After starting electric running 8 months ago with a brushless revo, I have really enjoyed it. So much so that I've converted my jato to electric and got a brushless 4x4 stampede. I've only run nitro once this year, but have run my electric rigs many many times.
Still, after running my savage-x earlier this summer, it made me remember why I enjoyed the savage. Tough as nails and big air all day long!
I tried getting a kershaw kit to convert my X, but that fell through, so I bought a used flux off ebay. Guessing it's an older model since the ESC isn't waterproof. I even had to buy a new rack to put it on because I ran out of room.
It showed up Monday before lunch then while on lunch, I spent some time with it (I work from home on Mondays). I went over it a bit to see what was what, tightened all the visible screws, took off the 17mm axle extensions/hubs, put on a set of traxxas 3.8 geodes with chevron tires instead the pinned tires/wheels on it. I had a spare set of 17mm hexes in a drawer and the HPI flanged nuts. Also re-situated the esc/wiring, threw in a spare receiver and got it setup on my radio. Plugged it into my pc to update the esc settings, it's an HPI Blur F360C. Adjusted the brake, reverse, punch, lipo cutoff... Had to solder on my own TRX connectors. Man that sucks. Trying to solder 10AWG wire is impossible with a 25W iron. Had to heat the tip with a torch, then it worked. I need to get a new iron.
It appears to have the adjustable suspension kit on it. It has LST shocks with FLM upper mounts and RC Raven dual rate springs. It also has alloy rear hubs and alloy front hubs/hub carriers. Needs a new roll bar and rear tower, both are cracked. The guy says he coated the circuit board of the ESC with something to waterproof it. Not sure how that will hold up to snow and wetness. Has a decent steering servo in it, not sure what though as it also has an RPM center skid, so I can't see the servo. Appears to have RPM arms on all 4 corners too.
Luckily, my SMC 9000mah 2S packs fit perfectly in it. I was afraid they would be too thick. I charged a couple up to go get a run in after work to figure out if I need to order stuff for the weekend. Made it 12 whole minutes into my first run and busted it pretty good. Snapped the battery tray on one side nearly off the thing and ripped an upper arm/ball end apart.
I have a spare tower/roll bar, so I can fix those, but had to order battery box mounts and hopefully the right ball ends for the upper arm.
The rig, I didn't take any photo's when I got it, only after I wrecked it:
The damage:
I forgot how irritating it can be to work on a savage... I ordered parts to fix the things I broke as well as a new roll bar, shock tower. After looking more closely, this thing has the adjustable suspension conversion kit on it and personally... I don't care for it. It makes the upper arms very weak as it connects to the hinge pin plate via a 3mm bolt with 6mm worth of stand offs. I can see that snapping a bolt off pretty easily. I've ordered replacement stock hinge pin holders and arms for when that happens.
Also, while replacing the shock tower on the rear, I had to tear the diff housing apart since it all interlocks. I noticed the rear diff felt very open, like it had grease only in it. Even though the guy said he rebuilt the diffs, a quick inspection suggests otherwise. The grease was clearly old and pretty dry, so I took it out and went to take it apart to find one of the diff cup screws had the head sheared off and what appeared to be damage to the cup caused by an attempt to get the stud out. I couldn't get it out either, so cleaned it out, found a couple chipped teeth on the large sun gears, put some 50k in it, replaced the bearings on it and the input pinion and put it all back together. I have a new diff coming in the mail as well for when that dies completely. It does have the machined BP ring gear and HD cup with the steel blocks for the cross bars, so that's good.
I received new plastic battery mounts, but decided that since I had to take the tvp's off to replace them, I'd try using some 1/8" thick angle iron to make my own. I wish I had noticed the lower supports weren't offset like the the uppers are, or I would have used angle iron for those as well. I did replace the short 1/2" screws with 3/4" or 1" screws though for those where they connect to the chassis. I bought 4 feet of the angle iron... but I lack the proper tools to work with it. Had to use a sawsall to cut it, so it's generally awful. May try to use a buddies band saw to cut up some 1" wide pieces so I can have them on hand later to raise the boxes up a bit so I can use the angle iron for the bottom braces as well. I'm afraid now it will break the ears off the boxes. Time will tell.
Since the motor mount bolts are blocked by the TVP (or they were), I noticed the spur mesh was tight on part of the rotation, so I adjusted that as well since I had it apart. Now I think the outer bolts are out far enough that I can adjust them a hair more if needed without taking the TVP off.
Also, it uses the FLM (I think) upper shock mounts for LST shocks. The 2 screw holes in those do not match the shock tower holes at all. Upon inspection of the broken tower, I noticed the holes were heavily reamed out so they could use the FLM mounts. The holes are about 2mm too far apart. That was annoying to deal with as well.
Buying used can be a lot of work... Someday I will learn.
The battery box mounts I made:
The FLM shock mounts:
Fixed the broken upper arm/ball end on my lunch today and just topped off a pair of packs to take it out for it's second run... this time I'll try to avoid getting 10+ feet of air under it long enough to see how long it runs on a set of packs.
Still, after running my savage-x earlier this summer, it made me remember why I enjoyed the savage. Tough as nails and big air all day long!
I tried getting a kershaw kit to convert my X, but that fell through, so I bought a used flux off ebay. Guessing it's an older model since the ESC isn't waterproof. I even had to buy a new rack to put it on because I ran out of room.
It showed up Monday before lunch then while on lunch, I spent some time with it (I work from home on Mondays). I went over it a bit to see what was what, tightened all the visible screws, took off the 17mm axle extensions/hubs, put on a set of traxxas 3.8 geodes with chevron tires instead the pinned tires/wheels on it. I had a spare set of 17mm hexes in a drawer and the HPI flanged nuts. Also re-situated the esc/wiring, threw in a spare receiver and got it setup on my radio. Plugged it into my pc to update the esc settings, it's an HPI Blur F360C. Adjusted the brake, reverse, punch, lipo cutoff... Had to solder on my own TRX connectors. Man that sucks. Trying to solder 10AWG wire is impossible with a 25W iron. Had to heat the tip with a torch, then it worked. I need to get a new iron.
It appears to have the adjustable suspension kit on it. It has LST shocks with FLM upper mounts and RC Raven dual rate springs. It also has alloy rear hubs and alloy front hubs/hub carriers. Needs a new roll bar and rear tower, both are cracked. The guy says he coated the circuit board of the ESC with something to waterproof it. Not sure how that will hold up to snow and wetness. Has a decent steering servo in it, not sure what though as it also has an RPM center skid, so I can't see the servo. Appears to have RPM arms on all 4 corners too.
Luckily, my SMC 9000mah 2S packs fit perfectly in it. I was afraid they would be too thick. I charged a couple up to go get a run in after work to figure out if I need to order stuff for the weekend. Made it 12 whole minutes into my first run and busted it pretty good. Snapped the battery tray on one side nearly off the thing and ripped an upper arm/ball end apart.
I have a spare tower/roll bar, so I can fix those, but had to order battery box mounts and hopefully the right ball ends for the upper arm.
The rig, I didn't take any photo's when I got it, only after I wrecked it:
The damage:
I forgot how irritating it can be to work on a savage... I ordered parts to fix the things I broke as well as a new roll bar, shock tower. After looking more closely, this thing has the adjustable suspension conversion kit on it and personally... I don't care for it. It makes the upper arms very weak as it connects to the hinge pin plate via a 3mm bolt with 6mm worth of stand offs. I can see that snapping a bolt off pretty easily. I've ordered replacement stock hinge pin holders and arms for when that happens.
Also, while replacing the shock tower on the rear, I had to tear the diff housing apart since it all interlocks. I noticed the rear diff felt very open, like it had grease only in it. Even though the guy said he rebuilt the diffs, a quick inspection suggests otherwise. The grease was clearly old and pretty dry, so I took it out and went to take it apart to find one of the diff cup screws had the head sheared off and what appeared to be damage to the cup caused by an attempt to get the stud out. I couldn't get it out either, so cleaned it out, found a couple chipped teeth on the large sun gears, put some 50k in it, replaced the bearings on it and the input pinion and put it all back together. I have a new diff coming in the mail as well for when that dies completely. It does have the machined BP ring gear and HD cup with the steel blocks for the cross bars, so that's good.
I received new plastic battery mounts, but decided that since I had to take the tvp's off to replace them, I'd try using some 1/8" thick angle iron to make my own. I wish I had noticed the lower supports weren't offset like the the uppers are, or I would have used angle iron for those as well. I did replace the short 1/2" screws with 3/4" or 1" screws though for those where they connect to the chassis. I bought 4 feet of the angle iron... but I lack the proper tools to work with it. Had to use a sawsall to cut it, so it's generally awful. May try to use a buddies band saw to cut up some 1" wide pieces so I can have them on hand later to raise the boxes up a bit so I can use the angle iron for the bottom braces as well. I'm afraid now it will break the ears off the boxes. Time will tell.
Since the motor mount bolts are blocked by the TVP (or they were), I noticed the spur mesh was tight on part of the rotation, so I adjusted that as well since I had it apart. Now I think the outer bolts are out far enough that I can adjust them a hair more if needed without taking the TVP off.
Also, it uses the FLM (I think) upper shock mounts for LST shocks. The 2 screw holes in those do not match the shock tower holes at all. Upon inspection of the broken tower, I noticed the holes were heavily reamed out so they could use the FLM mounts. The holes are about 2mm too far apart. That was annoying to deal with as well.
Buying used can be a lot of work... Someday I will learn.
The battery box mounts I made:
The FLM shock mounts:
Fixed the broken upper arm/ball end on my lunch today and just topped off a pair of packs to take it out for it's second run... this time I'll try to avoid getting 10+ feet of air under it long enough to see how long it runs on a set of packs.