Recent savage work... hibernation. (56K Warning)

[olds97_lss]

Just a post on where my savage is at these days...

Well, I haven't driven my savage since october. It needed some much needed general maintenance and I wanted to change a few things. I've been eBay'ing and working on it off and on over the past 4 months.

I had the orignal lower arms on it for 2 years. The hinge pin holes were all sloppy loose, so I replaced all the arms/uprights/c-hubs. I had bought a complete set of arms already put together with bearings about a year ago, so I finally broke them out and installed them. My bearings were shot as well. Upon inspection (after getting the arms off), I realized my front bulks were cracked, so those got replaced as well.

My RCS cage was trashed from last season as well. I had bandaided it to get me through the remainder of the season, but I was tired of looking at it... so it was all removed. I replaced it with 5/16" cold rolled steel. That's what I "fixed" it with last season and it held up really well. I'll find out if this will work. If it doesn't, I'll try 1/4" delrin sheet with cross bars like Blade had done. (I think he's on this forum...)

I bought a set of towers off of Skip. Then I realized that all four of my OFNA shocks needed a total overhaul... I added up the cost of rebuilding them and decided to get entirely new ones off of ebay. I ended up getting 8 for around $100. BTW, UE SuperMaxx shocks are really modified in case anyone needed to know. They are longer than OFNA 9.5 front shocks and shorter than OFNA 9.5 rear shocks. This is why I ended up buying 8.

I'm also on the hunt for a set of maximizer bead lock rims that are off set more than standard maxx rims (I think they are x-75's).

Anyway, here are a few photo's of my frankensavage:

 

[fisherman]

would these be the beadlocks your looking for and i think this site is giving a free shipping on orders over 50$ http://www.hobbieguyrc.com/shop/cart.php?target=product&product_id=17797&category_id=778 you can get them in all kinds of colors too i jsut picked the black for the link.

 

[olds97_lss]

Thanks Fish. Although, I've found them on eBay for that price as well, except there's the shipping...

Have you ever bought anything from there?

 

[jmarzilli]

I've ordered from him on ebay many times and have never had a problem. He usually ships pretty fast too.

 

[1 Bad STi]

Good stuff brian. She's a beauty and gets the Job done

 

[robmob]

Now there's a true bashing rig. Nice job Olds.

 

[hugo]

Rode hard and not put away wet!!

 

[4u2nv]

I wanna see a pic of the old cage! I know ya drive hard and when ya say its trashed I'm sure it is! Post up some picks man!

 

[olds97_lss]

Here it was after my "fix" last season:

It was cracked in a few more places and totally tweeked. When I took it all the way off the truck, all the pieces kind of unsprung and I realized how bent it all was.

I'm not sure if I'll need a cross bar to keep what I have now from bending on a side impact. If I do, I will drill a couple holes and use the cross pieces from my RCS cage. A couple of the longer ones will fit perfectly. I just didn't want to drill more holes in the steel, affraid it will make it weak.

Bending that 5/16" steel bar was a PITA! Makes me wish I had a vise/work shop...

 

[racin_38]

nice olds and that other cage was tweaked for sure lol
i like the way you have it set up now ,
how did you attach it to the stock bar?

 

[olds97_lss]

Drilled a couple holes in the stock bar and the steel bar then used a couple 3mm bolts with locknuts.

I'm sure they will bend, but it will be the "weak" spot hopefully. If I land really hard on the rear, I'm hoping the roll bar will absorb most of the impact then shear off the bolts.

I don't want to run nothing due to the towers I bought from skip. I don't want them to snap if I wreck badly.

 

[supersavage]

That is one fugly masterpeice! It definetaly looks like it could tell ya what hell was like! Good job keepin her alive.

I really like your use of chemical suction hose for an exhaust coupler...sweet...

 

[SMaxxin]

Nice use of hose clamps LOL, it looks like it's ready for battle.

 

[redhatman]

looks good. You can tell its a basher..

 

[olds97_lss]

That is one fugly masterpeice! It definetaly looks like it could tell ya what hell was like! Good job keepin her alive.

I didn't think it looked that bad now... with the rcs cage fix it looked a little rough... but with the new delrin (actually, not delrin... something else) towers, 8 buggy shocks and roll bar thing, I think it looks pretty good.

 

[supersavage]

I didn't mean that in a bad way, olds. You can just tell you use it for what it was made for!!! I have a hard time pushing mine to the limit still. I wanna see what the hellfire does after its been out awhile, and maybe pick one up, then I won't have to worry about keeping my savvy in tip top shape to chase those revo's anymore. Those are Skips towers aren't they?

 

[olds97_lss]

Yep. They were skips. I bought a set of his "damaged" ones when he offered them at a discount. Although, having a nick in the plastic doesn't really seem all that damaged... I'm sure I'll be adding a few nicks of my own

My biggest challange right now is trying to mount a body without drilling holes in my roll bars. I'm thinking of installing the little RCS platforms that were with the RCS cage and fabbing up something so I can mount the body at least on the sides. Right now, I just made little wire mounts that bolt to the chassis, but I'm pretty sure they will snap eventually.

I'm only running a half body.

 

[supersavage]

If you wanna still run half a body, could you drill 1 or 2 holes in the top of the stock roll bar with some nubs in them to use as body mounts? Or do you want to go back to a full body?

 

[olds97_lss]

I'm kind of hosed either way... the bars on the back are just wide enough to destroy a full body with a "normal" body mount and just putting nubs on the top doesn't last long enough to even bother with it. Tried it on my maxx... they just get ground/ripped off. With the RCS cage, they had side mounts. Those worked really well. I'll probably end up makeing something stupid looking but functional to mount the half body on the sides. If I want to do a full body, I'll have to make something wider than the stock mount to clear the roll bars... or bend them.

I don't want holes in my bars due to it makeing them weaker and more likely to bend/crack. I had enough of that with the RCS cage...

If anything bends/cracks it will be the stock roll bar or the 3mm bolts holding my bars onto the stock bar. I made the rear of mine so it is mounted in..., you guessed it, hose clamps. So it can pivot forward about 3/4 of an inch before making contact with the rear shock tower. But, in order to pivot forward, it will either shear the 3mm bolts on the stock roll bar or bend the stock roll bar. Either of which is fine by me. I wanted to leave a weak spot somewhere... so I choose something cheap. But before it shears, it should absorb a lot of the impact in doing so.