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Well, we’ve had a bit of time to mount up our Raptor axles and run ‘em in the rocks. We used a NN chassis from the The Crawler Store to try them out.
We also ran across Rick Hargrove running a set of Raptors at a local RC competition so snapped a few shots to show you here. Rick was running 6 tooth pinions to get the gear ratio as low as possible and had added an aluminum skid plate under the gearbox to smooth the approach angle a bit. |
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We’ll give you a quick rundown on what we liked and didn’t.
THUMBS UP:
- Overall beefy design with aluminum gearbox, axle tubes, and knuckles
- Full bearings and stainless hardware included
- Straight axle shaft (“locked”)
- Easy pinion setup with the large, clear window
- Strong servo mount that doesn’t flex under heavy load conditions
Beefy steering rods included |
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POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS:
- Overall gearing could be lower for hard core crawling
- Would like axle c-clips to retain bearings when wheels are removed
- Motor end of gearbox could be ramped for clearance (see figure)
- Servo brackets could be changed to provide greater ground clearance
- Excessive endplay in the axle stub/bearing assembly could be reduced
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Again, we like the Raptor axles as a possible alternative to modified Clod gearboxes. We’ve had a chance to fully assemble and do a little playing with these gearboxes. You can read our comments and see if they might be the axles for you. We have to hand it to RC4WD for stepping to the plate and offering this alternative for Clod crawlers and look forward to their future products as well.
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