Dual Wraith build- On a budget!

[Dan_The_Man]

It’s been a while since I was last on here, so I figured it was time to introduce my newest additions. As much as I have enjoyed my SCX10 based Ftoy, I wanted to venture into the Wraith world. But as always, I was on a budget.

My opportunity came from an ad on Craigslist of a guy wanting to trade all his RC stuff, which included 3 Wraiths and lots of parts, for paintball gear. A few text messages later I was on my way to meet the seller. What I ended up with was 2 complete Poison Spider wraiths(though one was never re-assembled after paint), an RTR wraith, a Triton 2 charger and 2 sidewinder SV2 motor/ ESC combos… needless to say I was PUMPED!







I sold off the RTR wraith to a buddy and began to go through all that I had gotten. It quickly became apparent that the PO liked to run in water since everything had been kinda waterproofed and the brushed motors were rusted junk. Luckily, he had greased and sealed the axles and trans well, so those were fine.

To get the now blue wraith running I robbed the 10t Hyperion motor and Mamba Max Pro from the FToy and ordered a Solar D770 to handle steering duty. I also bought MIPs and Vanquish Cs from a member here to slowly begin to beef up the drivetrain. I wanted to keep this rig on a budget and since it’s on the ragged edge of needing ALL the (expensive) goodies to handle big power, it’s been kept tame.

As tame as it was it didn’t take long for the stock plastic hubs on the Trail Ready wheels to fail, thus necessitating the need for Vanquish hubs
The only other real change I made was trading for these cool aluminum wheels- can anyone ID them for me?



I plan to keep this wraith as a reliable stock-ish wheeler, but we’ll see how long that lasts. For now I’ll keep having fun with it and posting up here as I go!

[johnnyluv]

Looks like a fun trade.

[68_f100]

Awesome deal!

Wheels look like locked up rc. If so they are good wheels.

[Dan_The_Man]

Yeah, I really think I got a killer deal here. Yes, I know you’re probably bored at this point. Stock-ish Wraith. Yawn. Well, remembered the disassembled rig? The PO had painted it a John Deere color scheme, which I didn’t love but I didn’t care too much about it since I’m too rough on things to maintain a show rig. I was trying to decide which direction to go with this rig- either a spare crawler or a go fast/ basher style. My decision was made when I stumbled across a BMRC IFS kit and all the Exo parts for stupid cheap. The motor and ESC were harvested from my Rustler (Duratrax 3600kV brushless setup) and I borrowed the old wheels off the PSC wraith. Having had no experience with the BMRC kit other than briefly browsing a few builds, I had to familiarize myself with just how in the world this kit works, since it isn’t simple. After looking at some pictures, I managed to get it assembled to this point:



For anyone that’s dealt with the BMRC kit, you know it can be a little tedious to get set up initially. While another Solar servo was on order, I started fitting drive shafts. I opted to use the MIPs I had since swapping front shafts with this setup isn’t easy. It quickly became apparent that I had to grind down the cross pin, since it was having some major clearance with the bell cranks. A quick session with the dremel fixed this issue. The steering was the next issue to tackle. I knew where the servo was supposed to go, but I couldn’t come up with a configuration that worked. This is where I was forced to get creative. I robbed the servo plate from the front axle and came up with this:





To my surprise it worked great! Its certainly not ideal, but it does get the job done well. Now it was time for a maiden voyage. Since I didn’t have a battery tray yet, I zip ties the battery on and went for a drive:



My first impression: I was amazed at how well the wraith handled. This was the 4wd basher I was looking for. After a little shock tuning via preload and oil it was much more stable in the corners, though a sway bar would still be nice.
It didn’t take long before the plastic trans gears and spur gave out, so the trans went all metal thanks to Robinson Racing and the pinion and spur went to 32p Traxxas pieces. The wraith has done great ever since. The only other failure I had was the Vanquish hubs stripping out- has anyone had this issue? I plan to helicoil all them at some point as a fix.


Overall, I really like what the BMRC kit turns into a wraith. It takes some patience to get set up initially, but I have really enjoyed the end result. There’s more to come as I have been tuning, breaking and even cleaning this rig!

[Dan_The_Man]

While on another forum, I ran across a guy that had great results using a Harbor Freight ultrasonic cleaner to clean carburetors, greasy hardware and a mess of other stuff. After a quick Google search, I discovered he was one of many that raved about this unit so I decided to try one out for myself. Plain and simple, this thing flat works with the proper cleaner in it. The results were amazing!
You’re probably wondering why I brought that up. Well, in my reading I discovered that the degreaser Super Clean will remove paint and not harm plastic. Since I was getting tired of the POs paint scheme, I dunked my wheels to see what happened. Here was the result:



I think it would have gotten ALL the paint off with a pre-soak or more time in the cleaner, I’ll let the rocks scrape off all the rest. After I did the wheels, I dunked the rear axle and links:



Yes, the axle could have gotten cleaner had I used fresh Super Clean and put in a little elbow grease. I was too impatient to wheel this thing, so I’ll get around to that eventually. The next step is to break down the chassis and clean it in pieces since it won’t fit whole.
Stay tuned for more!