shock oil Q..
 

so i swaped over to full droop on my ax10. love it! works perfect with having a tall tire at 5.4"..

any way right now i have the stock oil in my shocks, and i find it a way to thin wiht out having any form of spring.. so my Q is.. do i need to use the shock oil from my LHS? cuz i seem to have alot of different types of motor oil, gear oils etc for 1:1... would trying a few different weights out just total my shocks? i'm upgradeing to losis soon any way, i just dont wanna be shockless till i get a chance to grab them..

It really depends on the type of terrain you are running, the temperature and what your wheel weight is. In the hot Vegas summers i ran 100wt in all 4 with Century C-620 springs internally. It worked really well. Remember not all shocks are valved the same so thats another thing to consider. Droop is a really good setup on a shafty but be prepared to open your shocks up and change things, often. It takes alot of trial and error to get the right droop setup.

A few tips to get you started that always worked for me.

Start with 80-100wt in all 4 with a medium internal spring and adjust from there.

You want the rear NOT to unload when you get steep. The rear shocks should stay compressed almost all the time unless it is articulating. if you pick up the truck the rears should stay compressed but not pull themselves back up.

The front is where terrain and wheel weight come in. The weight of the rig needs to be enough to pull the fronts out at a steep incline. Imagine crawling up a rock and at the top there is nothing under the passenger wheel. That wheel should be heavy enough to extend and look for traction. If the oil is too thick or the wheels too light it wont extend and you are going to unload the rear. If you run alot of side hilling where you are you might run a little thicker to keep the whole thing planted, if the terrain is jagged with lots of steps and stuff to high center on you want to be a little thinner.

Get a little notebook and make notes of your setups on different terrain. Rock type, course type and temperature should also be listed. If its over 80 degrees your oils will thin, If its cool where you live they will be thicker. Dont waste money on expensive diff fluid type oils. Losi makes a race pack of shock oil that has about 7 different bottles in it and its pretty cheap. Get something like that and experiment.

Every good info on the shock oil and set up. Do you have any suggestions for regular Losi shocks. I am planning on putting losi shocks on my Ax 10.

thanks thats alot of great info but it it totally missed my question.. maybe i i should have tried to word it better but i was tired and mind wasnt clear..


Am i going to completly toast my shocks if i run various types of 1:1 oils in them to try differnt thicknesses since i have a vast amount of typse sittin around.? or do i need to use specific shock oil cuz any thing else will wreck the seals?

I'm upgrading to losi shocks soon, so i am useing these to play around with and get a a rouch idea of whart works best for me.. i'm not to worried about wrecking them, just dont want to be shockless while i wait...

Let me first say that I am in no means an expert, but I would stay away from the 1:1 oils because they are primarily pretolium based, which does not react to well with plastics, maybe you can use a full synthetic 1:1 oil, but that would cost just as much as shock oil from you LHS, of course that theary is untested so proceed at your own risk. I would say play it safe and use shock oil from your LHS. BTW, I too am running full droop in my AX-10 crawler with heavy rims, I am running 60 wt in the front and 35 wt in the rear, seems to work pretty good right now, hope this helped"thumbsup"

thanks thats what i was lookin for, i kinda figured the 1:1 would probably just eat the seals/shock body but ya never know till ya ask

While i havent done it latley yes you can run plain old motor oil in your shocks. Its much cheaper but over time it can damage the o-ring seals. We used to run it alot in 1/10 offroad racing because we were rebuilding the shocks so often the cost of the seals was nothing compared to how much oil we went through. I agree with the sythetic oils being good.

It really depends on what materials the shocks and seals are made out of. Aluminum shocks won't be affected by any type of oil. Even most of your plastic shock bodies should be good for a while. Polyethylene has very good chemical resistance, that's why motor oil comes in PE bottles. Nylon also has excellent resistance. Do you know what the bodies are made out of? The issue will be the seals. Some o-rings hold up better to petroleum based fluids than others. Viton being one of the best. A long time ago, I used to run straight hydraulic fluid in my Tamiyas with no issues. I say go for it.

ya might as well go for it, the stock oil is way to thin for me , worst case i am out shockc for a few days while i wait for my losis

everythings stock on my ax10 except for 1 bearing and servo i take pen springs and put them on my ax10 and the droop works very very well for me "thumbsup""thumbsup""thumbsup""thumbsup"

Shock oil is cheap cheap. Like $4 a bottle. I went droop on my ax10 as well, and I am running 50wt in the rear, and 70wt in the front. I think I may try 60wt in the front, to get it to react a little quicker. I machined some custom shock mount extensions, to get the shocks at a steeper angle, which gives me more ride height at full droop. The added height of my HPI Rock Grabbers is a major + as well. The setup is working stellar!