Vintage Team Losi XXXNT being brought back to life

[jayb6550]

It all started when I didn’t even know nitro RC existed, brand new to the hobby. I had seen two of my Dad’s Team Losi XXXN’Ts laying in a storage bin to rot away. I asked about them and he said he tried to get them running and he couldn’t. All of a sudden, I was determined to get them running. He then gave me one of the car’s and I was set. I searched for hours and hours for information on these. with enough information, I got to work. I found out i needed to replace the glow plug igniter, glow plug, buy fuel, and install a receiver and a receiver battery pack. surprisingly, the motor was not locked up for how long it has been sitting. a few weeks of saving money, I got everything I needed. I took it outside, my dad and brother following me on the way out. we all cross are fingers and pray this works. plug the exhaust pull a few times until fuel is in the carb, insert the igniter and pull. The first 3 pulls, it fires right up!! 12 years of sitting in a dusty storage bin and it starts without breaking a sweat. I then ran the car around the driveway and down the street. It ran like new!

6 months later, i’m sitting here ripping the hair straight out my head as I’m trying to figure out why it’s running so crappy and starts for a few seconds then dies. Could it be the weather? fuel? glow plug? I have it tuned almost the best i can get it, i’ve tried resetting to factory settings and starting from there and it helped slightly. I finally got it to stay running and it runs extremely hot and rich, when I lean it, it runs too hot, richen it, still runs hot just acts rich.

I’m going to try running a lower oil percentage and change the glow plug again. I’ll also try running it when it’s not so hot outside. I’ll try to keep this forum updated but it may be a while before I can run it.

 

[fstnd]

Vids would be appreciated. Have you looked at the gears? I never had this myself but read on someone's thread with such problem that his differential gears were stripped. Or maybe something else that makes it hard for the engine to output the power to the ground. Have you measured how hot your engine became? As long as I can hold my finger on my engines for a few seconds it's fine. I don't think changing to a lower oil percentage will work. Maybe the fuel you're using is old?

 

[jayb6550]

I know a guy that is an expert at tuning these things. I’ll see if he can get it running good. I also have measured how hot it ran, 240 degrees at idle and 280 after running it up and down the street for a while.