His & Hers Duratrax Evaders Builds

Welcome to RCTalk

Come join other RC enthusiasts! You'll be able to discuss, share and private message with other members of our community.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

D3MON

Hardcore RCTalk User
Messages
2,172
Reaction score
974
Location
Missoula MT
RC Driving Style
  1. Bashing
Recently i acquired some Duratrax Nitro Evader BX's off a fellow forum member (if that member wants please feel free to say!) that needed a bit of work.
i had been trying to get my fiance' to run my other nitro rigs, but i couldn't get her to run them with her fear of burning up the engines, or wrecking them. saw these and her first thought was a His & Hers RC buggy because they are about exactly the same, so with these she is willing to run a nitro with me.
she is also pretty new to the RC world and still needing some guidance, so started last night doing a tear down to disassemble and clean them both, i tore down one as she mirrored what i was doing tearing down the other.
sadly forgot to take pictures along the way for the most part.
Both Buggies.jpg
in the box.jpg

flushed and cleaned out both tanks, both were pretty clean and free of residue to begin with, but doesn't hurt to do it anyways. Tested the electronics, receivers are 75MHZ crystal type, and only had 27MHZ crystals, so to test had to swap out receivers off other rigs, planned on getting some 2.4GHZ here soon for them. all servos seemed to work correctly. cleaned the chassis on both, again both were pretty clean but doing a once over with some cleaning rags and soap and water to get that extra bit. engines were both seized tore them apart cleaned with some alcohol, and a old fuel to get them freed up and scrubbed the outside crankcase and heatsink with some soapy water and got them as clean as possible. carbs were both pretty seized, so soaked those as well after removing all the needles, and gaskets/O-rings, and throttle lever assembly, was able to get them both freed up and working smoothly.
one of the engines has pretty weak compression and the other feels like it has really good compression. pull starts all worked as they should, OWB did not seem to slip after cleaning them up. and the clutchbell bearings all rolled amazingly smooth.
on to the transmission, one of the spurs was missing a tooth in two spots, and the other, the brake disk and disk hub assembly were rounded off (these are similar to the RC10gt where it needs an adapter to fit the disk to the hub) knowing the one had damaged spur, i just installed the non broken spur on the one with the non broken disk assembly. (ordered some parts tonight to complete the one that was the donor).
the diffs worked quite smoothly so didnt tear into them completely yet, going to soon though.
shocks that i could tell were not leaking any fluid but to be safe drained and rebuilt them.
tires were pretty bald, the buggies came had an extra set of new pro-line tires, so for now i have ripped off the worst tires from the wheels and for now just have the new tires sitting on the wheels un-glued, (have some new wheels coming in for that one) the other, i ordered a set of ST tires and wheels for as I'm converting one to a stadium truck, (kinda helped that the only spur i could find was for a ST) and ordered some new front wheels, (need to find a set of front tires for an ST now).

was able to run the one with weaker compression, seems to run pretty well though, needles are all out of wack so it kept dying on my, but would start after just a few pulls.
was able to get some video, will try to upload later.
as far as engineering of these, i hate how the pull start is directly under the exhaust header, so when pulling you have to pull at a weird angle to not start dislodging the coupler between the pipe and header.

well thats it for now, having alot of fun teaching the lady as i go on these, and just having a blast getting these back to working. parts should be in on the 1st-4th so should be able to have them both running soon!
will update as progress takes place!
 
It looks like the previous owners got some good use out of them by the looks of the chassy!,,,LOL

I was watching one on E-bay the other day ,but the auction price was getting too high ,they seem
to have a good re-sell value!

I just seen a bunch of new parts for those last night ,but didn't get the sellers name!

Nice collection!...:thumbs-up:
 
I like the Evader platforms a lot. I've had my share of ups, and downs with my electric ST. For some reason, I still get a kick out of running the old beast. I look forward to your new arrivals getting up and running.



Get out there and throw some dirt!
 
It looks like the previous owners got some good use out of them by the looks of the chassy!,,,LOL
Yeah, I never ran them. I got them the way I shipped them. Sorry about the excess tape use! LOL!

Post up the videos of them running when you get a chance. Would like to let the guy at work who gave them to me know they are still out in the world and working!
 
Yeah, I never ran them. I got them the way I shipped them. Sorry about the excess tape use! LOL!

Post up the videos of them running when you get a chance. Would like to let the guy at work who gave them to me know they are still out in the world and working!

So far have only been able to get the one of them running, other is still needing parts.
Started with the orange one.
First fire up after we cleaned it out, took a bit for the fire. (now that it is mostly tuned in right, fires up on 2nd or 3rd pull.)
First actual running around with the Evader, it was having issues at first running wihtout the glow igniter in until it warmed up. (have since swapped the plug to a new one and doesn't seem to do it as bad)
slowly getting the engine tuned in, thing is fast! wheels were coming unglued i know, waiting on new buggy wheels to glue the new tires on.
Second video i was able to take from today, first one was all sideways.
was the ladies first time running the buggy, was able to run it out of gas on her first tank! nothing broke!
then we got home, and i was trying to run it around the street and broke a hub carrier of course, kind of have it band-aided as it only broke the mount hole closest to the chassis on the carrier so was able to use the further out holes.. have new ones ordered in though.

these things are so much fun to run around! she is loving it.
 
i do apologize i am pretty new to the whole Youtube thing, need to learn it better, make compilations etc. for now it works though i guess
 
Lol....It is awesome to see Duratrax's still hanging around for years ,they have always been a good low budget
quality name brand that out lasted others an even hung with the biggest!

Great vids ,nothing like raw footage!....:thumbs-up:
 
Lol....It is awesome to see Duratrax's still hanging around for years ,they have always been a good low budget
quality name brand that out lasted others an even hung with the biggest!

Great vids ,nothing like raw footage!....:thumbs-up:
Thanks man! i had always wanted an evader, when my and my brother were both getting into rc, i wanted the evader, he wanted the rustler. want to find that green splash body from the electric evader though. dont know why i always liked that one so much.

anyways, she works today so probably not going to be able to run it. want to try to get some actually bashing around footage with it.
 
Was able to tear into the yellow evader a bit more, the diff was not feeling very smooth so decided to try correcting that, did not know these had ball diffs, had never really experienced them either, cleaned it out a bit and added new grease, I'm really glad that the manual is pretty in depth about them, so was able to get it adjusted correctly, I think initially it was just a little tight.
Was at the hobby shop and was able to snag their last air cleaner assembly as this one it was missing.
Got a new battery pack, for now just using 4 AAs, eventually will get true battery packs, still need to get a rx/tx combo before I can test it out. Planning on a flysky gt3b and getting receivers for all of my rigs, the lady is quite fond of the tactic system that was stock on the granite so going to give her mine when I get the new setup.
The fuel tank was cracked so am going to try to seal it up, anyone know if CA glue is resistant to nitro? If not any recommendations? Eventually going to get a new tank anyway, but kinda maxed the rc budget for now getting everything else the truck needed.
From what I am reading the evader was a clone of the losi XXT and components like a arms and bulkheads are compatible, have not been able to confirm for sure if this is the case, might need to bring it to the lhs and see if they have any parts that I can check.
 
They look like the same layout as the AE. Gt's ,but should be able to out fit any tank to that ,the traxxas an losi's
had a funky tank design ,tanks in them are in a frame on the chassy!

I was not too long ago ,that they were still being produced ,should be able to find an original tank!
 
They look like the same layout as the AE. Gt's ,but should be able to out fit any tank to that ,the traxxas an losi's
had a funky tank design ,tanks in them are in a frame on the chassy!

I was not too long ago ,that they were still being produced ,should be able to find an original tank!
yes they are very similar, looks like the borrowed from both when they built these.

i have found a few of the stock ones online, might just go that route, not a whole lot of room to play with sadly so aftermarket ones are going to be a bit of trial and error.

kind of a strange layout (imo anyways) with these things though, the battery connection harness runs underneath the crankcase of the engine right behind the flywheel, the brake linkage at mid brake hits the shock spring, i flipped the shock mount standoffs to help with the linkage problem, but also at factory location they rub the camber links. it was doing that on both of them so that is leading me to believe it is not something bent.
just a few quick little mods and everything seems to clear, blows me away how planted and smooth these feel, can't wait for Saturday when the parts come in for the second one!!!
 
I had a few photo's of them before I sent them off. May help others source alternative parts for you.
2018-1010-DuratraxNitroEvaderBX-fromDY-E2E-Top.jpg

2018-1010-DuratraxNitroEvaderBX-fromDY.jpg

2018-1010-DuratraxNitroEvaderBX-fromDY-E2E-PipeSide.jpg
Thanks! keep forgetting to take many pictures of my own for them, i start looking at them and find another area i want to dive into and check out so i forget to take pics.
will try to get some pics here soon, have to say they were about the cleanest I've ever seen a used rc except for when i do a deep clean on mine, but usually run it right after and get it dirty again lol.
 
nice! awesome to see old rigs getting resurrected.
 
Back
Top