Quality issues? Or a bad hit to the gut...

[nitrohobbiest]

I just picked up a very clean XT. It looked great and was missing a front dogbone to the wheel and the engine didn't run(that was fixed within 2 hours with a brand new 29.5 mill from Dog Pile Racing out by me). I took possession of it for $350 with 2 great bodies and a Dominator pipe. I get it home, wire in my Spektrum Rx and fiddle with the servos only to watch the steering servo smoke right up in front of me and discover that the throttle servo was internally stripped. While in disgust, I notice that the all metal gearing is crooked to one another. Under closer examination, I see the gear mounting plate is in two pieces. Great. Another part to replace. I ordered all of these parts and sprung for the aluminum one for $65. Is that plate prone to breaking, or did it take a good hit for it to have snapped like that? The truck looks lightly used as the tires are in great shape and very few underside scratches.


If there are any other tips you would like to throw at me, I'm all ears. As it is, I may be fabbing up part of the rear roll cage to accommodate the Dominator pipe I bought with it. It looks like it fits the MT fine but hits the roll cage on mine. Thanks all

 

[rob64n]

yeah it takes a decent hit to break the gear plate, as for dogbones get some red loctite,lol. dom pipe they are made for the mt, i'm not sure how guys are mounting them since the xt sides are not aluminum, so you're kinda letting the pipe hang off the head which isn't good. JETPRO makes an awesome side pipe for it.

 

[nitrohobbiest]

yeah it takes a decent hit to break the gear plate, as for dogbones get some red loctite,lol. dom pipe they are made for the mt, i'm not sure how guys are mounting them since the xt sides are not aluminum, so you're kinda letting the pipe hang off the head which isn't good. JETPRO makes an awesome side pipe for it.

I've got the pipe thing under control. I have it mounted as if it were an MT but I will just make up some new hangers to mount to the flat part of the chassis. The roll cage will need to be fabbed up on the one side as well but that stuff is easy to deal with.

I did get my new plate today and I opted for the aluminum one despite the extra cost. I'm not interested in taking any more chances and hopefully the fit will be that much better. I yanked all the bearings last night, bake cleaned and blew them out. Now they are soaking in my special lube brew, . I also picked up a new gear cove which was also missing, new dogbones, and a Hitec HS 805BB for the steering. The old one (2010 cheapy) fried before my eyes so that was a given that it needs a replacement. Hopefully I will have most of that back up and running tonight. i'm waiting for the kids to head off to bed so I can play in the garage!

 

[nitrohobbiest]

Well, my parts came in but naturally there were issues. The nice aluminum plate uses oversized bearings which I did not know about so I ordered those. More waiting. The dogbones, even though they say front/rear, they are only for the rear. My truck runs CVD's and I didn't see the cvd end because its buried in the steering knuckle. But the servo fits well although it doesn't center well. I have to decide if its an issue with my RX or the new servo is crap. Uhg.

 

[nitrohobbiest]

OK. Here's a huge update... I seriously only ran a tank and a half since my last post. I have had one issue after another with this truck. I am sadly patient though. I've had several drive cup grub screws loosen up several times to the point that I removed every one, replaced any that were slightly suspect, thoroughly cleaned them, and then installed them with RED Locktite and waited a couple days before I drove it again. This actually worked finally. I also fabbed up a nice tube bracket for my DDM pipe, along with a new tube rollcage from the engine back to the shock tower. I got my oversized bearings for my new gear plate. All of that is working great now. My 2 biggest hiccups were my steering servos and my drive gears. My original Hitec 805 has been to the repair center TWICE only to come back as a new replacement just a couple days ago! Yes, its been that long. While I waited for Hitec, I broke down and tried a Futaba 3306. While it does an OK job cranking the wheels, the nylon gears stripped within the first 5 minutes of driving. So I replaced the gears only to have that same servo burn out 30 minutes later. Yup, it won't turn at all.

My issue with the gears was that the steel gears I had meshed so tightly with that aluminum gear plate, I had to actually grind each and every tooth on two gears to allow them to sink deeper into each other. This was a semi-pain staking process using my Dremel and two thin grinding disks stacked on the arbor for a proper tooth thickness profile. I ground between each tooth and beveled them to a candy corn shape for the smoothest gear mesh that I could obtain by hand. This worked extremely well but I don't look forward to doing that again if I ever replace a gear!

So, needless to say, my driving experience has been short lived but my tooling experience has been majorly polished. My one upgrade which I am loving so far were a set of HPI wheel adapters from RampageHopups and a set of Pro-Line Split Six wheels with Trencher Tires. It doesn't look great on a monster truck but they work well on the track. This week, I plan to install, yet again, my new Hitec 805BB and pray to the gods that this one functions like a normal servo so I can finish breaking in this new engine.

If any of you have fallen victim to any of these issues, please chime in so I know that I'm not alone. I see true potential in this truck but have yet to really enjoy it!

 

[rcgasser]

As far as the gear plate I am wondering if you received the right gear plate because the aluminium gear plate that I have on my XT use the same bearing and the mesh is exactly the same on the plastic gear plate. I really do believe you have the wrong gear plate. Redcat has been out of the upgraded gear plate for a long time for the XT maybe you have an MT/TT/DR plate.

 

[Deluge]

Aren't the gear plates interchangeable? Also, I don't know of anyone who has had to change out steering servos that frequently. There has to be something else going on. Check your EPA and make sure it's set properly. Any binding in the steering assembly will put a lot of stress on the servo.

 

[Obeast44]

As far as the gear plate I am wondering if you received the right gear plate because the aluminium gear plate that I have on my XT use the same bearing and the mesh is exactly the same on the plastic gear plate. I really do believe you have the wrong gear plate. Redcat has been out of the upgraded gear plate for a long time for the XT maybe you have an MT/TT/DR plate.

They are interchangeable. The TT/MT/Dunerunner gear plate uses larger bearings is all.

 

[nitrohobbiest]

They are interchangeable. The TT/MT/Dunerunner gear plate uses larger bearings is all.

I'm guessing I have the MT plate but its so dang close to the old. plastic one, that I can't believe they would make such a slight alteration like that. Aside from the larger bearings, which maybe the MT uses from stock, it fits the chassis and everything that bolts to it perfectly. But then again, not sure why I had gear issues. I do know there is a Top Dog Gears sticker on the truck. I don't know if they are good or even if that is the gears I have, but its a start in the investigation I suppose.

As for servos, my original Hitec was faulty even when not hooked up to the linkage. I did check for binding and it moves easily by hand and I also shot it with lube at every pivot point just to make sure. The Futaba servo did pretty good and I think it stripped early from the track conditions. But when it burned out, I was running through tall grass a bunch. Still not sure this is the cause but then again, its a $45 servo with a claimed 300+ inch pounds of torque. I'm guessing there is give and take with the quality to keep the price down. Most other servos with high torque ratings are up over $100. But if I burn out another servo, it will be back to square one with a complete tear down. But for now it really seems fine, especially compared to my smaller trucks.

What servos do you guys run and how do they perform? I should mention I switched to a LiFe pack to up my available voltage from the stock pack, but that didn't help much.

 

[brio]

I bought a hitec 805MG (metal gear) giant scale servo for steering and so far its working great. I ran about 2 tanks thru with it. I'm sill running the giant wide tires that come on the stock XT and it turns them pretty good when the truck is moving. They only turn slightly when at a stand still which is understandable cuz those tires are huge & heavy. The 805bb is nylon gears, I'd personally stick to metal gear servos for durability

 

[nitrohobbiest]

The 805bb is nylon gears, I'd personally stick to metal gear servos for durability

Actually, that servo is on my list whenever my BB one fails for good. You can't go into this scale of hobby with a low budget, LOL.