Jato the Trail King
 

This year I asked Santa, AKA my girlfriend, for an SSD Trail King. She kindly obliged. She got her Christmas present on Saturday - remote start installed on her car - so she gave me the Trail King early. My Vanquish VS4-10 Origin Limited build is in full swing and nearing the end so it will be a short while until I start on the TK.

We haz box!

http://i.imgur.com/clqe0e9h.jpg


I also preordered some parts knowing I was getting the TK.

HobbyWing WP 1080 ESC, Hitec HS-7954SH servo, SSD 25T servo horn (although now I realize that ain't not gonna werk wit da Hitec), overdrive gears for the front axle, and the sexy SSD knuckle weights. Brass is an ugly color. SSD's brass coating is just sexy.

The SSD servo horn, overdrive, and brass knuckles are from the GF and I do not mean Gluten Free.

http://i.imgur.com/zHbaHzsh.jpg


Wheels are the Boom Racing 1.9 deep dish wheels for a retro flair.

http://i.imgur.com/KH5pCaEh.jpg


Lastly, let's open the box because how can you not?! Airbags inside the box...very interesting. Definitely the first time I remember seeing those inside and RC box. But I'm not a stickler for packing so that matters little to me. What matters is the product! For that, you will have to wait.

Sorry for being a tease. But if I have to wait, you have to wait! :ror:

http://i.imgur.com/0vnRmu5h.jpg

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Well, at least we got to hear about the sexy knuckles...


An early Merry Christmas to you Jato. Someone knows how to keep you around:ror:

Totally looking forward to the build"thumbsup"

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Enjoy the build...I certainly did on mine. Not saying you'll have the same problem I had, but you might want to consider the aluminum shock towers. My rear towers were starting, but the front ones were slightly "warped", curving inward. The skinning ones, sooner with the front brass weights, should be arriving tomorrow. I still haven't figured out mine, but have you decided on a body?

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Haha! I like your twisted sense of humor.

Merry Christmas to you as well. It probably looks and feels a lot more like Christmas there than it does here. No snow yet, sadly.


Thanks. They can't be worse than the old Axial shock towers.

I think I decided on a body, but that's TBD.

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Nice! Another build I’m looking forward to following![emoji3]

Congrats on the early Christmas gift!

After watching a few other of these builds here, I’m really liking the looks of these kits!

Subscribed!




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Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Thank you! How could you not like a kit that comes with a Chevy small-block? :mrgreen:

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

The small block is one of the reasons why I like it so much!:)

I hoping to pick one of these up after the first of the year. I think it will make a great Class 1 rig.

I forgot to mention, I really like those Boom Racing wheels. Can't wait to see them mounted up!

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Awesome man! I'll be starting my build soon too. I happen to have a RC4WD Chevy Blazer body that I got during their "Stranger Things" promotion that I think I might put on this. I think it'll be perfect. I can't wait to see how yours goes. Those Boom Racing wheels have been in my wishlist for the longest times, I'd be interested to see what you think of them.

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

I like the engine...decided to paint mine. My colors might not be "accurate", but I like it.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...3a4beccf88.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...ef73a17bbb.jpg

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Same here! LOL

Thanks. The wheels are beautiful. As soon as I saw them online I knew I'd have to have them for an upcoming build. There aren't enough deep dish options.


Thank you!

Is that the $80 camo body?

The wheels are great. They look beautiful, fit and finish is good, and they are very easy to mount on the tires I tried (Vanquish VXT's). Those aren't the tires for this build. I'm waiting for dual stage foams before I mount the tires and then I'll post pics. I've had other Boom wheels and I've always been impressed with the quality. Boom is underrated in the wheel department IMO. This set of wheels does have a lot of backspacking because of the deep dish, but that's a physical tradeoff and there's really no way around it. That may present a problem on some builds and bodies.

https://1529840719.rsc.cdn77.org/ima...-7-700x600.jpg

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

I'm looking forward to watching this build. I got annoyed and aggravated watching your Vanquish build with all the problems that you're having with it. Annoyed at the company, not you. Hopefully this will go smoother. I really like the trail King and what it has to offer for the money.

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Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Thanks!

The Origin build isn't going too bad IMO. It's the initial kit offering from Vanquish so there are bound to be teething issues.

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Grab a drink and some popcorn and sit down because this post will be a long one. Enjoy the show.

The Origin build is definitely on hold indefinitely. It's too cold to paint and I don't see Mother Nature cooperating anytime soon as we are just about to enter winter. I need to have enough time to warm up the garage, protect my motorcycles and quad and paint all in the same day. It's tough to get that all finished after work. Before any of that even happens, I have to mask though. I have off all of next week though so to be continued...

In the meantime, I was anxious to start the TK build. I couldn't hold out any longer. In some ways I'm more excited about this build than the Origin. I'm not sure why, but I think it's mainly because of the Chevy small block and the scale transmission. Scale nerd stuff, bro! "thumbsup"

It's kind of unfair to the TK to build it after a "high-end" kit like the Origin, but, as "they" say, life isn't fair. I'll try to keep in mind that this kit is a very reasonable $370! That may seem like a lot of money to some since it doesn't include a body, tires or wheels, but you have to remember this is, basically, a significantly upgraded SCX10 II with the addition of a scale drivetrain.

Inside the manual was a small addendum and the coolest stickers in all of RC. These chrome SSD logo beauties. These are sure to add 4V, or around 100 scale horsepower, to any RC.

http://i.imgur.com/IXag5qlh.jpg


Let's get started with Bag A which is the rear axle. You will soon learn, like I did, that SSD loves bags as much as Vanquish.

http://i.imgur.com/gTRDmuth.jpg


What's inside Bag A? More bags some of which are filled with...you guessed it - bags!

http://i.imgur.com/sl35ojRh.jpg


Besides bags, another theme in this build is oil. Every metal part, including some of the hardware, is soaked in oil. This is sure to protect the parts in the box for the long boat ride to the US. This is not a complaint, but more just an observation.

http://i.imgur.com/SczSS6Hh.jpg


I was very confused when the locker had one screw in the bag.

http://i.imgur.com/XSpXmaKh.jpg


I had a tough time finding the six M2 x 8mm screws to attach the ring gear to the locker. It wasn't until I went to install an M2 x 6mm screw that I saw the M2 x 8mm screws were preinstalled in the locker. And now it makes sense why the spare screw was in that bag.

http://i.imgur.com/PiQAuA8h.jpg


After lots of hard work of installing six screws we have this. Tada! I'm sure y'all (I'm not southern, but I play one on TV) have never seen one of these thingamajigs! Err I guess you probably have. All that fanfare for nothing!

http://i.imgur.com/17U5Y5Qh.jpg


Remember me saying there was a lot of oil on the metal parts and hardware? Well I wiped each of these six screws down before applying blue thread lock. Here is the result. Wipe off that oil if you want your thread lock to do any work.

http://i.imgur.com/uxHy4ygh.jpg


Now, let's layout all of the plastic pieces. I own a set of still unused SSD axles, but I didn't assemble them as I bought them from somebody else that did. This is my first time assembling SSD axles and I have to say this is a very clever system!

http://i.imgur.com/KzzU3W3h.jpg

As you can see, SSD provided two covers for each axle. This is an awesome touch! It allows you to choose the stock looking version or the aftermarket, performance version that has a beveled, lower edge for more rock slide-
ability.

http://i.imgur.com/yCafqKWh.jpg


Here we run into the first not-so-good thing. The bearing retainers are plastic! Are they the first company to do this? Nope. I saw SSD offers metal versions on their website, but I just assumed they were replacement parts. I should have known the parts listed on their site are upgrades. Had I known this I surely would have upgraded these parts. Is it necessary? Probably not, but I do like these to be metal.

http://i.imgur.com/9t4MOqOh.jpg


And here's more of the clever three-piece, modular axle design.

Getting the axle housings into the pumpkin is kinda tough. These sumbitches fit tight, but that is a good thing! No slop here. This is the last place that you'd want slop. Nicely done, SSD.

http://i.imgur.com/YxFxSIyh.jpg


And here we come to my first pet peeve. Each axle housing is held to the center diff section via 3 screws. 2 of these screws are M3 x 5mm and 1 is M3 x 4mm. Really?

http://i.imgur.com/EQSnEAjh.jpg


This 1mm difference in length shouldn't be critical. If 1mm is critical then there are some tight tolerances going on here. Don't do this. Don't mix and match screws that are close in length wherever possible.

This is where I made my first booboo. I use M3 x 5 screws for all 6 (3 on each side) and only then realized two of these screws are 1mm shorter. Does it matter? It shouldn't. And I didn't think so, but maybe my mistake caused more issues. More on that later.

http://i.imgur.com/91fo1Whh.jpg


Here's the 3-piece axle housing assembled using the correct size screws.

http://i.imgur.com/rVKCiACh.jpg


For the most part the plastic is very nicely molded. There is a minuscule amount of flashing at some points, but not even enough for me to get out the knife. I'd do more damage to the housing removing this plastic than I would just leaving it alone.

http://i.imgur.com/nZrxAXkh.jpg


These plastics are thankfully precut from the sprues. This is becoming common practice in the RC industry and I'm so happy about it. The cut is nice. No trimming needed here.

http://i.imgur.com/mYtne16h.jpg


The inner, pinion bearing took some effort to install. I don't remember a pinion bearing seat being this tight before, but it's not tight enough to damage the bearing and this sucker isn't falling out which I really like. Nothing is more annoying than having a bearing constantly fall out and then you only realize it's still lying on your workbench after you have everything assembled.

http://i.imgur.com/5urmjcGh.jpg


The ring gear/locker assembly bearings are unshielded which also seems to becoming standard practice. The difference is that these are filled with grease. Interesting. It's translucent green grease that looks very similar to the grease that Axial included in the SCX10 II kit.

http://i.imgur.com/0Y9gzxeh.jpg


Here's the locker assembly installed into the axle housing. I slopped the gears with Vanquish grease. Sorry, SSD, you don't offer your own grease.

I had some trouble with the four screws that hold the bearing retainers in place. I thought they were tight, but when trying to install the pumpkin cover it wouldn't seat properly as it was hitting these four screws. I had to go past what I initially thought was tight and the screws freed up a little bit and then got tight again later on. It was very odd.

http://i.imgur.com/VHqP94dh.jpg


A side benefit of using the "performance" pumpkin cover is that I had to install less screws. Laziness...I tell ya! This may allow some water in through the bottom of the diff cover, but even with more screws down there it won't be water tight anyway.

I did notice that the screws I received were more M2 x 6mm rather than M2 x 5mm as called out in the manual. I found the manual not matching the physical screw length on more than one occasion.

http://i.imgur.com/uZPMapFh.jpg


I installed one axle shaft and realized I could not get the other side in no matter what I tried. I even remove the installed shaft and tried it on the other side to no avail. So I had to disassemble the axle and that really annoyed me more than it should have.

http://i.imgur.com/OAH2cSxh.jpg


It was hard to see inside the axle housing so I assume the locker was the culprit. Upon removal I found out that my assumption was wrong. Both axles slid right into either side of the locker.

Then I looked inside the plastic pieces and found plastic burrs on one side. I am not sure where these came from, but I removed them with an X-Acto knife.

I seriously do not think this was caused by my use of the 5mm long screws instead of the 4mm screws in two places, but it's plausible.

http://i.imgur.com/LXRrAKTh.jpg


Upon reassembly I still couldn't get the axle shaft in the one side. I had to push pretty hard and then it slid into place and didn't bind. I have no idea what was hindering it.

The fit of the end caps onto the axle housing is also tight like a tiga so eat your Wheaties, punk! They are held on by two M3 x 6mm screws. Mine measured M3 x 5mm so this is another discrepancy that I found. Hopefully that extra 1mm doesn't make a difference here. ;-)

http://i.imgur.com/GHviVToh.jpg


Were's almost at the commercial break. Stay focused, Daniel San!

Next up was installing the 12mm drive hexes. These are aluminum which is a very nice touch. Plastic hexes should go the way of plastic hollow balls - straight to hell! :twisted:

You can also see the aluminum spacer between the axle end caps and the axle shafts. This works in conjunction with the bearing to keep the axle shaft centered. Nice.

http://i.imgur.com/hNEy36oh.jpg


Sorry, that was a long first step, but I think you'll survive. We're in this together! :mrgreen:

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Hold on, I gotta pee. Be right back.

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Re: Jato the Trail King
 

I did survive! Nice detail build so far!

Once again, I'm taking notes! Looks like screw lengths and possible flashing may be an issue. Thanks for the tip!

Ready for the next step!:)

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

:lmao:


That's what she said! :lmao:

No, the flashing really wasn't an issue at all. It's minuscule like I stated. It shouldn't be an issue unless you are OCD.

Thanks for reading! "thumbsup"

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Having built a few sets of these axles, I can tell ya that those screw lengths are critical. They’ll cause what you experienced and even if one manages to get the axle shaft in they’ll likely cause clearance issues.

With that in mind, I also highly recommend checking these screws after your first run and every so often to make sure they stay put.

Enjoying this write up! The tolerances are very tight but like you said, that’s not a bad thing. "thumbsup"

:lmao:

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Got it! What I meant or should have said was watch out for the plastic burr you found in the axle housing!"thumbsup" The plastics do look very good with little to no flashing by what I can tell from your pics. That's a plus!

I am a little OCD though!:lmao:

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

What step typically comes before or after the rear axle? The rear axle was the first step so the obvious second step is the front axle, boys and girls. Lots less words and lots less photos for this step.

Here's the front axle housing assembly with the offset pumpkin. Personally, offset pumpkins have always driven me nuts from an aesthetics standpoint. Where's the symmetry?! But I understand they have valid reasons for doing this in the 1:1 world. And some of that applies to RC's as well. Plus, it gives us a scaler look for our scalers.

http://i.imgur.com/3dPZ4zJh.jpg


The included C-hubs are aluminum which is a nice bonus.

http://i.imgur.com/LhknZW5h.jpg


So are the knuckles!

http://i.imgur.com/N5EsBsSh.jpg


The axles tubes on the front axle are mildly splined. You have to look closely to see them.

http://i.imgur.com/CMGBlEYh.jpg


The front axle went together very nicely. No issues.

I did forget to mention that the drive pin on one side of the rear axles really drags against the spacer and end cap. It definitely causes some drag. The more I think about it the less I understand exactly why it's happening.

Here are the two, assembled axles. Neither is completely smooth, but after running them with a drill for 30 seconds each way they are a lot better. I'm sure they will break-in just fine and there are no substantial binding spots.

Oh I almost forgot to say...being the idiot that I am with the worst memory ever, I completely failed to remember that my girlfriend got me the OD gear set and brass knuckles for the front. I'm debating if I should install them now or wait until after I run the truck to see how much difference they make. I'm leaning towards installing them right away.

http://i.imgur.com/f7bgNLgh.jpg

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Fun times! Enjoying the blow by blow.

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Last night I went out with a friend and got home later so I didn't have much build time.

I did receive more goodies related to the wheels and tars. Scale acorn nuts/lug nuts and tool from LockedUp RC and grubs from Rusty Bolts.

http://i.imgur.com/tKlMRLNh.jpg


Proline dual stage foams for the TSL XL's.

http://i.imgur.com/Vs1MZIbh.jpg


The one drawback, albeit minor, of these Boom Racing wheels is that there are 8 mounting screws rather than 5 or 6. This is just a few compared to the 20 or so that we used to have to install and remove on old school beadlock wheels back in the "old days" of scale RC. We're spoiled.

http://i.imgur.com/e01S0ddh.jpg


Some people complain that Proline wheels are difficult to mount. These wheels made it a freaking cinch! They even easily mounted one of my extremely stubborn VXT tires from my Vanquish Origin build. I installed one of those just as a test.

Once mounted we have some old school goodness. Super Swampers on 8-hole wheels. Sexy if I do say so myself! "thumbsup"

http://i.imgur.com/YhuuYTYh.jpg


And the scale hardware really finishes it off nicely.

http://i.imgur.com/ZnKQxY6h.jpg

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Them wheels with the scale acorn nuts look sweet!

Glad to hear they were a breeze to mount!

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Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Gotta say, from the outside, those wheels rock.

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

That last photo should be used as an ad for those wheels. Nicely done and looking good.

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Saw those after buying some cheap old fashioned Centerline styled wheels. Those are really nice.

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

I just started building my trail king. I noticed that my axle tubes had those little specs of plastic in them after threading in the bolts that hold the tubes to the center section. Makes me want to put the wheelbearing retainers on and cut those threads and recheck for plastic specs inside tubes. It's like the fitment of the bolts is so tight that you cut a minuscule amount of plastic off when forming the threads. Not necessarily bad, unless you don't notice them and they interfere with the shaft to locker fitment.

Living in rust prone Vermont, I appreciate the coating of oil on the metal parts. Your correct about cleaning both the hardware and parts if you expect loctite to function. I'm kinda OCD, so I clean the threads on every single bolt before installing. I also noticed the hardware is mostly marked grade 10.9 and fit snugly on my Allen drivers. Quality hardware is a huge plus for me. I literally couldn't even bring myself to use any of the hardware that came with my TF2 kit.

You seem to be a stickler for quality, as am I. Looking forward to your impressions on the rest of the kit. Thinking I'm going to go slow with my build and keep a step behind you so you can figure out any nuances or tolerance issues. Thus far I am impressed with the fitment and finish.

When you get a chance could you measure the total width with those wheels installed? I'm digging the look, but concerned they'll be too wide for my body choice.

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Thank you!


Thank you!


Yes, I am a stickler for quality and sometimes I get ragged on for being too harsh on products.

I'll be your guinea pig - no problem! :lmao:

It'll probably be a while, but I sure can measure the track width. I do think it's going to be wide.

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Nice score on parts Tim, and good job on your build thread! I usually don't do a detailed build, my mastery of words is a little lacking. 8)
Ernie

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Welcome back to the JTK build after the Christmas hangover. I hope Santa was good to each of you and filled your lives with more RC merchandise! I did not get any more RC stuff, which is fine, but I did get to work on the TK.

The next step is building the transmission which happens to be pretty scale and really cool. I was excited for this step. The only other scale transmission I've built is the one in the RC4WD TF2 which, I believe, was also designed by Mr. SSD himself.

As my girlfriend astutely stated, this should say D Bag. :ror:

http://i.imgur.com/BK1pT8Fh.jpg


I chose the Reedy Radon 16T 5-slot motor for this build. I first tried this motor in my Capra and I'm very happy with it. It has plenty of speed and plenty of torque and it's a bargain at around $25 shipped.

http://i.imgur.com/CyVrZeIh.jpg


I chose to use the stock pinion. I really like how SSD clearly labels the tooth count on their gears. This was true of every loose gear in the kit not just the pinion. So you had no trouble finding the correct gear.

How do you set and check the gear mesh? Good luck! I set my motor screws all the way to the sides of the slots. Is that correct? I'm not sure. I'm definitely going to have to keep an eye on the motor temperatures.

In this photo the mesh looks loose, but that's because the lower gear shaft is hanging under its own weight. When you support this gear shaft the mesh looked good to me.

http://i.imgur.com/u3lTqG4h.jpg


Here's the small block V8 bolted up to the bell housing. :mrgreen:

The motor plate is a very nice, thick piece of aluminum. All motor plates should be metal, kids.

http://i.imgur.com/6E9qN9Qh.jpg


The design is a unique, layered or stacked setup. Each "layer" of the transmission adds more gears, shafts and/or bearings and another part of the plastic housing.

Let's schlop some schmutz on the gears of the first layer before we move on. This transmission contains all metal gears so it should be very durable, but you want to lube it up to prevent wear. If not, this sum bitch is gonna git hawt after running a short time.

http://i.imgur.com/90OUpz4h.jpg


Here's the second layer. I have no idea why I took this photo of the upside down transmission. Do you see why I sometimes confuse myself?! :lmao:

http://i.imgur.com/UBwfUbBh.jpg


The third layer.

http://i.imgur.com/V9jJpLEh.jpg


And then the fourth layer to cap off and finish the transmission.

http://i.imgur.com/FLBmYhIh.jpg


Next up, you bolt the front half of the transfer case to the transmission housing.

You also install the transmission mounts, looking like outriggers in this photo, to the motor plate.

http://i.imgur.com/NxKROTgh.jpg


Not the best photo, but you can see this gear is also clearly labeled with 24T. This really makes assembly of the transfer case easy since it is comprised of two 24T gears and one 22T gear.

http://i.imgur.com/mbm6kYDh.jpg


Here's the transfer case with all of the guts installed and just before I attach the rear half of the housing.

http://i.imgur.com/1PkaBuXh.jpg


And, finally, here is the completed motor/transmission/transfer case assembly. This was really fun and satisfying to build! "thumbsup"

It's as smooth as can be too!

http://i.imgur.com/5AUljMph.jpg


There are lots of leftovers with this build. Leftovers are tasty so I'm all about it. These will come in handy in the future I'm sure. Thanks for the extra hardware, SSD.

I read on another thread that he goes with the thinking that it's much easier and much cheaper to include extra hardware rather than try to get the count exactly right and then have to ship out a screw when you are shorted. I agree with this thinking and it's the way I'd do things if I had a company of my own. It makes absolutely no sense to have to pay $5 to ship out a $0.10 screw after the fact when you could have just included an extra one to begin with.

http://i.imgur.com/iuBFWYxh.jpg

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

In complete agreement with the "extra screws" (and bearings) thing. Being shortchanged a 2.5x12mm screw in my Capra kit caused a LOT of dig-related problems. As for the TK, the whole kit went together as smooth as could be. The only 'problem' I had was one I caused, myself, which had to do with the upgrade aluminum shock hoops...now I'm just awaiting the replacement part from Chris.

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Nice detailed tranny layout!"thumbsup" I do like how the gears have the sizes on them.

I've been wondering what this trans looked like on the inside. Now I have a better understanding of the gear layout. And yes, always good to have some extras in the kits.

Glad to hear you survived the Christmas hangover!:)

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Looking good!
In a moment of madness (or genius) I ordered myself a Trail King kit. Hopefully it'll be in my hands for New Year although I'm not holding my breath.
These build threads are really useful as I mentally prepare myself for my first proper full kit build. Gives me a good idea of how stuff goes together and it's nice to hear what the guys who know what they're doing are doing ;)

Glad to hear about spare hardware, even gladder to hear that the gears have the tooth counts on them. I always lose count!

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Good to hear. So far it's mostly been a very smooth build for me as well. Very cool kit.


Thank you!


Thank you!

Congrats! It's an awesome kit.

This manual isn't the best especially for a newbie, but you should be able to work through it. The biggest issues are some discrepancies in the hardware length in the book versus the hardware you are provided. Pay special attention to hardware length in the axles since there are different screws that only vary in length by 1 or 2mm.

Post up your own thread when you get the kit. Any of us will be happy to answer your questions. I'm also just a PM away.

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Next up are the links. The included links are titanium according to the manual! Very cool. "thumbsup"

I can't say that I've ever used titanium links before so this will be a first for me.

http://i.imgur.com/FKlV6PVh.jpg


The links are of the grub screw variety. Some people like this and some people hate it. I guess I'm indifferent about this. If I was forced to choose I'd probably take the links with the machined, male threads over this grub screw variety, but it's not a big deal to me.

http://i.imgur.com/y6QJejRh.jpg


The only issue I had while building the links was that a couple of the hollow balls had burrs on them that would prevent my driver from going through. I use the hex driver to hold the rod end while using another driver to screw in the grub.

http://i.imgur.com/ns0wo9hh.jpg


Here is the completed set of links. Very high quality. The straight A students among you may notice that I have the drag link built incorrectly which I found out later.

http://i.imgur.com/MIJorRrh.jpg


After assembling the links you assemble some of them to the front axle assembly...

The knuckles are double shear which is now pretty standard, but what is somewhat unusual is that both ears are threaded. Usually one is a thru hole and the other is threaded. It takes some precision to thread both of these and still have the screw thread in without any issues. SSD has done it well. The extra threads are good for a couple of reasons. Nice touch.

http://i.imgur.com/B0neLUvh.jpg


It was at this point that I realized I had incorrectly installed the rod ends on my drag link. After fixing the orientation of the rod ends I installed the drag link and tie road on the front axle.

http://i.imgur.com/ndVbr6Nh.jpg

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

After the links we move onto the chassis. You start by attaching the components to the driver's side frame rail.

http://i.imgur.com/fM5hI7hh.jpg


The frame rails are individually wrapped which is really nice. No nicks, scratches or missing paint on these bad boys. The SSD logos on the frame rails are very nicely done and they look great.

http://i.imgur.com/p9ZV2X4h.jpg


Another aluminum bit included in the kit is the Panhard mount. Here it is next to the shock tower which is plastic. They are made of nice, thick plastic though so they are solid. No flimsy, rubbery, garbage grade plastic here.
And there's a better shot of the SSD logo.

http://i.imgur.com/q7OmSkJh.jpg


The screws that hold on the shock mount screw into the aluminum Panhard mount. The fit of everything is great.

http://i.imgur.com/yXp4rAth.jpg


Next up you connect the floorboards and skid plate to the left side frame rail.

At first glance this looks very similar to the SCX10 II floorboard. I wasn't a fan of that because the bottom isn't smooth. There are a lot of features that could get hung up on rocks and other debris from nature. Thankfully, SSD does one better than Axial which we will see later.

http://i.imgur.com/g0Hfjohh.jpg


The frame has more head scratchers in terms of very similar yet different sized hardware.

M2.5 x 6mm vs M3 x 8mm screws to attach the servo mount.

http://i.imgur.com/fSELIiKh.jpg


M3 x 6mm vs M3 x 8mm to attach the battery tray mount.

http://i.imgur.com/TJL4jAdh.jpg


When I first saw these battery tray mounts my first thought was "Ugh, they look like something Axial would design" which means they are going to flex like John Sena. That wasn't the case, thankfully. These are also made from very rigid plastics and they are solid mounts. Nice!

http://i.imgur.com/0axe3nAh.jpg


Next we install the motor/transmission/transfer case assembly onto the skid plate. The motor mounts also get attached to the frame and I had a helluva time getting these lined up. Thankfully, I had the forethought to leave them loose, but it still took a bit to get the screw to thread into this mount. And, as I now see from the photo, it looks like it may be skewed a bit.

http://i.imgur.com/vQ5Q9Qth.jpg


Sorry, OSRC. It's still fall on my tablecloth. :mrgreen:

Here are most of the components attached to the driver's side frame rail. I like to leave these screws loose by about a turn or two. When the other frame rail is attached I then go back and tighten all of the screws. This just makes the frame easier to assemble and, in the end, I believe you have a straighter, and more cohesive assembly rather than having forces of various screws fighting each other.

http://i.imgur.com/GtEwSmth.jpg


The front bumper mount is aluminum.

http://i.imgur.com/iCPuhT6h.jpg


So are the rear frame extensions and rear bumper mount.

http://i.imgur.com/H18rGKUh.jpg


M2.5 x 6mm and M3 x 6mm to attach the rear frame extension and bumper mount.

http://i.imgur.com/nmAVqbCh.jpg


The chassis and power plant. Look at how low that motor sits! "thumbsup"

http://i.imgur.com/fwevD10h.jpg

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Dang that sweet! I think this will be my next rig.

Sent from my LM-G710VM using Tapatalk

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

It is very cool. Wait until you see me put the Chevy small block in it! "thumbsup"

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Next up we start connecting parts to the chassis. This is when it starts feeling like a truck to me.

The driveshafts are as oily as the axles. Again, not a complaint - it' just an observation as this is not a bad thing. They are very scale looking, all metal and pretty cool.

http://i.imgur.com/HypH50oh.jpg


The manual has a big mistake here - probably the biggest that I noticed. The axle offset is completely reversed in the manual. The Panhard mount and short side of the axle are on the opposite side in reality. Very odd that this one slipped through the cracks.

http://i.imgur.com/xKLWepmh.jpg


Because an Atari 2600 has more memory than me, I forgot all about the addendum until it was too late.

http://i.imgur.com/ZffufvDh.jpg


The lower links were attached to the skid plate with the M3 x 20mm set screws instead of the M3 x 16mm set screws. I didn't notice any issues so I left them in place. I'd be curious to know why this change was made and if the 20mm screws cause any issues. I didn't notice any.

But the I did change the screws that attached the lower links to the axles. As you can see in this first photo, the screw is barely into the second mounting tab which isn't ideal for strength.

http://i.imgur.com/8CZo8Nbh.jpg


Here's how it looks after the longer screws were installed. They are maybe 1mm too long, but they shouldn't get hung up on anything.

http://i.imgur.com/YgbQIxPh.jpg


After the axles are attached to the chassis, it's time to build the shocks. I went with the same flavors as in the shocks on my Origin - 35wt in the front and 70wt in the rear They are beautiful shocks. I love the anodized blue caps myself. And it's a great contrast to the raw aluminum bodies. iPhone color recreation sucks so the blue is actually lighter in person.

http://i.imgur.com/WLTGJzjh.jpg


Overall, these are great looking shocks. The finish on the shocks wasn't perfect, but the defects were either minor or hidden. It looks like the anodizing had been rubbed off here, but you can't see on the outside it so it's not a big deal. You can also see the lip in there which stops the hollow ball from pushing through.

http://i.imgur.com/GefWLsph.jpg


The spring perches are made from aluminum which is cool. Personally, I'd rather have a plastic spring perch that's captured with a screw in place of an aluminum perch without a capturing screw. These are a tight fit onto the lower shock mounts though so hopefully they stay put.

http://i.imgur.com/dIV3eUPh.jpg


The shock caps have an o-ring seal which is a nice touch. There are no bladders inside of these shocks.

http://i.imgur.com/XFels8Rh.jpg


Oddly, the preload adjuster doesn't have an o-ring inside of it or anything else to prevent it from walking. This is much less of an issues on scalers when compared to racing RCs, but it still would have been nice to see an o-ring in here. You can see more missing anodizing inside of this adjuster, but, again, it looked great on the outside.

http://i.imgur.com/k2x8i5Gh.jpg


Another thing that is odd to me is that the hollow balls that go in the shock cap seem to be metal, but I couldn't tell for sure. I'm not a fan of metal balls on aluminum shocks.

This ball wouldn't go into the shock and I thought the cap wasn't machined correctly. Thankfully, it was the ball that was bad so I replaced it with one of the spares that was provided and the shock fit fine.

Here's the shock with the bad ball.

http://i.imgur.com/d1JoX0Zh.jpg


After the truck was sprung I noticed that the rear axle had a lot of side to side movement. It turns out there is slop between the slots in the skid plate and the hollow balls. I don't think there's enough slop to get one of my shims in there though.

http://i.imgur.com/plAGthfh.jpg


For steering power I chose the Hitec 7954. SSD only makes a 25T horn (like all servos should be), but Hitec uses a 24T spline so I had to go with a Vanquish 20mm servo horn.

http://i.imgur.com/Mos94A3h.jpg



When I went to install the servo horn I noticed the drag link was far too long. In the photo below the wheels are straight, but you can see how far the drag link extends past the servo splines. I would have had to point the servo horn way towards the driver's side in order to have the axle centered.

I think this is a design flaw. The servo horn and axle should be able to be centered together.

http://i.imgur.com/naEHBbzh.jpg


My first thought was to exchange the long rod end on the drag link to a short end. After talking to OSRC, he also made this switch, but noticed that he gained some bump steer. I decided to give it a try because I like the servo horn to be as centered as possible.

Below you can see the stock, long rod end on the left and the replacement, short end on the right.

http://i.imgur.com/56zxJLsh.jpg


This fix seemed to work for me. As you can see in the photo below, the servo horn still isn't centered, but it's much closer than it would have been with the long rod end.

I really don't notice any bump steer and I get full steering so I'm happy with this fix.

http://i.imgur.com/jYsiGVeh.jpg

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

The front left of my truck wasn't sagging like the rest of the shocks as you can see in this video. It turns out I got one spring that is slightly longer than the rest. I think I only noticed it because I had zero preload on all of the shocks. I fully compressed that spring a few times and all seems close enough now.

http://i.imgur.com/LiogVLxh.mp4


There's nothing I hate more than doing something over. If I've done it once that is enough for me. That's why I'm so bad at maintaining things, especially RC's. But I decided to suck it up, stop being lazy, and install the upgrades that I forgot to use the first time around during the build.

http://i.imgur.com/kTXa8Bjh.jpg


First up, I am installing SSD's 27T/8T overdrive ring and pinion gears in the front axle.

http://i.imgur.com/gGjMGYeh.jpg


The worst part about this simple swap is removing all the screws for the diff cover and dealing with the grease. I started using rubber gloves when dealing with grease, when I remember, just so I don't get the grease everywhere. It's not that I'm afraid of getting my hands dirty.

I see that it looks like the center, top diff cover screw doesn't even thread into the housing. Interesting. I can probably leave that one in permanently if I remember. I probably won't.

It's always interesting to me to see how much grease gets pushed out by the gears and flung around.

http://i.imgur.com/47yyXKFh.jpg


The OD ring gear bolted up to the locker and sitting next to the new pinion gear.

http://i.imgur.com/8GP0rHYh.jpg


And the new gears installed and lubed up. Never put it in dry. :mrgreen:

http://i.imgur.com/JuiKKHth.jpg


And then I moved onto reassembling the axle and using SSD's uber sexy, shiny, black chrome, brass knuckles. It's hard to photo these and do their looks justice.

Like they often do, SSD includes extra hardware with their upgrades which is a really nice touch.

http://i.imgur.com/cW2jGMbh.jpg


Here are the stock knuckles next to the brass version. I forgot to weigh them and get the increase in heft.

http://i.imgur.com/byNRIbqh.jpg


The brass knuckles, like the stock version, are tapped on both ears which is nice.

I did have a tough time threading these screws in. They are tough to turn so I ran them in once and removed them before installing the links. This isn't uncommon for coating to get on the threads and tighten things up.

http://i.imgur.com/c9V63oOh.jpg


I also had to press hard as hell to get the bearings seated, especially in the knuckle pictured. I ended up using an RC cross wrench to press the bearing into place. It took a lot of force. Again, the bearing seat is too small because of the coating.

You can see the machined in weld running along the top though. Very cool.

http://i.imgur.com/iXZBBPVh.jpg


And here they are installed. They are very tight to turn. Once the brass inserts wear the steering will get easier. The stock knuckles certainly weren't this tight.

These have to be one of my favorite looking aftermarket parts. I love the "black chrome" finish! "thumbsup"

http://i.imgur.com/1jgrJwGh.jpg

Re: Jato the Trail King
 

Here's a photo showing the rear driveshaft installed. That's a beefy and good looking driveshaft. Everything clears fine. There isn't a single interference issue on this truck that I can remember.

http://i.imgur.com/us7zTxVh.jpg


It's difficult to tell from this photo, but there is a lot of clearance up front. The suspension stops when the shocks bottom out now when the axle contacts a hard part. Nice design up here outside of the drag link not allowing the servo to be centered.

Speaking of servo, I ****ing hate this Hitec 7954. I wanted to get away from Savox because they make really noisy stuff, but the Hitec is louder and the buzzing is constant. It's obnoxious and annoying. Is this normal for a Hitec? I swore this brand off once before and I'm about to do it again.

The servo also got up to about 102°F after a few minutes of running in the house which was concerning to me.

http://i.imgur.com/YW8Nylgh.jpg


And here's a close up of an installed shock. There's definitely a lot of side to side movement on the shocks. It's too much for my liking so I may do something about it to fix it.

http://i.imgur.com/AcjoA2zh.jpg