anyone upgrade to 5mm axles

[doomdog666]

well, anyone swap in 5mm axles so we can run a thicker cross pin? i;m upgrading to hpi dogbones, and want a standard hex/axle combo. any idears?

[OGmicromonster]

I drilled mine out to accept a larger pin. The stock axles should be a little under if not 5mm. Also PTI just ran off a few hundred or so CVD's for in front axles. You won't be breaking them if you get those. The reason you break dog bones is that the axle cup rubs on the bone and wears a thin spot. I'll post a photo of them in the main area for all to check out.

[doomdog666]

i did notice the scoring in the dogbones from the drive cups. if that were the reason for the bones failing, it makes sense. but the other front d-bone is twisted a few degrees also. considering the goliath is based off the tc3, i assumed the axles were 3/16 inch diameter, as they look considerably smaller than 5mm axles that i am accustomed to. to take full advantage of those cvds, i'd think some steering mods on the knuckles is in order.
on a different note, i did a few more mods too. after seeing the pti stretch kit, i tried my own version. i drilled some holes in the chassis to mount the shocks similar to pti's version. it ended up with way too much articulation, and torque steer was still too much, but less than the cants had. it was very soft, even with stiffer shock oil(60 wt) and flexed well over 90 degrees, which got anoying.so with the stock cant mount in the chassis rail, and my old modified shock mount in the rail (about 1" from the cant mount hole), i made some shock towers that mount to these two holes. this stood up the shocks up from about a 45 to about 70 degrees from horizonal. WOW!!! this made all the difference in the world. i now get about 65-70 degrees of total flex, and although i can not run it until my bones come it, i'm sure torque steer will be gone. this weekend we'll find out for sure.
oh yeah, what size drill did you drill out to, and what pins did you use?

[OGmicromonster]

I don't remember the drill number off hand. I'll get that info for you later. But I'm using a Tamiya wheel pin. I haven't had any issues since I went to the larger pin. The axles hold up just fine. As for your dog bone twisting, I've had that happen as well. I've had dog bones twist 90º and not break. But mine have always broken at that wear point and they have always been fronts. I think I've only broken one rear ever and it was because my rig was jammed in a crack. That day I broke both a front and rear on the same side. As for the mods to the knuckles, you're probably right. I've modified mine (you can see what I did here in my build thread GRC12 Pro Build).