Nother X Crawler on the scene...

[FairTax4me]

Got this thing on sale at my LHS for $260 out the door. I had been looking at an Ax10 before but for 30 bucks extra I figured I might as well get the bigger aluminum one and be happy. I got the Yellow box, so HOPEfully I won't be on here griping about broken axles and stripped out gears. I do see some other flaws with this thing right of the bat though.

The ball ends just seem kinda cheap to me. It's all... rattly? Gonna order a few from RC4wd and see how those are. If I find some I like all the stockers are goin in the trash.

The screws. They're bent, and they're still in the bag! What the hell? Excuse me for thinking I should be able to hand thread a brand new screw into a brand new machined aluminum axle! Hardened steel is on the upgrade list for sure.

I'm also wondering why the wheels turn when the axles articulate further than about 70°?

Love the wheels, but why the hell make them a size that nobody makes a real crawler tire for? I cant seem to find one anyway. Might be trying some Losi Kingpins if these stockers don't work out.

The transmission housing hits the center links if you set the shocks lower so it's closer to the ground. Still brainstorming that fix. I'd hate to, but I might put a bend in the center links to bring them up a bit. Or drill and tap a hole to mount them back at the rear of the housing, and run shorter links.

I think I'll come up with a few more things to gripe about but, but all in all I think I'll have a lot of fun with this thing, despite it's obvious shortcomings. $400 worth of electronics on the way this week. Hopefully I'll have it in driveable shape by the weekend so I can hit the rocks.

[crazyorigin]

I agree the X-Crawler ARTR could have a little bit better hardware out of the box. I was glad to get the yellow truck on my box as well. My bolts didnt thread in by hand either, and they are all diffrent lengths =P The main thing i dont like is the plastic bushings behind the links in between the chassis, i will be machining some new ones out of aluminum soon. I also plan to adress the shock mounts on the linkage issue. I think the main wobble issue in the links you notice is mainly die to them having the shocks mounted to them, if the shocks were mounted to the axles there would be no real twisting force on them. I plan to either figure out how to mount the shocks to the axles, or make some plastic sliders to go on the bottom of the lower link bars that will go over the adjustable lower shock mounts so there isnt a big square block to hang on obstacles. I hear the stock tires perform very well, the manual says MAXX size tires will fit the rims, but to me they dont look like they will fit.

Good luck with your X-Crawler build, post up pics as you go if you can, i'de love to see them. I plan on posting up pics of my progress when i can finaly make some =P

[FairTax4me]

I left the shocks out of the first post. They kinda suck. Nice idea to thread them the whole way but they make a ton of noise when they're compressed because the springs drag on the threads. Probably gonna get some that are longer with internal springs. I don't mind them being mounted on the links so much but I will probably be brainstorming a better way to do it.

Yeah I'm not sure about the Maxx tires either. I help up a T-Maxx wheel next to it at the LHS and the XTM wheels are larger diameter. It may be just the beadlock rings, but I'll take one apart and find out the exact size.

I did get the body painted up and mounted today. Looks awesome except for the grille that I hand painted. I may try it again later on. Apparently Pactra makes a paint thinner spcifically for lexan bodies that wont hurt the plastic. I'll try to post some pics later. Getting a thunderstorm right now so I need to kill the computer for the time being.

[FairTax4me]

I see a few people, myself included, are currently building, or have recently built, an XTM crawling vehicle in some way, shape, or form. I thought it might be nice to have a thread dedicated to the progress of past, current, and future builds. If there's already one, my bad, I skimmed through 10 or so pages and found nothing except the pics gallery, but that seems to only be finished product, rather than work in progress.

If you've got a build, post it up. Pics are a plus.

[FairTax4me]

Here's my X-Crawler.

Right now it has a Parma 72 Chevy Truck body. Pactra True Blue Pearl with Indy Silver for the bed topper.
Gonna run Airtronics 94780M servos, CC bec, Spektrum Sr300 receiver, Tekin FX-R esc, Tekin Pro 55T motors, 8 EnerG 4600 nimh cells mounted to the axles.
Upgrades will include hardened steel screws, possibly RC4wd heim joint ball ends, diamond plate aluminum bumper/skid plates front and rear, and much more as I go along.

Pics...

[crazyorigin]

Sweet C10 body, i realy like it. I will hopefully get my stock body painted and installed this weekend, pics will be posted for sure. I am torn on my next body, i realy want to do a Bus, but have been thinking i may switch to a Sammi body.

[John82601]

I mounted Lost Claw MT's on the stock wheels no problems. Stock Maxx size, 3.2". I really like the Claw MT's (with the hollow lugs) and also want to try the Imex Rubicon. They're about the only other 7" tall tire I can think of that will fit these rims.

[FairTax4me]

Yeah I took the front bead lock off and measure the inner diameter of the rim. It's 85mm, or roughly 3 5/16". I imagine any 83 - 87mm tire SHOULD fit with a little work.

I was thinking about picking up a set of the Rubicons as well but heard they aren't that great. They might do fine under a heavy rig like this though. Apparently Losi Super Kingpins do a great job on the rocks, so I think I'll pick up a set of those as well at some point and see what they'll do.

I put some pics up in the Build thread I started. Hopefully some other people will jump in and post their builds as well.

[FairTax4me]

Thanks. I'm not sure if I'll run this one or not. It may find a place next to my 68 Camaro body that I painted and then decided it was too nice to run. I didn't like the look of the stock body at all. There was a garbage truck body at the LHS that I thought about getting but it was too wide for the body posts. I might still get it if no one else buys it.

[FairTax4me]

Well I ran it for the first time this past sunday. Im pretty impressed. Although Im not to happy with the way the day ended. It fell from a 4 foot cliff (end over end) and bent every one of the screws holding the links to the sideplaes, every one of the screws holding the shocks to the upper mounts, AND bent the sideplate out about 5° where the outer link bolts to it on one corner. Also stripped the teeth out of the servo arm.
So today it got new shorter stainless screws, a little hammering to get the sideplate back in place, ditched the lower chassis plate, moved the lower cross braces out and screwed the outer links directly into those. Stainless screws for the shocks, and used a shorter spacer (actually a locknut) to bring the shocks a little closer to the frame. replaced the servo arm with an aluminum one from Ofna that uses plastic adapter inserts that are easily replaceable if/when it strips out next time. I'll get some pics up tomorrow sometime.

[evlwevl]

Sorry to hear about your fall, hopefully you can get that fixed up and get it back out there sooner than later. One of the benefits of owning a heavy Super sized crawler is sticking to the rocks better, but we pay for it when they fall or tumble down a ledge. The shear weight and length of suspension links are going to do some damage for sure. I cant imagine what would happen if I cartwheeled mine off a rocky hill. I can bet we're going to end up with a pile of mangled and bent aluminum as where a lighter plastic 2.2 crawler might escape with a few scratches and broken servo arm or two.

When I used to run my very heavy all aluminum T-Maxx, every jump had to land perfect. The most slightest bad landing would always end up in bent shock shafts, axles and bent screws, definitely counter productive to the very reason I went aluminum in the first place.

[FairTax4me]

Yeah thats the downside to aluminum. It doesn't flex.

I haven't updated in a while. So here goes.

Wish I had gotten some pics of the build process, but oh well.
The new body, its also been lowered, a lot.

The mouse nest... Gonna clean this up once I get the FXR to put in it.

The bent sideplate. I bent it back as best I could, not worth replacing it just yet.

The shorter screws, and the servo arm (red was the only color they had).


The undercarriage. The battery is just temporary. I have the 8 cells which I had planned to mount on the axles, but they don't do me much good with the Rooster ESC, since it can only do 7. Gonna mount those when I get the FXR as well.

And it's still got that flex, though not quite as much now.


So far... I don't like the ESC or the motors. The ESC just isn't as smooth as I would like it to be when it starts. It's either that or my radio, but I don't have as much trouble starting smooth with my velineon brushless Rustler as I do with this thing. So I'm still leaning towards the ESC. I'll find out when my FXR gets here.
The motors make a ton of noise. I figured it might go away once they got broken in some. Nope, they have over 3 hours run time (which should be plenty) and they still click their little black cans off when they're running. What did I expect for $20 though right?
The drive train on this thing has a TON of play. I can roll the whole thing back and forth about an inch and a half before the gears turn far enough to catch and the wheels stop. I know some play is normal, but this seems excessive to me.
The stock tires have actually kinda surprised me. They're still not as grippy as I would like, but they do much better than I thought they would,
And the shocks are leaking like seives. I'm not sure how much difference they're actually making though. Maybe I'll be able to tell when I get some decent ones put on it.

[outofreach]

Looks like its coming along great

Did you add weight to the tires? What kind of servo horn did you go with?
Also interested to hear how your performance changes with the new esc as i'm running the novak right now as well.

I have some sideplates if you want them just PM me your address and i'll sent them off.

[FairTax4me]

No weight in the tires. Does it even need any? I swear it weighs half as much with the wheels off.
The servo horn is an Ofna 3/4". I just ordered 2 in blue from Amainhobbies last night so they'll match. They also have a set of replacement adapters that's cheap so you can just replace the adapter it if/when strips out. There has to be a weak point somewhere in the steering system. I figure why not make it the absolute cheapest and easiest part to replace?
http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...oducts_id/2968
http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...oducts_id/3659

Not sure that I really need a new sideplate right now. Im still tinkering with the idea of lengthening the frame a bit to mount the shocks out further. If I do that I'll have a metal shop nearby make a few custom for me. How much would you want for them though?