Dirt Demon
Would have posted before but lost my server awhile back. Anywho I bought a Dirt Demon a month ago cause I have a T.Q. & they seemed similar. I was told at the lhs there was a recall on the diff. but bought it anyway cause I have a shop & know a little about the workings of rc-trucks. The instructins say the truck should roll in neutral about 5', no way. My tires were locked dead up!! so instead off being pissed I took the whole truck apart (would have anyway). Both diff's were shimmed totaly backwards pinning the pinion against the ring gear on both front & rear boxes! & the planet gears were shimmed so tight the diff case was jamed against the housing. A bad thing for the novice (me included). using my car mechanic exp. I re-shimed both f. & r. diff's, they rolled fine on the chassis without the trans, engine, or drive shafts (those diff gears look like they were cut with a blow tourch). A soon as the trany went back in the truck locked up again! I found the f. & r. central bushing (70265 & 66) were different in height, so flat sanding a tad off the rear about .005 brought them in-line & installing the center shafts to the diff's the truck rolled 6'. Now some wizard at Hot Bodies had used "RED" loctite on the whole truck so heads-up when your checking things, I had to drill out 2 set screws because of that.
Wheel alignment out of the box was plain insane being toed out (f. & r.) to the point of shurly wearing the treads out in short order & caster was as bad. With all back together (BLUE LOCTITE) & running the 1-way-bearing in the roto start self destructed but I dont think its Hot Bodies fault for that. The same bearing is in my Torq-21 & its fine after many starts, maybe the difference between the pull-start & elec. start has different pressure on the bearing??
Hot Bodies should do away with the 3 needle carb. Those 2 needles on the low speed side can make you crazy & there break in instructions on the engine are worthless. I run my new engines off the truck on a test stand with fans & a slight load (to simulate being in the truck) a temp guage & heat cycle at least 3 tanks, before tuning it. Its alot easier to work on & when it goes in the truck it'll start & run with just a fine tune.
Its really to bad Hot Bodies really craps together this truck. All in all its a good sturdy truck with a balls out motor. They really need to get someone in there who knows & cares about putting these things together or if they want to hire brain dead assemblers just make a "kit" so we can put it together ourselfs-RIGHT. I tried to call them once soon after my purchase cause there pretty close to me, but the girl said all the tech's were in a meeting, never did call back, it would of been a waist of my time. Truck runs great now except for that 1/10 body they slapped on a 1/8 truck, later (sorry for the bad spelling)
