How do I make sure I have proper gear mesh on a K2 ?

[Mr.Pink]

Ihave a Kanai 2 . Ijust put a Hyper21 4port engine on it . It has a Werks Racing clutch on it . When I mount it ( in the only way possible ) how do I make sure that the gear mesh is good ? or does it matter on a nitro ? it seems that there is little or no adjusability when mounting the engine . Thanks for the help .

 

[AC48]

It matters greatly, is there any noise when you roll the buggy? If you hold the clutch bell can you move the spur a little? Another tip I've heard is to put white out on the teeth, roll the buggy and look at whats left of it on the gear. If most of its gone its too tight, if theres more than half of it left you are too loose. if theres 1/8-1/4 you should be good.

 

[Mr.Pink]

What kind of movement on the spur ? side to side ? i will try the white out method

 

[AC48]

Just so it can play inbetween the teeth a tad. If its too tight the spur will be jamming with the CB and cause bad things to happen. Another tip is to put a piece of computer paper inbtween the spur and CB, push it together while tightening then take the paper out. I've never tried that though.

 

[kx250ryder]

Some say to use a piece of notebook paper, and that if you mesh it right it will not be difficult to pull out, I even heard one person say that it would not make teeth marks.

Here is what I did to make it easier:

1. With the engine NOT in the car, roll it on the ground. Note how hard you pushed, and how far the car went.

2. Get a strip of THIN cardboard about an inch long. Not the kind of cardboard you would use for a box to send UPS, but the kind you would see on a pack of zig zags (for tobacco rolling :smoke: ).

3. Install all of the motor mounting screws into the engine blocks and tighten them, making sure the engine mounting blocks are square to each other. Install the mounting screws through the chassis into the engine blocks as tight as you can get with your fingers (enough to where it is difficult to shift the motor's position, so that when you tilt the car the motor isn't sliding around).

4. Jam the piece of cardboard between the gears. Two important factors here:
a) Make sure the clutch bell is square to the diff gear.
b) Make sure the engine is not crooked in the chassis. When looking at the car from above, the front of the engine output shaft should point straight forward, not diagonal to the right or left of the car.

5. While keeping the output shaft pointing straight ahead, push the clutch bell as tight to the diff gear as you can, and wrench down the bolts that hold the engine to the engine blocks to the chassis. Do this as tight as possible without stripping the bolts.

6. Remove the piece of cardboard, and push your car again. It should roll almost the same distance as before, because the only drag you added was from the gear mesh (the engine isn't spinning, only the clutch bell on its bearings). If your car does not roll as far, and/or it makes a grinding noise, you meshed the gears too tight. Fold the cardboard to make it thicker and start again from step 4.

You can leave the gears too far apart and cause problems too however. The basic principle, is to leave as small of a gap as possible (without causing the above binding symptoms) between the top of one gear tooth and the bottom of the valley between the opposing two gear teeth. Kinda like below (I suck at drawing with keyboard characters):

| <|
|> | imagine vertical lines to be the different gears
| <|

^
| not a gear, half assed attempt at making an arrow
|
make as
close as
possible
without
binding