Yeah, that's kind of how mine looked after break-in. lol! Then I went with RPM LST1 arms with short lunsford turnbuckles in the upper arms and later replaced the long tie-rods with lunsford as well as I kept breaking those too. I shelled out the stock 2-speed cage/gear after replacing the...
Ditch the K/N, they don't filter fine enough for RC. They do look cool though.
I had an aftershock many years ago. Was a fun truck! I never put LST2 stuff on it, just RPM arms, lunsford turnbuckles. It held up pretty good.