Gramps SCX24 Deadbolt

[Gramps]

Picked up a SCX24 Deadbolt to go with my C10 don't have any big plans for it yet. I did order 4 Fullsend wheel weights to start, waiting for arrival.





The first thing I did was design a mount for some magnets to hold the body, body pins are a pain!








The 1st drive on my indoor course I found it to be a little top heavy, as was reported. I'm hoping the wheel weights will settle it down some.


Cut the battery wire in half & soldered an XT30 connector to it. Creating a jumper wire so the PH 2.0 connector can remain plugged in all the time.

[Bray D]

Awesome. Looking forward to watching the build unfold.

[Gramps]

The Deadbolt had a noise in the transmission so before I went through the trouble of calling Horizon I figured I take it apart and see what I could find. The 1st thing that caught my eye was the small bearing for the input shaft would stay in the case and was loose. Tried pressing it in but when you flipped the case it would fall out. I ended up sticking 2 pieces of dental floss through the bearing hole then pressing the bearing in place. I then took a sharp exacto knife and cut the 4 tails off. The other issue I saw was the spur gear binding on the pinion. Looked like the spur sat to low. Now that I think about it the pinion could also be to high and might have been the easier fix. I ended uo putting a .25 shim under the spur. While I was in there I oiled all the bearing and used Purple Extreme on the plastic gears in the tranny. Normally I would have used some Red & Sticky grease but wasn't sure how it would react with the plastic gears. Purple Extreme is a dry lube that goes on wet & I've had no ill effect with it on plastic. Put everything back together and now the tranny isn't winning any longer.









I need to put the Deadbolt on the balance scale and get a baseline before I start modding it.

[Bray D]

The floss trick is pretty creative. Nice work. My truck seems a bit gravelly as well - I should pull my trans apart to investigate.

[Gramps]

Don't guess I can really take credit for the floss trick. I found the idea when trying to keep props on a whoop. If this was the 1st SCX24 I probably wouldn't have thought to much about it but my C10 didn't make the same noise. I put a screw drive on the tranny & to my ear you could hear the grinding noise.

[Gramps]

Put the SCX24 Deadbolt on the wheel scale today. Turned out noise heavy which is good. Had a little more nose weight than the C10.



I took the cage off to weigh it, 6.4g btw. They must have run out of white paint the day they painted the white in my body or maybe it was the end of the day and a rush job. Any way there wasn't much paint and you could see the red through it. With the cage off there were only 2 more screws to remove the back hinge. So I took them out, taped off the outside of the body. Sprayed silver on the inside. After drying I covered the silver with black. My red look much better now.





I want to try and get the tray for the electronics a little lower to help with CG so I pulled the extra one I had out to get some measurements off it. I got to looking at it and the one in the Deadbolt and the mounting tabs were much longer. Took the existing tray out and put the other one in it's place. It sat about 5mm lower. The servo wouldn't quite clear it so I started hacking ion it. I finally came up with something that would work. The part I used was in the AXI201002 package, $7.99



I ended uo filing a rib off the transmission so the rx/esc could sit just a tad further back. I test drove it after I finished and it seemed much less tipsy.

Before mod


After mod


This all transpired while I was waiting for the mailman to arrive with the Fullsend wheel weights. They weighed in at 9g each for a total of 36g low weight.



Weight after adding weights to all 4 wheels. The front to back is 55/45 not the 5/45 shown. Sometimes not all the numbers on the scale show in photos.


Made a quick run with it on my indoor track and it handled much better.

[Bray D]

Very cool. I'm jealous of your scale.

Looks like things are coming along nicely.

[Gramps]

Designed and 3D printed a magnetic body mount for the Deadbolt, I think this is the 2nd or 3rd one I've broken. Each time the pins break. The last time at the screw hole, the time before just below the plate. Granted it did take a good tumble off the indoor course each time, but so has the C10 and it's mount is holding up but it's off a Jeep. I print with PLA+ and this one I even annealed. My thought is that it's because there is no real support right over the post. Tonight I redesigned it to look much more like the one for the Jeep with support directly between the 2 post. This one the upper magnets will be in the scoop and just to the inside of the post. Hopefully this will fix the problem.

Broken mount



The copy of the jeep one won't work either, just barley catches the outer edge of the scoop so not much to glue the magnet to.


Got another idea that I'm going to try, it's on the printer now.

Done printing waiting for Shoe-Goo to dry so I can glue the body magnetic on

[Gramps]

Added some faux aluminum wheels



Actually the stock wheels and tires, I took a silver Sharpie and colored the wheels

[lakecrescent]

Great Thread, look forward to future updates. Just got a red one myself! I'm waiting on some brass diff covers, and like you, I plan to insert a connector in the battery cable. I like the silver wheels, I'll keep that idea in my back pocket.

[Gramps]

I've had both my Deadbolt & C10 out a couple of times. I think with the brass in the wheels & lowering the electronic tray the Deadbolt out crawls the C10. Both have the same tires & the C10 has steel wheels. The Deadbolt doesn't steer as well, still running the stock servo. Personally I think it has something to do with the weight bias, the Deadbolt being a little heaver in the front.

[Gramps]

Meant to do this before I added the Full Send weights to the wheels but I didn't. So I decided to compare it to a stock wheel off the C10



Was also curious to the difference between the steel wheels on the C10 & the stock weighted wheels on the Deadbolt, same tires on both.



Seems I'm rough on the magnetic mount, I broke another one this time both post broke right above the fillet I added for strength. I think there are 2 factors causing this. One the magnetic is cantilevered out over the post which puts stress on then during roll overs and such. Two the post were a tad to far apart so I was stressing them. Also possible PLA isn't strong enough at that diameter. Redid the design this time the magnet is right above the post. I also brought the post 1/2 mm closer together to help with alignment.

[Gramps]

Decided to try the Deadbolt with a full droop setup so I removed the springs from the stock shocks. This is the results

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqfC-JQo56Y

[Creepincrawlin]

Originally Posted by Gramps

Decided to try the Deadbolt with a full droop setup so I removed the springs from the stock shocks. This is the results

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqfC-JQo56Y

Pictures didn’t do your course justice, that video shows how much fun it is. Looks a little slippery. You could add a little sand to glue and give it a bit of texture maybe? That’s what I like about the real rocks in my little indoor course. Of course the downside is a completely unmovable course that weighs 100lbs, lol.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Gramps]

Originally Posted by Creepincrawlin

Pictures didn’t do your course justice, that video shows how much fun it is. Looks a little slippery. You could add a little sand to glue and give it a bit of texture maybe? That’s what I like about the real rocks in my little indoor course. Of course the downside is a completely unmovable course that weighs 100lbs, lol.

It is slippery in spots, the worst place in my opinion is the big hill. Right now I'm using stock Nitto tires on both the Deadbolt & C10. I ordered some RC4WD Wrangles, I want to see how they do. If the hill is still to slick I'm going to try some texture paint on it.

[Creepincrawlin]

Originally Posted by Gramps

It is slippery in spots, the worst place in my opinion is the big hill. Right now I'm using stock Nitto tires on both the Deadbolt & C10. I ordered some RC4WD Wrangles, I want to see how they do. If the hill is still to slick I'm going to try some texture paint on it.

Ooo how about a shake can of undercoat? That would probably work great.

[Gramps]

Originally Posted by Creepincrawlin

Ooo how about a shake can of undercoat? That would probably work great.

That's a thought, bedliner should work too

[Gramps]

Bought some RC4WD Chrome steel wheels, which look more like silver painted steel wheels than chrome. They remind me of the color of Chevy Rally wheels. Also bought some RC4WD Rock Crushers mounted one and was much smaller than stock. Decided not to use them and ordered some Goodyear Wrangles.




Not all places list the size of the RC4WD 1.0 tires so I went to the RC4WD web site and collected the data for reference. I put it into a spreadsheet

[shiggy]

The Rock Creeper is my favorite so far.
Like the Patagonia. Need to try it on more than one truck for a better comparison.
Baja Claw is good, not great.
Rock Lox, better than stock.
Found the Rock Crusher to be little better than the similar tread stock tires on the C10.
Also have a set of Thornbirds I haven’t mounted yet.

[Gramps]

Mounted the Wranglers to the Chrome RC4WD steel wheels. Gained about 6g over the stock wheels & tires with Full Send weights. Trying to hold the 3 wheel parts in line while starting the screws was a pain for me. Now of the suggestions I found on YT help me. So I 3D printed a piece the would hold the will a couple of mm off the bench and had a space in the center to hold the hex hub the screws go into. Lined up the holes with a little pick that was from my fly tying tools.






Testing the Wrangles on my indoor course

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m2g9E90FVJY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2g9E90FVJY

Don't know that I would actually call these chrome reminds me of Rally wheel silver.


Still looks good on the Deadbolt


Testing the Wrangles on my indoor course

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m2g9E90FVJY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2g9E90FVJY