strange motor issues

[93-12smoke]

Ok this all started back around the 4 th of July while wheeling at the lake. My scx10 honcho runs the traxxas xl5 esc and titan 12t motor. Been running this set up for over a year. Truck started acting like battery(traxxas 7.4v 4000 25c) was dead and was very sluggish. Charge the battery and it would only charge like 10-15 min. Truck was still sluggish. Figured battery was not holding its charge. Bought a new battery, a 5600 7.4v 70c. Charged it and still same sluggish power but after a few minutes the throttle response became intermittent. Truck would surge to full power then power down to a crawl. After a few minutes of that it just quit. That motor had some hours on it so I swapped in a new spare 12t. Same symptoms and it got hot a also quit. So then I thought that while at the lake I got it very wet several times and thought maybe it was the esc. It to was old with several hard hours on it. Bought a new esc, another xl5 and another 12t. Still same thing. Motor worked for a while then went south. Now it's intermittent, sometimes one direction works but not the other then the other way around. So then I think my receiver or controls are on the fritz. I'm running the ax3 axial control.

Heres the kicker, say I try to reverse and it won't do anything. If I hold the throttle full reverse and spray a dash of wd-40 in the motor it will work for a bit. If you set the truck with all 4 wheels off the ground and throttle it its still sluggish. nowhere near full wheel speed. Keep it pinned and hit the motor with WD-40 and it will ramp up for maybe 5 seconds before falling on its face.

Any ideas? I am lost right now. Got a lot of money in parts with no fix in sight.

[Perkolator]

not sure if i can really help, but some things that i'd check out is: ESC like you've already done, check TX to make sure it's all good, possibly install a BEC to eliminate servo draw from equation, etc. are the batteries in your TX still good?

[a2hill]

Possibly the RX is messed up. if its not sending/receiving the proper signals this could happen. And since thats the only thing you havnt tried replacing i would put my money there ;)

[93-12smoke]

Transmitter got new batteries too.

[93-12smoke]

Why would spraying wd40 on the motor make a difference if it's a transmitter problem?
Also, no drive line binding.

[a2hill]

Have you tried replacing/checking the receiver? Not the transmitter.. if you got the RX wet it could have fried something. Unless of course you had it in a waterproof box and not possible, otherwise thats the only thing you havnt replace/tried according to OP.

If its intermittent you wouldnt be able to tell weather it caused an issue or not, plus i dont think wd40 is good for the motor regardless, not bad, you just shouldnt do it. atleast from the things ive read.

Try replacing the rx, or move channels if possible. see if throttle is sane on another channel if you can.