maisto rock crawler mods!!!!

[rik]

this is very cool. nothing like turning a toy grade rc into a hobby grade rc. nice work so far.

[johnnyh66]

Originally Posted by MotoMente

Any ideas on how to permanently lock the pinion on the motor shaft? I don't want to replace the motor, although I might be willing to spend a few bucks on a new pinion if there's a locking one that would fit, no idea of the shaft size but I doubt it's comparable to anything hobby-grade.

I'm not familiar with this truck but I bet you can find a pinion with set screw that will fit over shaft. Then just grind a flat spot on the shaft and tighten down the pinion.

Do you have a mm ruler?

[MotoMente]

Couldn't find my MM ruler and had a little time over the weekend (but not enough to run over to the hobby shop), so I got a little impatient and swapped the rear motor from the Rock Crawler with the smoked control board and... yep, smoked the board on the working one Guess there was something wrong with the motor.

So, unless I can dig up a really cheap radio, receiver, and ESC (I assume there's no way to re-use the stock radio with any hobby-grade stuff), I'm probably just going to bite the bullet and pick up something like an HPI Mini Recon. I figure even a low-end hobby-grade truck is going to be more fun than the toy Rock Crawler (although it was fun while it lasted!)

[JLF]

I just bought one of these today since Target is practically giving them away.

For some reason, even though I have a super crawler and a comp 1.9 rig... I have this crazy idea to see how far I can take this little critter with all of the extras I have laying around.

Do any of you modders have any additional build in progress photos? I havent opened mine up yet. I so far have only removed the front and rear axle protectors to give a slight incline advantage, practically nil, but hey; it also shaved 16g of weight! Ha!

I appreciate anything you guys can put up!

[offroader634]

Hi,

I have just bought a maisto tech rock crawler that is without transmitter and receiver. Whilst I am fixing it I have decided to upgrade it. I'm pretty new to this stuff, wondering if anyone could help by giving me some advice on what to upgrade, maybe a few part numbers?


Thanks,
Alex

[Soundbyte502]

I bought a Maisto Rock Crawler on sale for $22. Put in a 9.6v and burned up the controls and rear motor within a week. I decided to go all out crazy with it. I bought another none working Maisto off of eBay for $7 just to pull the front steering axle. I rebuilt both front axles with 180 motors and SG90 servos for steering. One cheap Chinese ESC, 7.2v battery (removed 2 cells from a 9.6v), and a HobbyLink RC3S later and I've got a great little crawler. 4 wheel steering from RC3S channel 3, variable rate so I can swing it either direction. I also made custom double wide wheels for some old toy grade monsters truck tires I had lying around. I filed of the dimples off the ouside of the four front wheels, cut about 3/8 from the back of the center of the rear wheels, drilled out the center about 3/8 (enough to remove the hex and round the opening), and glued the rear wheel onto the front wheel. The screw goes all the way through the outside (rear) wheel and holds the inside (front) wheel on as normal. I can also run two standard Maisto tires on each wheel for a dually look.