Coming soon .....GMADE GOM-GR1 Rock Buggy

[HumboldtEF]

Personally I think bashing this rig is kind of asking for trouble due to the thinner cage and parts support, but rock crawling is really where it shines. I can see how the looks and 2 speed option leads to bashing but I try my best to resist the urge.

Dont get me wrong, I do love this rig and I think others will too if they can work through its little foibles.

[soze]

Originally Posted by HumboldtEF

Personally I think bashing this rig is kind of asking for trouble due to the thinner cage and parts support, but rock crawling is really where it shines. I can see how the looks and 2 speed option leads to bashing but I try my best to resist the urge.

Dont get me wrong, I do love this rig and I think others will too if they can work through its little foibles.

This rig is pretty much a crawler/rock and trail runner for me with the emphasis on crawling.

[tvih]

For me it's an all-terrain vehicle. Go anywhere, drive anywhere (well except watery areas, not waterproof electronics). Mainly forests, stony areas and wherever else to keep things interesting. A lot like what real rock racers do, I guess. I was never one for "go fast in a straight line/smooth surface" kind of bashing, but my previous cars would just get stuck elsewhere, hence I never really bashed much at all. And for track driving I have plenty of cars, even if I do plan on taking the GOM to the track just to try it out for a few laps out of curiosity too. For pure technical scale crawling especially in groups I now also have the Komodo, the GOM's the more versatile, high-performance counterpart mostly for soloing.

[thewildblue77]

My son has decided he wants a different look...so has sticker bombed it and we've added some aluminium sheet...

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[tvih]

Lots of new goodies to install!


I was only expecting these to arrive in another week or so, but better this way of course.

A few things for the Komodo too, and the rock sliders for it already arrived last week and I was supposed to pick them up now but forgot the arrival notice, had a stack of six other notices already so didn't realize I had left that one behind.

As for the GOM this was all the upgrades I've ordered so far, may get a few things like the shock brace and perhaps brass knuckle bushings later - still not sure about the aluminum skid plate, but I guess it'd make sense to get.

Gotta say that while not being able to by specific parts can sometimes be a bummer like with the front bumper, the GM60019 "axle parts tree" is a quite nice spare parts package to start with, what with it having those front knuckles and hubs, rear straight axle adapters, link mounts and panhard mounts - all things I could imagine breaking at some point - all in one affordable package. Like the aluminum link mounts are ridiculously pricey, while this set gives four plastic spares in one go.

The original rear trailing arms are cheap spares too, but I figured I'd indulge in a bit of aluminum bling instead since the SSDs were nowhere near the cost of Gmade's own upgrade part. And now that I have them I realize that they're of course heavier, which is kinda good given how little weight the rear has.

[tvih]

Well this is strange. Not only did I nearly mess up the ESC by accidentally half-melting the wire that goes to the receiver as well as the power slide toggle thingamabob (luckily the damn thing still works) with a solder iron, but for the life of me I couldn't fit the stock metal wheel hex adapters onto the new CVAs. I haven't noticed anyone else mentioning this issue so I'm a bit puzzled. I didn't try excessive force because I certainly don't want to bend the CVAs or end up with the adapters on them so tightly that they won't come off! I put on a pair of extra plastic adapters that were leftover from my Komodo and they fit, however they don't fully engage the hex sloth in the wheel since they don't have as much "offset" as the stock adapters - the ones installed in the Komodo might, as I recall them being wider, but they're need on it obviously. I have unused 7mm aluminum clamping hexes but the CVAs - as well as the stock wheel axle shafts - are such that generic clamping hexes don't work on them. Annoying.

[soze]

Originally Posted by tvih

Well this is strange. Not only did I nearly mess up the ESC by accidentally half-melting the wire that goes to the receiver as well as the power slide toggle thingamabob (luckily the damn thing still works) with a solder iron, but for the life of me I couldn't fit the stock metal wheel hex adapters onto the new CVAs. I haven't noticed anyone else mentioning this issue so I'm a bit puzzled. I didn't try excessive force because I certainly don't want to bend the CVAs or end up with the adapters on them so tightly that they won't come off! I put on a pair of extra plastic adapters that were leftover from my Komodo and they fit, however they don't fully engage the hex sloth in the wheel since they don't have as much "offset" as the stock adapters - the ones installed in the Komodo might, as I recall them being wider, but they're need on it obviously. I have unused 7mm aluminum clamping hexes but the CVAs - as well as the stock wheel axle shafts - are such that generic clamping hexes don't work on them. Annoying.

I was using stock ones, and I didn't have any issue at all. I'm now using some generic clamping ones off eBay and they work too. *shrug*

[TooOldForThis]

Originally Posted by tvih

The original rear trailing arms are cheap spares too, but I figured I'd indulge in a bit of aluminum bling instead since the SSDs were nowhere near the cost of Gmade's own upgrade part. And now that I have them I realize that they're of course heavier, which is kinda good given how little weight the rear has.

Are those the SSD arms for the Yeti? Interested to hear how they fit the GOM.

[tvih]

Originally Posted by soze

I was using stock ones, and I didn't have any issue at all. I'm now using some generic clamping ones off eBay and they work too. *shrug*

The generic ones don't work for me because the CVAs/wheel axle shafts have a design where the smooth part of the shaft is 5mm thick otherwise but then apparently something like 4mm starting after the pin as you go outward. The stock hexes take that into account by having a smaller hole at the outer end, thus fitting snugly. But my clamping hexes can't properly tighten on it since they are 5mm through and through, and they end up wobbly.

Originally Posted by TooOldForThis

Are those the SSD arms for the Yeti? Interested to hear how they fit the GOM.

Yes, I just installed them. They fit directly, SSD lists them as compatible on their site as well.

[tvih]

The rear end is starting to look quite sexy ;)


Oh and I forgot that I did actually have those cheap Chinese steel universals yet to arrive. I just hope they'll actually fit right!

[tachikoma1373]

Any yeti rear arms should work. I quickly tried my gpm yeti rear arms and they were fine. That said the gpm and other "cheap" versions do have issues, in particular the brass bushings used at either end which in my experience have trouble staying in place as they are only pushed in and held by pressure. There are fixes - glue ��- but even those have a lifespan ��. Thing is I just can't justify junfac/vanquish pricing. I actually think that unless some other oem steps in with better pricing soon the gom could well die. Which is a bummer.

Sway bars is another prime example of ridiculous pricing. 30.00 - 35.00 I cold handle but 40+ is as we say in the UK, "taking the piss".

[poohsad]

I made a sway bar using a metal coat hanger and the arms off a yeti. Made some end links. Probably have $12 in it.

The Currie Anti-rock swaybar for the yeti is ~$40, I'm not giving that for a gmade one.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

[tvih]

Oops I already managed to forget that the damn GOM has "inverted" driveline rotation, and the Quicrun ESC I got doesn't have an option for changing motor rotation direction Normally this isn't a problem since out of the 12 cars I have this is the first that has this "issue" out of the box as far as I can recall, while my SC5M short course truck has it after changing from 4-gear to 3-gear gearbox.

Now I'm contemplating whether to swap the ESC with a different car or just make do with reversed throttle channel - problem is losing some top speed going forward, since even with reverse speed set to 100% the original rotation direction - which now moves the car backward - is faster. Eh, I guess I'll test it outside and see how it feels.

[tvih]

Had a quick stroll in the forest. Soo many dog turds, and now camouflaged with most areas not being covered in snow anymore. Yuck. The CVAs definitely made turning quite nice now. As for speed... well, I guess it's enough for that bumpy terrain as attested by the rollovers from driving into big bumps too fast, so I'll stick with that motor - and I guess ESC - for now. I do wish I had waterproof electronics on, not so much for driving in water but for the easier cleanup, especially after dog turds! But I really don't want to deal with brushed motor maintenance (for the Komodo that shouldn't be such an issue since it'll be driven less, at lower speeds and so forth, thus less wear). As is I had to use some water on the car to clean it and now it's drying with a big floor fan blowing on it. Hoping I didn't get too much moisture into the electronics.

Oh and as for turning, I'm not sure what happened - at the end of the run I ran into a rock bump and my steering went off-center. Not sure if the servo itself skipped somehow - seems unlikely, it's a 20kg Team Orion metal gear servo - or if the servo horn skipped on it. The latter would be the more likely scenario especially given the derogatory comments about the stock horn, but it still turns 'normally' so it doesn't seem stripped. The problem being that steering went WAY off-center, the car basically now goes straight when turning the steering wheel all the way to the left, so basically it jumped about 40-45 degrees to the right. Naturally I'll check it in detail once the car dries and simply re-center the horn it if nothing seems damaged.

[tachikoma1373]

Originally Posted by poohsad

I made a sway bar using a metal coat hanger and the arms off a yeti. Made some end links. Probably have $12 in it.

The Currie Anti-rock swaybar for the yeti is ~$40, I'm not giving that for a gmade one.

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I have a set of yeti arms by gpm on the way from asiatees - thanks for the coat hanger tip

[poohsad]

Originally Posted by tachikoma1373

I have a set of yeti arms by gpm on the way from asiatees - thanks for the coat hanger tip

No problem. I just got the yeti "link set" from Jenny's RC. I like having extra a-arms around for my yeti anyway.

She's currently on the healing bench for stripped out c-hubs, but I snapped a couple pics.

I just used some JB Weld to hold the arms and arm ends to the hanger wire. Used some m3 rod ends and some all thread for endlinks.

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[Jay-Em]

Originally Posted by tvih

Oops I already managed to forget that the damn GOM has "inverted" driveline rotation, and the Quicrun ESC I got doesn't have an option for changing motor rotation direction Normally this isn't a problem since out of the 12 cars I have this is the first that has this "issue" out of the box as far as I can recall, while my SC5M short course truck has it after changing from 4-gear to 3-gear gearbox.

Now I'm contemplating whether to swap the ESC with a different car or just make do with reversed throttle channel - problem is losing some top speed going forward, since even with reverse speed set to 100% the original rotation direction - which now moves the car backward - is faster. Eh, I guess I'll test it outside and see how it feels.

Are we talking brushless here? If so, yeah. That’s a problem I had too. Couldn’t use my precious sensored LRP Stockspec 10.5t (the bronze coloured one) So, I just strapped-in a time-able Orion v-brush brushed 19t double motor, set that to 0-degres, coupled with ye olde quicrun1060 and swapped the + and - connections on the motor. Tadaah! Reasonable crawling and plenty speed in 2nd gear to make it rather tippy, despite swaybars.

Don’t use the reverse as a forward. Reverse circuits have lower Amp tolerances, and they will blow when under load!!

[tvih]

Originally Posted by Jay-Em

Are we talking brushless here? If so, yeah. That’s a problem I had too.
---
Don’t use the reverse as a forward. Reverse circuits have lower Amp tolerances, and they will blow when under load!!

Yes, brushless. And my understanding is that for brushless there's no difference in amps regardless of direction. At 120A and only a 13t motor there's amps to spare anyways.

Gonna go try driving at a stone hill area today to scout out the place for a "crawler meet" at some point. Will blast around with the GOM there now, and then take the Komodo for the actual meet.

[tvih]

The place turned out to be quite nice, as was driving there with the GOM. After about half a battery - ~40 minutes - one CVA pin snapped, despite being Xray 12mm ones and with some glue. Stock retainers though. Didn't have the spares with my so that was the end of the run. I'm not sure if the cause was too steep steering angles, they're really hard to set accurately due to bump steering.

[OzarkCrawler]

Originally Posted by tvih

one CVA pin snapped, despite being Xray 12mm ones and with some glue. Stock retainers though. Didn't have the spares with my so that was the end of the run. I'm not sure if the cause was too steep steering angles, they're really hard to set accurately due to bump steering.

This is unfortunate as I thought the longer pins would solve this. I wish I could finish my build so I could experience some of this first hand. Money has been too tight with my move and everything, haven't had much extra cash each month.