Tired of sloppy links.

[Iowa crawler]

I just built an LCG rig with a Gspeed frame, 2low trans and Holmes hobbies revolver motor. The rig is 2500 grams. But I guess the power of the revolver stretched the link ends out after just a week of rock crawling.

I built the rig with stainless steel links and Vanquish plastic link ends.

To fix the sloppy axles, particularly the front one I ordered some Samix 313 mm high clearance titanium links and a set of Vanquish metal pivot ball ends. Thes ends are made of aluminum and have stainless steel pivot balls. The links have a small brass piece that is locked with a grub screw. This tightenes the brass against the pivot ball. So it is able to remove any play.
Plus the links removed 200 grams of weight and moved the CG forward 1% now it 61/39.

I did however have to use two Traxxis long links on the rear lower links to get the drive line perfect. And make a custom link for the front upper so that the front drive line was good.

I then spent a long time getting the pan hard and steering link length really perfect. Now there is no binding, no bump steer and after some minor Dremel work I get good steering angle.

hopefully after almost 200 bucks and a lot of work it is better. We will see.

 

[Greywolf74]

Love it. All link ends should be hardened metal of some sort imo.

 

[Tunedfrog]

Nice work and I agree with @Greywolf74 they should all be hardened metal.

 

[Iowa crawler]

I have to replace all the links on my favorite rig again. I made a stupid mistake. I was on e bay and looking at link rod ends. I found 10 metal heavy duty rod ends for 13.00.

My favorite rig is a LCG with a Creep body. It is so much fun I run it almost every day. So I have been kinda patching up links and stuff for a couple months. The whole drivetrain rattles side to side. So for 13.00 I figured why not.
BECAUSE ITS JUNK!!! That’s why.

I put these stupid links on everything. And now I can’t believe it. After less than two weeks with three rigs.

The threads actually get sloppy.
The ball ends get super sloppy.
Then the brass ring that holds the ball pops out.
They are aluminum and I screwed them onto titanium links . Normally I would always use antiseze with aluminum and titanium. But I just figured it would be fine. Nope, it galled the thread and when I tried to remove it. It’s stuck tuning a titanium link into junk.

So I am now only going to use Traxxas Revo links or Vanquish links.

For my favorite rig I run every day I want Vanquish black anodized rod ends on HardCore RC titanium high clearance links.

 

[Iowa crawler]

12.8 wheel base titanium high clearance links with vanquish rod ends.
I disassembled the rig to replace the links and do a good maintenance check up. I run the crap out of this rig and it has only broken a couple times. Once it sheeted the bolts inside the diff that hood the ring gear and once when it bent a titanium front link.

Since I started playing with this particular rig I modified it for the terrain. The guys making the toughest lines had longer wheelbase than I did.
Notice the rear links on the left side of the photo. Those are Jado links from Traxxas .
They are 26mm long so I added them to the rear and it did better. I added it to the front and it just crushed everything I could find. That was 320mm wheelbase. But notice the rear link. The plastic part is bent. They don’t break but being that long they bend. So I ordered the proper length of 325mm or 12.8 inch links.

 

[Iowa crawler]

Well I’m disappointed. there is a problem with threading the links together. The threads on the links are just a fraction of a millimeter off. The metal rod ends don’t thread on. I did get two out of sixteen to thread on. It’s not a thread pitch issue.
I can thread bolts onto the links but not the rod ends. I ran a tap through the rod end to remove anodizing but that made no difference. The rod ends thread on to other links just fine. So I am going to use the metal ends on my class 2 truck and Traxxas ends on this one