Redcat dogbone pins breaking

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pipeous

pipeous

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Hi guys. I just wanted to toss some stuff out here as I have been tinkering and such, and toss out some of the things I have done to address this issue.

I have now broken and replaced 4 pins in my dogbones on only 2 tanks of fuel. Last time out only 1/2 a pin broke and I never lost the driveline.

First attempts as suggested were to put heat shrink around the outdrives because they were falling out? Well the only thing I see about them falling out is breaking enough to let them out. These pins don't punch out easy. I just put nylon tubing, cut in half, over the outdrive slots for pins then heat shrinked over that.

For the front, I cut some stainless tubing in half and put over the slots before heat shrink.... oh and I have never broken a center drive pin yet....

ok last time out, the pin that broke was right rear, closest to the dif. I use my creeper stool (it pivots) and toss the beast on and start looking things over and spinning the wheels and hey... every once in a while the pins are sticking in the outdrives.

Last night I remove all the mounts and wing mount and move the shocks in one hole.... seemed to help quite a bit but the mounts got fouled by the shock bolt.... ok so the suspension is actually downtravelling too far slamming on the underside of the shock piston every time at full extensionbecause there is no droop screw in the arms or even upper arms like the FG setup.

I decided to move the shocks back to the original mounting position and have now added 10mm of fuel tubing both inside the shock on the shaft, just under the piston, and on the outside as well, to help with bottoming out a bit.

This stops the piston from hitting the bottom and even cushions it a bit, and shortens the down travel a tad. At least it should stop or at least reduce the dogbone pin breakage, and maybe even save a shock body or shaft as well.

I hope Redcat sees this and adds a droop screw point for the next edition being released. Even just a small outcrop off the chassis and setscrewin the arm would be nice.
 
I appreciate that. I have just gone through the beast and cleaned the bearings, done the shocks etc and the drivetrain spins so nice and free now. We are hitting the track tomorrow to burn a couple tanks, so I'll report back how things go. I was surprised to find dif lock in the difs and not grease.

I also think they need to release a stadium truck version. I am running the truck body with buggy tires and dropped the body down. It looks sweet like this. I'll take a couple pics before we run at the track tomorrow and try to get some vids. I took a vid or 2 with my cel but it sucks and the my mic is screwy (I have to use a bluetooth headset or customers can't hear me). I'll remember to bring the camera (going to toss it in the pit box when I post this hehe)

I also noticed the washer under the piston had alleady worn a groove
 
The 10mm limiters solved the dogbone pins problem. I ran at the track today. It was raining a bit so traction was good and mucky in places.... I tossed the truck around the track and I tuned the motor up some and got some performance.... all was going well until I decided to try the triple on the big camel jump... back wheels caught the lip and busted a shock shaft at the threads.... I was goingto toss the phatdad shafts on anyway.... but not a single pin broke and I seriously threw the truck around 4 wheel drifts, traction rolls lol what a blast.... I took a pic when I got home of the muddy truck.... I just have to upload the pics
 
Well i just saw Rob at Vancouver Hobbies and picked up a few items. Got a full set of the Phatdad shock shafts for front and rear. They look really nice. It was suggested to file down the area above the groove where the c clip goes to put a washer on or get Baja hd ones. I understand the c clips have been bent, but I would imagine that was from slamming the bottom of the shock body on full extension (after seeing what the washer had done to the bottom of the piston I understand). I believe the 10mm of fuel tubing should clear that problem up. I am going to install them as is with the fuel tubing and see how it goes. At worst, I have lots of c clips until I machine one down. I just hope I can get the broken chunk out of the shock end ;)

also stocked up on some arms, knuckles and c hubs just in case. I am going to boil them all and stuff in the pit box.

Next mission is to get some of that ugly orange anno stuff, strip the anno and polsih the aluminum and do some pics to show how easy the stuff comes off.
 
I installed the first phatdad shock shaft and I found something odd. The threaded part at the top of the shaft is larger than the stock shaft. I had to basically thread the shock piston on, then luckily I had some 5mm locknuts as the stock ones don't fit these shafts.

i just wanted to toss that out just in case someone else decided to get the shafts and find they don't have the right sized locknut laying around to finish the job.

they look surprisingly the exact same color as xray's hudy steel
 
As I was putting the second shock together I also noticed that the phatdad shafts are 5mm shorter than the stock shafts... I am doing the rears right now. so in theory, 5mm of fuel tubing would fix the droop problem, but I am going to go with 10mm still.
 
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