Cooling your Trx-4
 

I noticed yesterday while running my Trx-4 yesterday in 90° weather it was getting pretty hot. I had only been running for about 30 mins when I noticed a smell. Picked the truck up & everything was hot. Stuck my nose to it to find the smell was coming from the motor. I immediately shut it down & took it to the air conditioned house. Later on in the day I took it out back & ran it for another 30 mins. Everything was hot not as hot as before, but no smell coming from the motor. I am running a 1080 esc, stock motor & power hd servo @ 6v. Any suggestions for keeping my electronics cool without breaking the bank? Also would like to stay waterproof for those days you gotta run through a creek or mud hole somewhere. Thanks in advance for any advise!

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

Do you have a smaller pinion you could try? Gearing down usually helps everything run cooler.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

Are you sure the heat is coming from the motor?

Did you add heavy wheels or any other weight?

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

I don't have any other pinions. I really don't want to loose my top speed. The wife likes to run around in high gear. She's not big into crawling. Would I notice a big change by changing the pinion? As for added weight I haven't changed anything. If anything dropped a few grams. It's the first time I've had any issues with temperature since I've owned the rig

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

That's odd and it leads me to believe something has changed or you're in a place where it's scorching hot.

I'd go through the truck and inspect and lube everything before making any changes. Also make sure your gear mesh seems OK. I'm not a huge fan of plastic mounts that set gear mesh. They can walk and I experienced that phenomenon when I had the motor out of my TRX-4. When I reinstalled it the truck was loud has heck.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

It was definitely hot yesterday. over 90 degrees. I looked like a drown rat when I came out of the woods just from sweat. I posted a video its in my build thread & on the video section. My gear mesh is loud. you can hear it in the video. It was silent before the first time I went through with some preventative maintenance. I haven't been able to get the adjustment to where it was quite again. Looking at the gears looks to be pretty close. I have mine between the C & D slot on the stock mount. Maybe the stuff that got tangled behind the wheels had more drag then I thought.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

Binding - With everything off and the diffs unlocked pick up the truck and manually spin the wheels. Do they spin freely? Does the wheel on the side of the same axle spin in the opposite direction?
If you say some debris got tangled in the wheels that could add more work for your motor.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

Along with all that's been mentioned... wondering if there might be some debris, mud, etc inside the motor. Might be worth flushing it out. My buddy's Titan 12t 550 was caked with mud and it stunk like crap. It was also pretty hot to the touch. He cleaned it out and it's seemingly been fine ever since. If I'm not mistaken, ambient air temp of 90 deg isn't that hot for a 21t 550.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

Both axles spin free and in opposite directions. No binding there. I removed all debris as soon I got in the house. There were allot of vines out where I was running. How do I go about seeing if anything is in the motor & flushing it out?

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

My bud used WD40. I'm not at all suggesting that that's the way to go about it though. It's just the way that he did it. He also used an air compressor after the WD40. Again... that might not be the safest or correct way so I'm not advising that particular method. I've read online everything from water, to electrical contact cleaner, to electrical parts de-greaser. I'm not sure if recommended maintenance with brushed is the same as brushless either. Maybe someone else will chime in on this.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

Compressed air then motor spray then compressed air again. Solvents will attack insulation.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

Your motor could be giving up on you. Usually anytime I notice a sudden change that's not the result of something I did, I look for something that's failing. I recently changed the motor in my son's Slash and everything mechanically was ok but it ran a little slower and the motor was hot hot hot! A clean and lube got a few more runs out of it but eventually it gave up its smoke.



A nice blast of electric motor cleaner and a shot of compressed air should do the trick for cleaning out any gunk. After you're done cleaning it, add a drop or two of light machine oil to the bushings and brushes. Any oil such as 3-in-1 oil, marvel mystery oil or some electric motor oil would be fine. I really don't recommend using WD40 for anything on an rc. WD40 is more of a solvent than it is a lubricant and won't last much more than a few minutes.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

If your gear mesh is loud, that tells me it's too tight. I would pull the motor out and roll the truck and make sure it spins freely. Then turn the pinion by hand and see how the motor feels, if the motor feels fine then I'd check and see if there is any dirt or debris in the slot that the motor plate fits into. If there is gunk in the motor plate slot that can cause a misalignment. You stated that you had it apart once for maintenance / cleaning.

Not quite sure what you mean when you say you have the motor mounted between the C & D slot, did you modify the motor plate at all ?
***I went back and had another look through your thread, post #56. I'm betting the motor has moved causing a mesh issue.

Where I would start is possibly picking up a stock motor mount and spur gear cover # 8290 for $3 and see if the noise goes away and temps come back down. Then since you'll have a spare spur gear cover you could drill a hole in the front of it so you can get a look at the actual mesh of the spur and pinion and try both C & D positions.

Let us know what you find out.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

I Used my dremel to cut the area between holes c & d for more adjustment. I will tinker with it this weekend. Probably Go ahead & drill a inspection hole in the gear cover & get that mesh right. Just cover it with some gorilla black tape till I can get a new one. I'll keep you guys in the loop. Thanks for all the help! Have a great day!

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

You shouldn't have to do that modification. I still think something else is amiss.

Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

Once I can get some tinker time I'll play around with it & let you know what I find. Wife, kids & work get my time first. Tinker time is dangerous for me. I get in the garage for what feels like 5 mins, but really 3 hours have gone by. Nothing like walking in the garage at 10pm. Then at 1:30am realizing what time it is & how long you've actually been screwing around. Got to love it! Use to do that when I built muscle cars & mud trucks. Whole day would go by before I knew it. No kids or wife back in those days

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Re: Cooling your Trx-4
 

Pulled the motor out of my rig. Hit it with some compressed air. A few grains of sand came out. That was it. Looking at the motor mount plate & mesh. It moved down (probably due to some good falls) towards the C mount hole making the mesh too tight & noisy. I moved it back up almost completely in the D mount hole. Now she's quite again & the mesh looks to be prefect. Will definitely be looking into a different motor mount. Had the wife's cousin (16yr old) over for a bit yesterday. Think I might have got him hooked. He was very disappointed when the battery was out of juice. We ran it for about an hour & a half yesterday. Everything was a little hot but nothing too serious. Pretty sure my issue was plant material behind the wheels causing drag mixed with the mesh being too tight. Thank you guys for all your help & expertise!