Project The Need For Pede

[truggy83]

I just got my first nitro r/c last weekend. It is and unknown year Traxxas Nitro Stampede with the .15 engine in it. I got it for a pretty good price as it needs lots of work. When I bought it, it was missing the body, muffler, rear body mount, body pins, throttle collar and spring, rubber pins that go in the spur gear for the slipper clutch and the slipper clutch was worn out. The idle was also way too high and the car would take off unless the brake was held.

The body was very dirty and someone did a half butt job of painting the frame. They did take the time to take the car apart to paint the frame but it almost looked as if they painted the frame with white out and the nitro fuel that was spilled around the gas tank area over the years had eaten most of the white out paint off revealing the neat looking blue frame. Here is a picture of what condition it was in when I got it last weekend.

Since then I have adjusted the idle to the correct spot, removed the ugly white out type paint from the frame with brake cleaner and some elbow grease, cleaned up the entire car with a soft brush on a dremel tool and some degreaser.

Tomorrow I will be going to the hobby shop and getting lots of goodies so I will update this thread then. I am also looking at buying an HPI 18 racing engine to see if I can get to work in the pede. My plans for the pede are to have it somewhat customized with paint to set it apart from the stock pedes. I will also see if I can put the hpi racing engine in just to be different as I havent seen any with that in yet. Lots of cosmetic paint upgrades will be done however it will not be babied. I will jump the car and run it in the dirt and beat the heck out of it. I am off to bed and will update this thread more tomorrow.

 

[truggy83]

Early this morning I sprayed some of the parts that I wanted accented with a gloss blue. I sprayed the front and rear bumpers, battery box, springs, air filter house, receiver hold down tab and painted the centers of the wheels.

Parts that were painted are drying

everything disassembled waiting for new parts. Hobby shop doesn't open till 11.

close look at the car partially disassembled

I cleaned the engine with degreaser and got it looking a lot better than it was. I also did an air leak test to the engine and could find no leaks.

I don't think the prior owner knew how to properly set the spur gear mesh. Do you?

The spur gear was also missing all the little tabs that fit in the spur gear. I have got all the little tabs and 3 spur gears waiting on me at the hobby shop.

By the way if you are located in or around York Pennsylvania you may want to try to stop by Sweitzers Hobby Depo. He is very friendly and helpful and had all of the many parts I needed in stock including fuel tanks and rear body mounts which I thought for sure I would have to order from Traxxas.

More to come once I get my parts!!

 

[truggy83]

update. I got my parts and actually got the car finished early this morning. There are still some things I need to do mechanically to get the car tuned and everything for which I will be asking help.

I am lost in a sea of parts.

The OS engine I was going to put into the car. Turns out it appears to have required more mod's than I think I can handle at my current skill level.

Got the blue painted bumper, springs and new body mounts installed

new 66 tooth spur gear installed now with proper friction pads which were not installed on the old one that came on it.

rear springs and body mount now installed.

getting the chassis back together.

I got the new bearings in the tires and put the tires on. Front wheels spin so much better. Here is a picture of all the tires on.

got engine back in car and set proper gear mesh.

Painted air filter housing and air filter oiled and installed.

Got wires ran and hidden.

Battery tray wires ran and painted battery box.

Brand new fuel tank installed with new fuel lines and fuel filter installed. Yes I did use the right screws this time!

Old EZ start wiring harness was pretty rough. Positive lead was soldered on and there were several cracks and frays in the wiring.

This should fix the problem.

Truck all together ready to go. Got my new throttle linkage pieces installed and somewhat adjusted. I believe they will be fine tuned later with someones help. The exhaust is temporary lol. It is from the OS engine I have just to help quite it down a little for the time being. I have the mufller and one of the end caps that I bought form the hobby shop. I am just waiting on the other end cap and mounting bracket and the stock exhaust will be back on it.

+

Sorry there is a big lapse here in pictures but I was running on fumes and it was after 1:00 a.m. in the morning. I was so out of it that I forgot to take pictures of the masking/painting decal process of the trucks new body. But anyways here is the new body, painted and installed with decals!! I was originally going to go one color but decided for a two color scheme as I didn't want to have to much blue on the truck.

The name says it all!

Thank you for looking. Hope you enjoy my build. I will be making a thread about tuning and getting the throttle and everything dialed in. The truck is having some hard times starting and staying running. If you can please help. Overall I have almost enough invested into this truck that I could have bought a new one. I didn't because fixing them up is part of the fun for me. The Os engine with be kept for another project later on in the future as I am sure there will be more. My fiancee is already talking about her first r/c! Thanks for looking.

 

[bergoff]

Nice work. I love my pede they take a beating and are cheap to fix. I'm not the best at nitro so I can't help you there I would just suggest you should get a fail safe if you don't have one.

 

[Lessen]

Love the step by step process. I only wish the pics were clearer. Nice work on those wheels! :thumbup::thumbup:

 

[frickenjoey]

Looks good so far. I love watching something that starts out looking like a bag of hammered poo and end up a kick ass ride with a bit of work. Good job!

 

[HPIguy]

Nice work man, love the name.

 

[nitrostoned]

Lookin Great!

 

[truggy83]

Thanks for all the good comments. Unfortunately the Pede had a little to much need for speed and caught some sick air off a small bump that I didn't think was large enough to get air. I was starting to turn left when it left the ground and that caused it to hit hard front left and it did about 3 or 4 cart wheels end over end with a audible crack in the middle of the rolls.

Spot where it caught some air

Impact point

The damage

Front left wheel stays off the ground becase the right rear is squatting down due to a broken rear shock tower.

I didn't survey the car much more than a glance so there may be more although the car ran and drove afterwards.

Here is a short video. In the very beginning as soon as she goes outside and you here it reving fast is when I wrecked. You just catch me flipping it off the blue tarp where it came to a rest after flipping. You can see in the video how the front left tire is off the ground.

Oh well I didn't build it to keep it pretty. I have to make a trip on tuesday back to the hobby shop anyways so it looks like I will be adding a rear shock tower to my list while I am there. I am glad I didn't have the body on though when it wrecked because I think it would have severely damaged it. At the end it flips again on a bump but it didn't seem to do any damage besides stalling the motor.

 

[HPI-Killer]

Haha nice, I love getting packages full of new parts for a rig, even when I cracked the box on my xr10 kit I was super happy, I actually stopped packing to move and broke out my tools and got it built. Nice looking though indeed

 

[HPIguy]

Dude, seriously lay off the caffeine before taking pictures. I can't even tell what the damage was.

 

[HPI-Killer]

Dude, seriously lay off the caffeine before taking pictures. I can't even tell what the damage was.

Totally OT but I swear everytime I post your right behind it with your post, like the 2 HPI names stick together or something, wierd...


& x2 on the Caffene (spell check)

 

[truggy83]

Ahahhaha It my camera it takes horrible photos. All that was damaged was the rear shock mount where the shocks and body mount hook onto, split in half. I managed to look the car over better and found out that was the only damage. Driving the car after the wreck rubbed off some paint on the right rear spring.

 

[HPIguy]

Totally OT but I swear everytime I post your right behind it with your post, like the 2 HPI names stick together or something, wierd...


& x2 on the Caffene (spell check)

Ha ha, if you look at those posts, I'm surrounded by HPI killers.

Ahahhaha It my camera it takes horrible photos. All that was damaged was the rear shock mount where the shocks and body mount hook onto, split in half. I managed to look the car over better and found out that was the only damage. Driving the car after the wreck rubbed off some paint on the right rear spring.

Glad to hear damage is minimal.

 

[Lmao45]

Ahahhaha It my camera it takes horrible photos. All that was damaged was the rear shock mount where the shocks and body mount hook onto, split in half. I managed to look the car over better and found out that was the only damage. Driving the car after the wreck rubbed off some paint on the right rear spring.

Try using flash... it really does help a lot of times

 

[nitrostoned]

Truggy you may want to buy a fiberglass rear shock tower. I have a rustler witch is almost the same thing as a pede and them rear shock towers break all the time I got a fiberglass one from traxxas and no it has not broke yet.

 

[truggy83]

Try using flash... it really does help a lot of times

my camera is actually a video camera that I am using to take pictures with so it has no flash. Our real digital camera was stolen a few months ago so this is all I have for now.

 

[Lessen]

Ahhh.. no flash will do that for sure. Oh well. Sorry to hear about the loss, that sucks.

 

[truggy83]

if you can check out my thread in the nitro section where I am having trouble getting this right