Jato Gets to High Steppin' High Trail Chevrolet K10

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by smog

It is an interesting article. I was surprised to see the stock trx4m has a minimal but slight rearward weight bias. The article basically sells ya all of the brass bits(assuming that one is looking for the 60-40 forward bias).

I'm guessing the body shape and tire hanging off the back are contributing to this rearward bias. I would like to know the weight distribution of the K10/F-150. If only I knew where my SkyRC corner weight scale system is...

I just searched YouTube and this guy put his K10 on the scale. The chassis is really leaning which will affect the numbers side to side, but it shows a front to rear bias close to 50/50.



Video Source: https://youtu.be/gQmzH3I_HJs?si=iRdVLUlSHjzlr2yf&t=558

[JatoTheRipper]

I found my corner weight scale and weighed my stock K10 (less that one preload clip).

Pretty good start.

[JatoTheRipper]

I ordered parts for this truck weeks ago some from the US and some from AliExpress. Most of the parts have finally arrived, but I am still awaiting the brass kit from AliExpress.

I had read about some issues with tools being too thick to get on the axle nut when using certain wheels. I saw this STRC tool that appeared to have thin walls and it's orange so I had to order it.

I also got the Low Range gears from Traxxas and a Holmes Hobbies Torquemaster 180 66T. I was noticing the stock motor and gearing would stall and cause a fault in the ESC. You have to let off the throttle trigger for a reset.




These beautiful wheels from AliExpress arrived relatively quickly. I am looking forward to using these, but unfortunately they do not work with the super wide bead on the stock Traxxas tires and I don't have the patience to trim said beads.






Brass rings for the above wheels arrived from AliExpress. Hopefully they fit. I may only use the front two.

Also, I got a Jims Bearings kit for the entire truck. I can't say enough about his excellent customer service. The shipment appears to have been lost with the ever sucky USPS. I reached out to him on a Friday and he asked me to give it the weekend to see if there was any movement and if not I was supposed to reach out to him on Monday. There was no movement so I reached out to him and had a new tracking number a few hours later. This time the shipment arrived in two days. He told me that if the original shipment ever arrived I was to keep it as a spare or share it with a friend. I've used his bearings in the past and had good experiences and now I know his customer service matches. Unlike most of the other RC bearing brands, including Fast Eddy, Jim tells you the ABEC rating of the bearings. This is a rating that indicated the tolerance of the bearing. You often won't find ABEC ratings on cheap bearings.




First step was to tear into the transmission to replace the gears, motor and trade out the bushings for bearings. Notice the large difference in the size of the gears when comparing stock to low range.

Before:




After:




Motor comparison. It is awesome that Holmes includes the soldered lead and plug and 11T pinion gear. I was surprised to learn that every gear set, every motor and every transmission I could find for the TRX-4M uses an 11T pinion gear.




Next up was the rear axle. Look at all that bronze we need to get rid of...




I realized the transmission gears were plastic. For some reason I thought the ring and pinion gear in the axles were made from metal. So I lubed them up with the Vanquish grease included in the VRD Carbon kit. It was only when I opened up the front axle that I realized the ring and pinion are plastic. Oops! I guess this is the kind of mistake you make when you have been away from RC for a long time and when you are excited to get new parts installed. Hopefully this grease is compatible with plastics... It should be as it is included with the VRD Carbon kit that has plastic axles. I guess I will find out eventually.




Those are all the photos I took of this portion. The Low Range gears and 66T motor definitely offer a lot more torque and crawl-ability. The slow speed and startup is really nice. I would like some more speed though. Holmes doesn't offer a 48T motor, but I see Injora does. Injora also offers a 55T. I wonder how well those would work... Injora also offers a 370 size motor kit for this truck which is just insane. Gear stripping power and COG killing weight.

[B-MOW71]

Nice find on the nut wrench tool. I'll have to get one. I had trouble with the nuts on the HobbySoul wheels. They are set into the wheels and a regular nutdriver or socket would not work. I had to cutup a Tamiya 4-way wrench to make a tool that would work.

Damn nice looking wheels and will fit the look perfectly. I remember seeing that type of wheel on the old square bodies back in the day cruising the Avenue! I may have to try out the AliExpress. I've been hesitant not knowing if I would ever see my orders.

It is nice that Jim offers the bearing ratings. The only bearings I will ever use.

Don't feel bad, I did the same with the grease on my plastic gears. No problems yet, but if I do the metal gears will be going in.

[JimK]

Some real nice goodies there Jato! I've got HH motors in all my TRX4Ms and they have all been excellent thus fur. Also, I haven't found any wheels yet that I could mount Traxxas tires on except for actual Traxxas brand wheels.

Looking forward to watching the progress on your K10.

[kincer]

Hey Jato great to see you on here, I haven't been on in a while but had noticed you weren't around much, anyhow great to see you're still crawlin!

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by B-MOW71

Nice find on the nut wrench tool. I'll have to get one. I had trouble with the nuts on the HobbySoul wheels. They are set into the wheels and a regular nutdriver or socket would not work. I had to cutup a Tamiya 4-way wrench to make a tool that would work.

Damn nice looking wheels and will fit the look perfectly. I remember seeing that type of wheel on the old square bodies back in the day cruising the Avenue! I may have to try out the AliExpress. I've been hesitant not knowing if I would ever see my orders.

It is nice that Jim offers the bearing ratings. The only bearings I will ever use.

Don't feel bad, I did the same with the grease on my plastic gears. No problems yet, but if I do the metal gears will be going in.

Your post about the wheel nuts and modifying the cross wrench was one of those that made me search for a solution so thank you!

I've ordered from AliExpress many times over the years. I've never had a major issue that wasn't resolved. AXSPEED, Injora, etc have stores on there.

Originally Posted by JimK

Some real nice goodies there Jato! I've got HH motors in all my TRX4Ms and they have all been excellent thus fur. Also, I haven't found any wheels yet that I could mount Traxxas tires on except for actual Traxxas brand wheels.

Looking forward to watching the progress on your K10.

Thank you!

I would be more OK with the proprietary tire bead if Traxxas offered good beadlock wheels. The only versions they offer are plastic and are of the overly played-out Method 105 variety. Come on! Why don't they offer the stock slot mag from the K10 and 8-hole from the F-150 High Trail wheels in a beadlock variety?

I read that this set of Injora brass rings will allow you to use Traxxas tires with aftermarket wheels. I just ordered a set this morning to give them a try...not that I will probably want brass in all 4 wheels.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/134531056204

Originally Posted by kincer

Hey Jato great to see you on here, I haven't been on in a while but had noticed you weren't around much, anyhow great to see you're still crawlin!

Thank you sir! Just getting back into crawling actually! Great to see you here as well.

[Gramps]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

Y
I would be more OK with the proprietary tire bead if Traxxas offered good beadlock wheels. The only versions they offer are plastic and are of the overly played-out Method 105 variety. Come on! Why don't they offer the stock slot mag from the K10 and 8-hole from the F-150 High Trail wheels in a beadlock variety?

I read that this set of Injora brass rings will allow you to use Traxxas tires with aftermarket wheels. I just ordered a set this morning to give them a try...not that I will probably want brass in all 4 wheels.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/134531056204

If those work it doesn't look like they would be that hard to duplicate and 3D print. All the dimension are there except the bead depth.

[Whats_a_dickfer]

Cape Crawlers on YouTube combined the 370 motor and injora's new 3s micro ESC, looks like a pretty good combo. But for my money, I'd just go brushless. In my tarantula build I'm running a furitek cedar motor on 3s with crawler gears. More wheelspeed than the stock setup on 2s, and insanely good slow crawl. Meus racing also has a 2 speed trans setup, but it's like $80 or so and that's getting close to brushless money. They also have a gear set that's in between the trail and crawler gears. Something like 25:1 ratio if I remember correctly.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by Gramps

If those work it doesn't look like they would be that hard to duplicate and 3D print. All the dimension are there except the bead depth.

Good point. I could make the 3D print model in minutes, but my printer isn't setup.

Originally Posted by Whats_a_dickfer

Cape Crawlers on YouTube combined the 370 motor and injora's new 3s micro ESC, looks like a pretty good combo. But for my money, I'd just go brushless. In my tarantula build I'm running a furitek cedar motor on 3s with crawler gears. More wheelspeed than the stock setup on 2s, and insanely good slow crawl. Meus racing also has a 2 speed trans setup, but it's like $80 or so and that's getting close to brushless money. They also have a gear set that's in between the trail and crawler gears. Something like 25:1 ratio if I remember correctly.

370, two-speed, etc...I think all of that stuff is unnecessary complications and weight on an otherwise simple and light rig. I have no interest.

Harley was having issues with his Furitek in his comp video. It just kept stopping. He is going to replace it with an AM32 brushed setup. I have seen love it or hate it stuff with Furitek so I would not want to jump in with it at this point. Glad you're having good luck with yours though.

[Whats_a_dickfer]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

Good point. I could make the 3D print model in minutes, but my printer isn't setup.




370, two-speed, etc...I think all of that stuff is unnecessary complications and weight on an otherwise simple and light rig. I have no interest.

Harley was having issues with his Furitek in his comp video. It just kept stopping. He is going to replace it with an AM32 brushed setup. I have seen love it or hate it stuff with Furitek so I would not want to jump in with it at this point. Glad you're having good luck with yours though.

So I actually paired the motor with a mofo rc rockwolf esc, no complaints. Took a little tweaking to get it just right. I found a video from holmes hobbies that gave a really nice rundown on the various am32 settings, helped a lot. I did run that esc with a brushed motor in my scx24 for a bit, just to try it out while waiting on the brushless motor. Never did get it dialed in with the brushed motor since it was a temporary thing.

[Gramps]

Originally Posted by Gramps

If those work it doesn't look like they would be that hard to duplicate and 3D print. All the dimension are there except the bead depth.

Fired up FreedCAD and made an inner ring that would allow the stock Traxxas tire to be mounted on aftermarket wheels. I think it's mounted on an Injora wheel

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by Gramps

Fired up FreedCAD and made an inner ring that would allow the stock Traxxas tire to be mounted on aftermarket wheels. I think it's mounted on an Injora wheel

I have the Injora set on the way with more wheels and tires, but I will try with stock tires first.

[JatoTheRipper]

What's a must upgrade when buying a new RTR? Wheels and tars of course! I think I kind of have a problem with those two things. They are typically an assembly so I will call it one thing to make me feel better about myself...

Unfortunately, I did not order tires at the same time as the wheels because I assumed the stock tires would fit on those wheels. Not so fast.

On the Facebook groups, I asked which tires would be the closest in size to the stock Mickey Thompson Baja Pro XS tires found on the TRX-4M High Trail. The mouth breathers really came out in droves, as they tend to do so on Facebook, and I got little to no useful information. That means I will have to buy every 1.0 tire on the market and make the comparison myself.

OK maybe not, but I did order up a set of Powerhobby MudBoss tires. The size seemed like they would be similar to stock and I like the old-school esque look of the tread pattern. Can a brother get some TSL Super Swampers in 1.0 with a decent OD? Proline doesn't measure up in size.




Here is a photo comparing the stock 62mm Mickey Thompson Baja Pro XS tires to the 64mm MudBoss.

My calipers have gone missing in a moving box that has been shut since 2021, but this looks close to a 2mm difference to me. Definitely not the same OD as stock, but at least Powerhobby is honest with their listed size dimensions.




Mounted to dem sweet Chai-Knees wheels. The thickness of the wheel must be different because, as you can see, the nut only grabs onto a few threads. Not sure if they offer low-profile nuts in this size...whatever diameter this axle is in mm.




Track width appears to change slightly, but I did not measure because un-calipers.

Ignore those two dudes in the background. They are not intruders...just two Vanquish employees during a livestream. Harley and Brandon, to be exact.




A comparison shot - stock front and embiggened rear.




Ahh this looks sweet!




Now let's pretend to be Lil' John and get low... Floor shots.








I did not notice any body rub during my short in-house crawl. The rear seems to clear the body just fine, but there is the potential for interference on the front while turning.

Sorry for the terrible contrast in the second photo. The iPhone, as much as it is overhyped, sucks at reproducing accurate colors in photos. In its defense, my iPhone 14 Pro Max has been thrown down the road when it was playing GPS and flew off of my motorcycle handlebar mount at about 70 MPH and then it took a tumble when I rolled my car. I give my case credit for the phone surviving though and this should not have affected color reproduction.






All that typing and rambling on for photos? Yes.

[JimK]

Nice.....lookin' good Jato!!

[B-MOW71]

Wheel and tire combo spot on. They fit the look perfectly!

[JatoTheRipper]

Thanks, guys!

[JimrC]

Looking good Jato, especially liking those wheels

[BerticusPryme]

This looks absolutely wonderful! The combo just sets the whole thing off.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by JimrC

Looking good Jato, especially liking those wheels

Thank you, sir!

Originally Posted by BerticusPryme

This looks absolutely wonderful! The combo just sets the whole thing off.

Thank you for the kind words!