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More weight to keep Night Crawler SE planted

I've never had an issue using marine grease or the TLR grey grease that came with my racing kits. Still using the stock brushed motor?
 
I've never had an issue using marine grease or the TLR grey grease that came with my racing kits. Still using the stock brushed motor?

I did find some DFL at an out of the way auto parts store. I was looking for that because it was recommended in the sticky in the friction sticky on the first page.

Yes, still the stock brushed motor.
 
Stock motor is probably your issue. Ive used one once. Brushed motors in these are never reliable. If you want a good setup.. I recomend the castle mamba micro x crawler sensored esc paired with a trinity 13.5 (of any flavor). The punisher might be the cheapest new. You can also look for used 13.5's from your local racing group if you have one.

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What grease you use in the diffs is not that critical. I use a common synthetic chassis lube found in the small tubes at the auto parts store. I am still using the same worms after 7-years. I would disagree that brushed motors are never reliable. I have been using the same Holmes brushed motor for about 4-years running on 3S. The others guys I crawl with also continue to use brushed motors. My son switched to a brushless sensored motor in his LNC and feels that he had better low speed throttle control with the brushed motor.
 
Stock motor is probably your issue. Ive used one once. Brushed motors in these are never reliable. If you want a good setup.. I recomend the castle mamba micro x crawler sensored esc paired with a trinity 13.5 (of any flavor). The punisher might be the cheapest new. You can also look for used 13.5's from your local racing group if you have one.

Thanks for the recommendation. Upgrading the motor is on the to-do list. I'm hoping for now we can keep the stock electronics while we work to improve traction and climbing. But we'll see. If the stock motor quits than we'll be making updates sooner. :)

What grease you use in the diffs is not that critical. I use a common synthetic chassis lube found in the small tubes at the auto parts store. I am still using the same worms after 7-years. I would disagree that brushed motors are never reliable. I have been using the same Holmes brushed motor for about 4-years running on 3S. The others guys I crawl with also continue to use brushed motors. My son switched to a brushless sensored motor in his LNC and feels that he had better low speed throttle control with the brushed motor.

Per the sticky's recommendations, the DFL is for reducing friction in areas like the driveshafts. I plan to use a high quality synthetic gear grease on the worms when I take the axles apart.

One mod I keep seeing is about drilling a hole in the axles to be able to keep applying grease to worms as needed. What I'm not seeing is what size hole to drill and then what size grub screw to plug it with. Any of you guys know what I'll need to perform this mod?
 
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I used 4-40 set screws about 1/8-in long. A 3/32" drill bit should work fine. I also drilled both sides of the diffs and pump the grease in until clean grease is coming out the other hole. When I was crawling regularly I greased the diffs about every two months. Takes about 15-minutes.
 
Whatever size you have a small set screw in I used a 3 mm set cause that’s what I had. I hit it with a couple pumps every once in a while . I have no set schedule for it basically the more you use the rig the more grease you’ll need to apply. And the grease I just use the cheap stuff I had laying around. Brad-pen bearing grease non synthetic and I use an air tool grease gun to pump it in but a syringe would work too I just don’t have anything like that laying around. Just make sure you put the screw on the top half , if you put it on the bottom it will get all banged up and you’ll never get it out.
 
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Solder works good too . It’s about double the cost of fishing weight lead, but if you can’t find it solder is fine
 
For optimal climbing and stability add a lot of weight to your wheels and lower the CG. Each of my front tires weighs 18 oz. and my rears are 10 oz. each. Where's your battery located? Hopefully not in the tray above the motor. A small battery located on the front lower arms lowers the CG a lot. Ditch the top tray and mount the ESC on top of the rear axle to further lower the CG.
 
Well, my order made it in yesterday. I got a spool each of 1/8" and 3/16" lead weight. Tonight was the first chance I had to work on the car. I didn't know how much to put in each front wheel so I guessed on 3 ounces (6 ounces total). For now, there's none in the rear wheels. I decided not to add weight to the rear only because the car has never tried to endo at the indoor course my son's been driving it at. We'll see how that goes now.

Here's how I did it. The wheels have a center channel in the middle. I simply wrapped the 3/16" lead around the circumference of each wheel until they weighed 3 ounces more, each. Running the lead strands side-by-side resulted in a very tight fit that shouldn't move. Plus, the foam inside the tire should help keep it in place.

Bare wheel with center channel:

:
46772698674_d7270b1591_c.jpg
[/url]LNC Wheel Weight Upgrade by RC Tom, on Flickr[/IMG]

After wrapped with lead weight:

LNC Wheel Weight Upgrade by RC Tom, on Flickr

Each bare wheel weighed .6 ounces. After the lead was added the new weight was 3.7 ounces per wheel as seen here:

33619558008_d518a5f1c9_c.jpg
[/url]LNC Wheel Weight Upgrade by RC Tom, on Flickr[/IMG]

With the Hyrax tires and Losi foams, the total weight for each tire/wheel combo is 7.2 ounces.

46580932815_b39ecf5267_c.jpg
[/url]LNC Wheel Weight Upgrade by RC Tom, on Flickr[/IMG]

I'll let y'all know how it goes after we run tomorrow. The Hyrax tires are waayyyyy stickier than the Super Swampers Losi fitted to the car. Combined with the extra weight up front I'm expecting (hoping for!) a big performance increase. We'll see how long the stock servo can handle turning the heavier rolling stock, too.

Wish us luck! "thumbsup"


How did those Hyrax ended up working for you?

I’m resurrecting my Comp and Night Crawlers and both will need some fresh, sticky rubber.
 
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