Mini MGT Revival

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D3MON

Hardcore RCTalk User
Messages
2,172
Reaction score
974
Location
Missoula MT
RC Driving Style
  1. Bashing
been awhile since i had posted what i was working on and now that the truck is almost done figured now would be the time to post. will add pictures when i get them on my PC.
The Start-
after i got the evaders up and running and had the fiance learning the ins and outs with it she was wanting a Nitro MT to run with my MGT and LST, and wanted a 4wd as most of the places we go to bash are really loose and hard to control 2wd on.
After a bit of perusing ebay, we found an AE MGT 3.0 for sale for a price that was too hard to pass up on.
the truck was pretty rough, front diff case shock tower mounts were broken and held together with a Zip Tie, slight crack in the chassis, bearings were toast, much of the 2-speed assembly was missing/removed/modified as the previous owner had home fab'd up a electric conversion out of some sort of construction joist brace, strange forward only lockout was drilled into the top of the transmission. it did come with some Traxxas Big Bore shocks though so was happy about that.

The Assesment and Parts -
first day we got it went over the truck cleaning it up, getting all the mud off, assessing what was broken or needing replaced. after quite a bit of searching, slowly started buying parts necessary (finding the parts was 3/4 of the battle.) managed to find most of the parts off ebay including 90% of the 2 speed assembly, but could not find diff cases and shock towers, so ended up finding them for really cheap through integy and went ahead and got those. for some reason it was near impossible to find spur gears aside from a set in Germany but was having a hard time coming to terms with spending 30$ or so for shipping. ended up finding 2 pairs at Thobbies.com (guy was super helpfull, even went out and pulled the parts to confirm they had them in stock.) i did end up having to purchase the clutchbell from the ebay store in Germany as i was unable to find one in the states.

The Rebuild-
after receiving all (or so we thought) the parts, got to putting everything together. ended up taking about 4 hours on the front diff as when the shock tower mounts broke off, it exposed the diff gears. which in turn caused alot of debris to enter and moisture. luckily nothing was damaged too bad (looked like it may have been test ran once before they shelved it so very little physical damage) and the surface rust came off easy. screws and bearings were too far gone though, but was expected. went through, shimmed the diffs, (i was pleasantly surprised with the fitment quality of the integy diff cases.)
we ordered some integy hub carriers as well as i read a few reviews on forums that they held up well. bearings are quite a bit larger on the integy piece, but the bigger bearing took up too much space and the pin wont go through the axle. (going to get a second set of axles to put on a lathe and make work).
final piece of the puzzle was figuring out an engine. initially i was intending on putting either the Fantom FR15 engine, or one of the DTX .18 engines from the evaders. found out a bit late that they both have the same incorrect type of flywheel type. they both utilize the "small Flywheel" piece, which keys to the crankshaft. and that key makes it impossible to just put a collet and flywheel to make it work.
(the "small Flywheel" pushes the clutchbell to far to line up with the spur gears.)
at this point knew it was going to be a new engine in store, but trying to find a decent priced .18 engine with SG style crank (preferable, or short style pilot type) and a rotary carb was proving to be difficult. after some research i found that it was quite simple to convert the truck to a slide carb which widened the options, and bypassed some peoples issues of the bellcrank assembly sticking when returning to idle. (and not requiring more parts to be ordered.)
was debating back and forth between the HPI G3.0 (which i later learned came in a rotary carb configuration anyway), dynamite .19 Mach 2, or SH .18.
ended up going with the HPI G3.0 the SH would require use of a pilot shaft, and the dynamite would require some sort of starter mechanism to be purchased.
the throttle linkage proved to be really simple, bought some dubro linkage rods (think 2-56) and linkage accessories and got to making it work. was a bit difficult as the linkage to the break needed to be long enough, but not too long to where the end would push against the battery box.
the process took about 3 months or so of tracking down parts, re-assessing what was needed and waiting on shipping.

Currently-
still in the mail is a 2-speed shaft brace, body, and spur gear cover.
it was intact enough that i did break the engine in and man does this G3.0 fly on this truck.
from factory though, the LSN was very lean, which i though was weird. couldnt get it to idle so went through and double checked the needles and idle gab and got it back to idling ended up being about 3/4 turn lean.

will try to post pics tonight.
 
Did you get a new MMgt, Demon?

There was one that popped on E-bay ,it went cheap ,an I was going to bid on it ,but thought that you were
the one that bided on it ,so I didn't bid......LOL.....I guess that I was thinking of you an your feelings if I won!....:cheers:
 
Did you get a new MMgt, Demon?

There was one that popped on E-bay ,it went cheap ,an I was going to bid on it ,but thought that you were
the one that bided on it ,so I didn't bid......LOL.....I guess that I was thinking of you an your feelings if I won!....:cheers:
as much as i would have loved to bid on it i did not, with the holidays, was a bit short on funds, and another project is coming into the making, do appreciate the thought tho!
so far the ladies is going good,
realized i haven't taken any pics on it since we got it new wheels and tires, and installed the body. will try to do that soon.
MGT 3.0 bottom.jpg
MGT 3.0 front left.jpg

this thing is fun though! and that G3.0 really makes it scoot around, almost wheelies even.
eventually i want to get another so i can have one.
 
LOL....looks great...:thumbs-up:

Well then ,who ever got it ,they are lucky to get it at 38 bucks & shipping cost!....?

I have a few bucks tucked back ,tomorrow ,I will buy some tires for my Mgt. ,I am going to try those Arma tires ,
I can get them pretty cheap an they hold up to 4s brushless ,they should hold up to my 5.9 engine with out problems!

I want to down size the tire ,I may buy some old T-max tires an cut them down later ,an re-glue them in the center
for a skinnier tire like the ones that I see on Mudder truckers!
 
!!!!!PIC HEAVY!!!!
this is the ladies truck and she did most of the build work, i did step in on certain spots to help figure out and lend a hand when necessary, but we both wanted it to be her as much as possible to complete the build. we had alot of fun putting this build together.

was able to finally get all my pictures downloaded from my phone and a few from the woman's phone.
i pretty well outlined above, but to go more in depth on specific pictures
Resized_20190711_135335_276.jpeg

as you can see it was in pretty rough shape, was mostly clean though, but definitely needed some love,
the 2 speed was more or less taken apart, and all the second speed components were removed, the high gear hub where the pawl comes out to engage was gutted and instead replaced with screw to lock it completely in high gear. and all of the nitro components were removed. the previous owner had also just installed a linkage between the shift lever and where the engine throttle linkage was to hold it in forward only.
New Parts to rebuild the transmission and suspension components that were missing:
20190715_173107.jpg

can't really see it in the pics above, as i had already removed the zip ties, but the tabs that hold the shock tower were broken, so ordered some integy diff cases and shock towers and installed those. (i know integy isn't known to be the best, but at the price and for how hard it is to find those parts for the truck it was the best option i could come up with.) with the old diff being broken, the diff was exposed to the elements and lots of debris made its way to the differential.
Resized_20190815_182605_2977.jpeg

couldn't have that so cleaned it all out, all the gears were in good shape, including the internals, then rebuilt with some 10k Diff fluid and re-greased the ring and pinion gear.
Resized_20190815_223302_577.jpeg

20190824_224730.jpg

i was a little disappointed in the fitment of the integy center skid plates, they seemed to be too long? the screws would not line up correctly, and the to get them to line up correctly would put alot of tension on the chassis. in the pic below i was unable to install the screws that go into the side of the skid to the chassis rails. for now running it like that, going to figure something out to correct this though.
20190824_224738.jpg

engine and pipe installed, engine fit on flawlessly and as said before am very happy with the performance, it bugs me that factory settings which are typically supposed to be very rich, were in fact not. i had to richen it at least 3/4-1 full turn on the LSN just to get it to start being rich. ended up going another half turn richer for break in.
20190921_150720.jpg

overall i spent about 2 hours trying to piece together how the throttle/break linkage would have sufficient throws, and not rub or interfere with anything else. i need to dremel out a little bit of the radio box as it does slightly touch it at full break though.
as mentioned above i had used some dubro linkage parts and a few pieces for some aircraft landing gear to accomplish this.
20200102_212119.jpg

works pretty well so far, i do need to notch the brake cam shaft though. i need to clean it up and replace the regular screws with some grub screws, and cut off the little pegs on the bottom of the clamps. i also need to find a better shape servo horn, but that was the only one i had to fit that servo that would work for the application.
also as you can see i have some fishing line acting as the forward only, i do not know if i plan to get the linkage for reverse, or figure out a more permanent method at this time.

As it sits now:
i managed to find some proline 40 series wheels that were close resemblance to ones i had for my MGT .21 project, that had a ruined hex, so i carefully as to not destroy the foams, and painstakingly (took a good 2-3 hours) removed the tires from two of the wheels and installed the new wheels. the new ones were chrome, but same style of rim so i call it a victory.
doing that freed up the Proline 40 series wheels and Integy H-pattern tires i had on my MGT .21 and fit them to the MMGT, imo they fit very well and give it a nice stance. they get great traction as of yet, and so far have been lasting well. very similar pattern to my Losi's kingpins. i had gone with the higher geared clutchbell as the tires would be losing almost an inch of height switching to these as compared to the stock tires.
MMGT no body.jpg

we originally painted the body for the ladies Arrma Granite, but to put it on there, would require some longer body posts and we were having some issues figuring out how to do that, it started as a joke mock up, but she really liked the body on there so went with it.
MMGT w body.jpg

so far quite pleased with the truck and the lady is having fun cruising it around. she hasnt been able to run it all that much as once it was completed it started getting dark early so havent been able to run after work, and can only go to our bash spot during the day if its nice out, and if people aren't there riding their bikes.
from getting the slider to back to running order ended up taking almost 4 months to collect and find the parts but it was a very enjoyable build, and the lady has fun driving it.
there are some small stuff yet to do with it, but isnt that all of our projects? never ending and always improving!

thanks guys for checking out the build!
 
Last edited:
getting the MMGT pair prepped for possible running this weekend, we noticed one of her back axles were more than slightly bent, I'm not saying it was bent so bad it looked like a banana, but it was giving the yellow fruit a run for the money.
When we made our purchase through integy for the diff cases and shock towers, and a few other small things, we went ahead and got the hub carriers as well as they would have made the order cheaper, i read that they hold up ok for this application, and she doesn't really bash quite as hard, so they should be ok. upon receiving them though, we quickly realized that we could not install them as they use bigger bearings which protrude out too far and you can't get the axle pin through the hole. (by like .1mm but just enough).
it wasn't really a necessity at the time so back in the parts tote they went.
while replacing the axle we decided to see what we could do to get the hub carriers to work.
in the package received with the other MMGT was a few extra driveshafts so i decided to tinker and was able to modify the driveshaft to be able to work.
i chucked the axle into my electric drill and used a flat file and was able to file it back closer to the stub/driveshaft just enough to make it work. (was really concerned as i was guessing the metal was going to be alot harder.)

on to the pictures!
Hub Carrier install 0.jpg

in the below picture, at the end of the shaft where the plastic cv ends and the steel stub shaft begins, there is a little lip right before the plastic on the metal. i had to file that back just slightly.
Hub Carrier install old.jpg

in the below picture you can really tell the size difference of the bearings between the integy pieces and stock.
the larger (inner) bearings are the same size, but the outers are 1mm wider, 5mm vs 4mm (stock) and 3mm bigger in diameter 15mm vs 12mm (stock)
Integy Bearing Size comp.jpg

in the below pictures you can see that little lip between the diameters on the drive stub axle, this is what had to be filed down slightly for the axle to protrude enough for the hex pin to slide through.
Driveshaft Mod 2.jpg


Hub Carrier install 1.jpg


Hub Carrier install finished.jpg


and installed!
we used the inner holes (outer was closer to stock) mainly because i wanted as little of the arm to be leveraged as possible.
Thanks for following!
 
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