Goliath MMT setup questions

[estill]

Since this is my first post I guess some introductions are in order. I've been involved with RC for way too many years now (I started with the gold pan RC10 before the stealth tranny), and it has ranged from buggies, to trucks, to planes, to helicopters, but not boats. My latest obsession has been Micro-T's on an RCP track in my garage. My three year old loves it when we race monsters in the garage, but they are too fast for him to control. I have tried the newer SSMT's, the Radline truck from Target, and other assorted toy quality trucks, but they either break or are uncontrollable in a garage.

So I purchased a Goliath MMT off ebay. I'm familiar with the setup of RC trucks in general, but I need some help with the specifics of setting up the Goliath MMT. My goal is to build it into something that will easily crawl over everthing in the garage (RCP track borders, jumps, the micro-t's, xmods, feet, etc.) while still looking like a monster truck. (It will also be fun for dad to play with during nap time.)

I'm a little undecided on the motor setup. The videos of the stock setup are a little too fast. I like the idea of brushless, but I'm not finding an inexpensive gear reduction setup that would work. Am I not looking hard enough? I'm leaning towards the stock motor and a GD600, just to keep things cheap. (One the stock motor dies go to a 55T lathe motor.)

My second question is what kind of amp draw can I expect? I have some lipo's from my airplanes that should work, I want to make sure before I blow something up.

Other than that my plans are to shim up the diffs, convert the center gear into a slipper clutch, tweak the suspension to handle the additional torque, and possibly install a second servo for 4 wheel steering. Am I missing anything?

My appologies for the newbie type questions, please feel free to move this to the newbie section if I posted in the wrong place.

[K_B]

The stock motor plus a GD-600 is a great way to go price-wise. It requires only a little fabrication and it will drop the speed by half if not more. You will have to file the output shaft on the GD-600 down to 3mm or you can buy a 5mm pinion from www.rc4WD.com. With the GD installed, it moves the motor away from the motor plate causing it to flex which in turn causes the pinion to get outta mesh with the spur. So fabricate up some sort of motor brace to help support the weight of the motor.

Amp draw on a crawler is very little relatively speaking. So a lipo rated at 10C should do you just fine for farting around in the garage. I used 10C lipos on mine originally. Something in the neighborhood of 15-20C would be better for situations where wheels get stuck in a bind.

I don't think brushless would be worth it for what you wanna do, but check out www.holmeshobbies.com. He sells a starter combo package that is pretty inexpensive.

[estill]

That's good news about my batteries. Now to find an ESC with the lipo cutoff. If I am reading things correctly the Castle Creations Sidewinder looks to be my best option for a brushed ESC. For the extra $5 I can have the complete brushless beginner setup from Holmes Hobby.

I've been looking for pics of the motor plate flexing. All I've found was your zip tie wrapped around the aluminum posts in the middle of the chassis. I've got some carbon fiber sheets and scraps of aluminum so I should be able to come up with something.

Thank you for your help. Now to start collecting the pieces

[K_B]

Yup. The good ol' ghetto zip-ties I would have made a plate to hold the motor up, but since the can on the outrunner rotates, that was outta the question. And I was too lazy to come up with a cleaner solution.