Am I On the right Track.

[sobe164]

I am just trying to make a trail truck / rock crawler. So far i have swaped the truck 180 degrees. I have made a Front mount for my stearing servo. In the works of Changing it around a lil bit. i wanna use the all thread. but right now i am useing a tie rod from a old rc truck. and the stock plastic bar for stearing. I have added weight to the front end of my truck by putting 1" steal peaces in my rims. I have added a traxxas emax Rear bumper to the back of my rig. Also have locked both diff's with hot glue. No longer has stock tires on it. i have proline hammers on it.

I am going to be making a steal front bumper that is mounted hopefully on plexie glass, steal, or alume. my rig will climb almost anything.

Also want to add the crawler add ons to make it longer.

Am i heading in the right direction???

[sobe164]

I really hate to say it. but i don't get no where the responce i do as i do on traxxas web forum. Its kinda agervating. i just stated in the crawling world and asked advice. and have had 58 people look at my posting. and NOT one person has even responed. im just guessing that the people that have looked at it are newbies too. just trying to find some ansers. thats all i was trying to do. but can hardly find any info that helps me.

[rottenbelly]

Dont get discouraged. Its just you pretty much answered your own question. It sounds like you know what you want to do and are going after it!!!
When it come down to the real technical nitty gritty stuff you wont find a better wealth of information on crawling anywere else than here!!!!

[thehopping1]

Add some pics too. People love pics.

[edwalsh18]

Originally Posted by thehopping1

Add some pics too. People love pics.

x2 love pics!!!

BTW can anyone answer a question i have about steering setup....

i want to know what reason -if any- other than to lower center of gravity, does everyone mount servo on axles. i know its good for crawling but is there anything bad about the stock location -performance wise- other than it tipping over while cornering? does it turn the wheels enough? does it have any problems with articulation turning the wheels? like if you hit a bump does it force the wheels to turn? on my TXT i am trying to get my servos off the axles! i was thinking about chassis mounting them with a set-up similar to WK. but if there is a problem with that set-up i hope to discover it before i waste time, effort, and money on this idea. and if anyone has any comments you can drop them in my build thread (so as not to hijack this one). thanks!

TXT - 1/8th gravedigger

[illz302]

Originally Posted by edwalsh18

x2 love pics!!!

BTW can anyone answer a question i have about steering setup....

i want to know what reason -if any- other than to lower center of gravity, does everyone mount servo on axles. i know its good for crawling but is there anything bad about the stock location -performance wise- other than it tipping over while cornering? does it turn the wheels enough? does it have any problems with articulation turning the wheels? like if you hit a bump does it force the wheels to turn? on my TXT i am trying to get my servos off the axles! i was thinking about chassis mounting them with a set-up similar to WK. but if there is a problem with that set-up i hope to discover it before i waste time, effort, and money on this idea. and if anyone has any comments you can drop them in my build thread (so as not to hijack this one). thanks!

TXT - 1/8th gravedigger

The main problem everyone tends to have with the stock servo mounting location is that hpi uses plastic steering linkages and a plastic steering bellcrank all of which tend to flex instead of turning the tires so you have two options either do a axle mounted servo and you can get those from almost anywhere like CKRC, East End Machining, ect. or you can get the Team STRC alloy stuff but make sure to get the bellcrank as well as the steering linkages not just one or the other.

To sum everything up its all a matter of personal preference!

[rich2871]

I had purchased the crawler king and wanted to do some mods to it, well LOTS of mods to it. One of the first things I wanted was the steering to the axel. I did this because on the stock crawler king the steering servor is WAY to far from the wheels. With all that plastic links it seemed really flimsy and looked like it would break with any amount of torque on the link arms. When I moved it I upgraded the servo to a high torque one and used metal links arms. I have a few pics but the vehicle is in pieces as I am awaiting more parts from various vendors to upgrade it completely.

[rockmahala]

dont get frustrated ive noticed that if you post pics alotof people will respond. also noticed alot of people on this forum seem like they are to good to help newbies out or trade or buy from newbies.thats what pisses me off b/c at one time they were new to this hobby unless they came out of the womb holding a rc car(wich i doubt) but their are still great people that i have met on here that do help the newbs and thats great.

what kind of truck do you have? give us some specs and pictures of your truck.

[illz302]

I couldn't agree with you guys more the steering on the axle is great I did mine with the east end machining stuff and I love it I also used a Traxxas 2070 servo which has 125oz/in of torque but it does have nylon gears which is the weak point but my point here is that you dont have to spend alot I have been using this setup now for a couple weeks with no problems with any part of it.

[sobe164]

i have a lightly modded wheely king. I will work on getting some pics. i have taken pics on my cell phone. just non with my dig cam yet. Im running with a duratrax speed control 18t limit. and a 35t lafe motor. geared at like 23 tooth spur, and 90 tooth spur. Venom 4200 6 cell packs, futba sport remote n reciver proline hammer tires wk stock rims 180 degree flip, will work on putting some pics on in a couple of days,

[CrawlinMike]

I left the servo on the chassis for now. I put on a hitec 645 and made all my links, steering and rear lockout, from 4/40 rod with carbon fiber tubing around the rod. Also have the aluminum bellcrank and re-enforced it to eliminate any flex. Whole heck of a lot more torque. I've only ran it twice since I bought it. Kinda lookin for someone on here to trade me a stock or nearly stock wheely king for my crawler king. I don't think I want to use the wheely king as the base for a 2.2 crawler but would get more enjorment out of a normal WK set-up. Might go with a ax10 in the future. Till then my crawler King sits

[sobe164]

Well its been awhile since i have acculy been able to find this thread that i started back when. But i have done some up grading to my wk. Ive added the exted crawler kit. only the 4 link and the diff lockers and cant forget about body mounts. But i gotta figure out how to do the legths for the stering now. can any one tell me the legths they need to be?

below is a pic of my king as it stands right now

[KBrog]

Your off to a good start. First thing I'd doo is get the hot glue out of the diffs. I cant imagine hot glue would hold up to crawling very long. You can buy aluminum lockers or use JB weld. Heres some pics of what I did with my steering. I made a mount out of aluminum, but it ended up being to thin and would bend. So I bought a Hot Racing mount. It was to tall so I cut it down. You can see in the pics,,, the red circles are the original upper mounting holes. The yellow circles are my first set of holes, but then I cut it down some more to what you see. I put the drag link on top of the steering arms (red arrow) for more clearance. I made two differant front bumpers out of aluminum and both would hang up on the rock really bad. A few of the guys in the club where using a HPI Hellfire front bumper, so I picked one up and it works super great.

[sobe164]

I have taken the hot glue out of the diff's. I bought the HPI crawler converion and added the links and put the lockers they include in the kit. I made a stearing mount out of a carbon fiber shock tower from a traxxas rustler. I like what you did though. I gotta figure out the legth of all thread to make the stearing linkage from servo to tire and from tire to tire. I want to get this done soon.

[sobe164]

Well i have made a new front axial stearing mount now. am hopping its going to work. Its a little ruff on the making part on it. but i did the best i could with the tools i have at work. I made it out of stainless steal. heres a pic.




I have also been thinking about putting some traxxas shocks on my king to try to prevent some of the body twist it has when its climping up hills. My wk stock shocks tend to pop the thread when i re fill so i need to figure out what i can do. i have shocks sitting around my house. but cant afford new ones at this time, any idea's? i would be putting on the traxxas big bore shocks for rear rustler or stampede

[norcallump]

if it works and doesnt break a lot of stuff, roll with it

[neamerjell]

I'm not all that great at making stuff from scratch, especially from metal. I did find a servo mount and steering linkage at East End Machining:

Servo Mount:
http://www.eastendmachining.com/whkicemostse.html

Steering Linkage - already the proper lengths
http://www.eastendmachining.com/whkistliupfe.html

I intend to buy these later for my Wheely King (which I ordered last night ) along with a Traxxas 2056 waterproof servo. But for the most part, I am only going to replace parts as I break them...

[sobe164]

Yea by the end of the month i will have a waterproof esc and stearing servo. im going to get the blue xl5 made by traxxas. keepiong my 35 turn motor in the truck. and going to ballon my reciver. and use some slycone and a zip tie. The old school way lol. since i can not afford to get one of those little waterproof reciver covers from traxxas right now. But at least my truck will be able to be drivin in the mud/rain since i live in oregon and thats about all it dose here.

[neamerjell]

Speaking of Traxxas receiver covers, is Traxxas the only company who makes them? It is the only company I have found so far, although I haven't whipped out my mad ninja Google-Fu on it yet...

[sobe164]

As far as i know, traxxas is the only company that makes the reciver covers that i know of so far. At least in the RC Car mag that my son gets i havent seen any one else say they have that.