Portal haters

[cytogen]

What's up with all the portal axle haters out there. They say they are weak and prone to breaking...

I have 12-15 hours on mine and I have only broken ONE wheel axle... and that was due to a 2 meter drop and landing on one wheel...

I've been running a ROC412 2300KV motor, weighted wheels, 10/58 gearing and it has help up to the torque without any problems. 8 lbs rig.

How well has your portals held up?

[jdmguy760]

Mine were on 10t puller 4 s no probs

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[flatblack51]

i broke my gmade's within 5mins if not less. my fault though the other 3 corners are doing good so far.

[H2Micr0]

I must have 20+ hours drive time with my R1 Portal axles, including two National Tuff Truck comps here is Australia, and they are holding up great. I have the CVA's in the front and fingers crossed, no issues so far.

Here is a pic of my rig.



Cheers
H2Micr0

[offroadace]

They are weak and they are prone to breaking and the smaller bearings suck a$$.
I like mine though with the upgrades I did to the knuckles and added XVD's.

[cytogen]

Offroadace,

What is weak and prone to breaking? What were you constantly breaking?

I consider bearings consumables/maintenance items so they don't really count towards "weak" or "breaking".

I want to see if there is indeed a problem with these axle through real experience and not "I heard from a friend's friend that they were junk". I really like them and would like to try and boast there usage in hopes to get some aftermarket coverage.

[offroadace]

Axle pins, dog-bones and small bearings. Yes. Bearings are a maintenance issue, but if you don't catch it in time they are destructive to the gears in the portals. Those small ones suck a$$ and don't last very long.
Replaced at least 6 axle pins.
Broke 3 dog-bones before I decided to take the time to design an upgrade to a modified aluminum knuckle with a cut set of XVD's. See below.
Replaced all bearings and any chattered gears caused by bearing disintegration (completely rebuilt both axles because of this). So it you don't catch the bearings, which fail randomly and are not apparent when they do fail, the bearing bits wrap around the gears and cause a lot of teeth chatter and breakage.

Haven't been able to run it much since the upgrades but haven't seen any issues since my mods were applied. I still see those small bearings as a major failure point regardless if it is a general maintenance operation. If you don't check constantly you are in for a world of trouble and time to rebuild.

But again, I love the portal axles.

Knuckle mod
XVD mod

[flatblack51]

I wonder how well some teflon bushings would work. we use them alot in the real offroad community. i'll see if I can find some and make a set.

[flatblack51]

does anybody else sell the CVA upgrade besides junfac directly. there sold out and I just bought more of the cheap stuff before doing research. rather by the kit than make them myself

[offroadace]

c.k.r.c seems top have them.

Not sure the link will work, but R1 CVA kit. edit the link and replace it with the CK-RC initials without the '-'.

Found it on MammothHobbies too.

[derb]

No issues on mine, easily 20+ hours of use, lots of hard binds, haven't broken anything in an the axles or any of the CVDs and I run four wheel steer.

[flatblack51]

I buy damn near everything from CKRC. looked all over and couldn't find them...thanks for the link the parts are in the mail

[offroadace]

Stock axles are not CVD, they are dog-bone. I lost at least 3 that I remember (I had 4WS also and failed front and rear) before I upgraded to modded XVD's. I bought 2 packs extra of the dog-bones just because it pissed me off so I would have spares before I upgraded.
I don't expect to have any problems with the XVD's, just the small bearings now.

[flatblack51]

i'm going to cut some teflon ones out next week hopefully i'll let you guys know the out come. once I get them in and run it. my jeep has afew teflon bushings that carry a real load and hold up great. so i think a RC crawler can definitly handle them

[cytogen]

People have had good luck with the traxxas oilite bushing.

I believe the part number is tra3775 and it's a direct fit.

[flatblack51]

im in love with my R1 now that the dog bone is fixed. then this happened

[derb]

That's impressive in that it totally deformed the rod ends before any of the drivetrain snapped.

[flatblack51]

yeah I thought I was screwed. changed out the rod ends put some loctite on abunch of stuff and I was back out in the yard crawling in under 45 mins...had to wait for a battery to charge.

[cytogen]

Originally Posted by flatblack51

im in love with my R1 now that the dog bone is fixed. then this happened

So you're saying the from the torque alone, you manage to elongate the rod ends?! Was this over time, or was it bound up and it finally went?

In any case, I'm surprised the stock drive shaft help up for you to even do that much damage.

[flatblack51]

it was ina a real crappy situation I should have just picked it up. once it was bound up I tried to get out of it and well....it didn't work.