that will only happen if the end gets loose, but i know mine are sloppy.

Thanks for the kind words!
Yeah, I noticed that after I took the pics and already added some washers, so should be all good

[sabo308]

Okay, so I've reverted back to the stock/trailing arm/sway bar configuration for the Bomber.
It went pretty well as a crawler, but I got over it pretty quickly and began to miss the high speed stability/bash-ability of the stock setup.
I also re-fitted the spare wheel. It adds some good weight to the rear and really helps a lot with stability at speed. I did away with the stock mount, however. The wheel just hangs back way too far and gets caught up on everything, so I've just zip tied it to the fuel cell for the time being until I can fab up a custom mount of some description.
Pro-line Powerstrokes have been fitted at all four corners now and I've got the spring rate and dampening absolutely dialled. The Bomber eats up bumps and ruts at high speed, making for a super fun bashing rig.
I also whipped up a quick and dirty set of panels out of some 0.6mm aluminium sheet. It was actually a lot easier than I anticipated and I'm happy with how they turned out considering I wasn't really careful or trying to make them as awesome as possible.
A set of Barndog's panels would be ideal, but it was only a few bucks for this sheet, so I'll see how they hold up in the long run.
Just need to get them nice and scratched up now!