Modern frustration with the old car

[fredswain]

I've never had great luck with the RC10. Even back in the day when I had one I could never get it to work as well as my JRX2 and apparently that problem still exists today. Since getting back into rc at the beginning of the year I've been on a quest to prove that old cars can still be competitive. The RC10 isn't helping me though. I figured that since I know far more now than I did back then that I could get it to workout pretty well. I've tried tons of different combinations of suspension, springs, oils, etc and finally have a combo that handles pretty well. However the car is suffering from a very big problem. Reliability. It doesn't have it. I'm not sure what it is about the RC10. You can drive it at 30 mph on a street, wipe out, and watch it flip end over end on concrete over and over again and it will just keep going. No problem. It seems indestructible. For some reason the track doesn't seem to like it though.

We've got a couple of local tracks that I go to. Each is very different from each other yet they each have one thing in common. They can each break my car very quickly. Last night I ran on a hard packed clay track that was a bit over the top in design. The suspension was setup a bit soft and the track required some finesse but it wasn't completely impossible. I ran into a huge problem I had back in the day. The ball cups kept popping off but it was limited to 2 of them. Each of the outer steering ball cups kept popping off. Sometimes it would be from hitting a barrier but other times it was just from landing on a jump. Of course once they come off they'll never stay on as tight ever again so I had constant problems with them to the tune of having to pop one back on 4-5 times per lap. That gets old pretty quickly. They were brand new the day before too so it's not like they were old and worn out. I always struggled with these as a kid too. Why they don't pop off on hard impacts on the street I don't know.

Another problem that I had is yet another thing I've always disliked about AE cars. The shocks. They have always been garbage. Mine are rebuilt and as smooth as they can get with springs that rub on the body but on one particular spot the car flipped over on a fairly low speed jump. It didn't tumble any harder than it has anywhere else and in fact didn't seem all that bad. The shock bottoms of both rear shocks stripped out and pulled away. Of course a ball cup popped off again too. Now I've got a car on the track with 2 broken rear shocks and a front wheel that's flopping around. Again once those shock bottoms are stripped out, they aren't going to stay on. I need to find a way so that the suspension travel can be limited independently of the shocks. All that load pulling down on the shocks in a wreck is going to tear them apart every time.

What kinds of things do you guys do to address issues like these? This car is about to get shelved for good and my quest to prove old is good is going to shift to the JRX-Pro.

[jwscab]

I'd say look to some heavy duty ball cups, rpm, etc.....I know I always had the same problem with ball cups popping, and that is why you see the parma, etc heim ends on all the heavily used ebay specials....they simply held better for longer, even though they get sloppy.

on my cars back then, i used losi ball cups as replacement, alot of that had to do with the fact that the losi parts seemed tougher, so I used them. bear in mind, my rc10 came in a small box in pieces, and I put it together with what I had and no manual, so....they may have been cheaper for more cups too, so that probably contributed.

as far as shock ends, they suck pretty much no matter what brand....the stripped out ones I have, get a drop of super glue and then only during a rebuilt do I deal with the difficulty of getting them off....the associated shock shaft threads are 4-40 thread, and from what I have seen, almost always slightly undersized(look at the threads, the 'peak' of the thread is pretty flattened). Losi uses a full 5-40 thread.

you could always use aluminum 4-40 heim ends on the shocks, I think LTO_DAVE just posted a link for some in that heavy metal build thread.

[Lonestar]

Fred

if most reliability issues you're facing running offroad is about popping ballcups and stripping shock ball ends, you're in pretty good shape already

As said above - even in 2011, you can still ditch the stock ballcups. Go RPM (all-time racers' favourite), or Jconcepts, and keep the stock white ones for the shelf queens once peroxided. The black ones are just as hopeless... but they're black. I have stashes of them from my past rides/builds. R. Cavalieri's dad recently advised to simply throw away any ballcup that has popped as it is deformed for life anyway and will pop again.

Stripped Shock ends - Usually the shock end isn't the culprit but rather the "freshness" of the shaft thread. Replace the shafts, preferably with a modern set of parts like AE's FT ones or MIP's. If you can also fit some B4/B44 shock ends, go for it, the plastic can only be better than 1984's nylon A general rule of thumb is that when screwing stuff in plastic you have to make sure you "catch" the thread that's already existing otherwise you ruin it... the trick to do this is to position the threaded part on the plastic, turn it count-cw till it "clicks" then it means you're at the right post and you can screw it in. I do agree though, than droop limiting screws on 10th scale cars would be great (just like for 8th offroad) but somehow only the new DEX210 offers them...

It's a funny post you've made nonetheless... the RC10 has a reputation for being the most bomb-proof of all 2wd racers

Paul

[kaiser]

back in the day i swapped all the ball cups over to the bolt through kind, now a days i use modern ae ball cups (only on the b4) and rpm ball cups on all my other cars.
might as well put new ball studs on, and use the foam gaskets.

funny, the only shock ends i strip are jrx2 rears, the rarest of them all. lol

fred, don't give up on the rc10, it's a damn good car once you work the kinks out.

[fredswain]

I had brand new RPM cups on the front. They popped off. I replaced them with brand new AE cups. They popped off. My other cars use Dubro heavy duty captured rod ends. The RC10 however throws you a curve when you try to use these. The inner front camber link end and the steering link end hit each other so they can't be used. It's a perfect solution too. That leaves me with ball cups which I can't get to work no matter whose I use.

Another interesting thing happened. I have the RPM wide front arms. They are on a brand new RC10T front bulkhead. Nothing stripped out. After a couple of hard impacts, the screws holding the shock tower to the bulkhead started to come loose. About halfway through my battery, they came out! My shock tower came completely off. The car looked like it had been through a chipper shredder after that track. I couldn't even get an entire battery run out of it. I'm convinced the metal chassis would crumble and break down if I was out there any longer. It's like that track is treated with acid. It kills cars!

E-clips also don't like to stay on. After bottoming out a couple of times the e-clips on the inner arm mounts come off and the hinge pins start to work their way out. When I say my car is trying to take itself apart, I'm not kidding! I've never had such bad luck. As I said, it can go full speed into a curb, get run over by a bus, and be at ground zero during a nuclear blast and keep running just fine but at a track it's like it tries to revert back to it's pre-assembled kit state. I don't get it!

I do love my JRX's and do want to get them out there. I have endless spare parts for them so if something goes wrong I can fix it. The RC10 just doesn't like me.

[kaiser]

are the ball studs original?

use longer screws in the shock tower and nut them on the frontside of the bulkhead.

are the eclips original?

[Lonestar]

are the ball studs original?

was going to ask the exact same question... this doesn't sound just like a string of unusual bad luck but more like wrong parts are used...

For E-clips - they are stamped, one face's edges is sharper than the other. identify it and run the sharp edges on the outside to minimize the risk of them popping off. if axles grooves are worn out though, nothing you can do, gotta buy new ones.

How old is your ride???

Don't give up yet

[fredswain]

I didn't know that about e-clips so I'll pay attention to that.

The car is a team car but it didn't run for the better part of 12 years. The ball ends are original. Everything is except the suspension arms and nose. Those are rpm worlds.

I have an idea for some of these issues. One was to cut the hinge pins even with the arms so they fit flush. Then drill very small holes next to them like the B4 does so they would be captured pins. No e-clips and no way to come out. This is doable. Another idea was to silver solder an e-clip to one end of the pins so I'd only have to worry about 1 of them. This too is doable but probably my second choice.

My idea for the shocks is similar in that I'd like to find a metal rod end for the bottoms and then just silver solder them on. I like silver solder because it is very strong and very clean if you know the proper technique. It would be a bit more difficult to take the shocks apart but could be done by removing the piston and pulling the shaft out the bottom. The problem then comes down to the next weak point which would be the shock caps stipping out and getting ripped off in a violent crash. I of course never want to see those wrecks but they happen from time to time. Another solution would be to install suspension ties that are basically straps that do not allow the arms to physically move any farther than the shocks can travel. A separate solution to control suspension droop that is independent of shock limiters would be ideal. That way the load is no longer on the shocks themselves.

[kaiser]

small dab of shoe goo on the eclips can also help.

ever see one of tebo's rides? shoe goo on everything.

[LTO_Dave]

Try finding some larger ball studs...I think MIP used to make oversized ones that were slightly larger than normal to keep from popping off.

And I think Du-Bro makes swivel ball ends that have a screw that adjusts the clamping force.

For e-clips, try some of the snap ring type from Parma, RCPS and Pure-Tech. You may just be able to get some in bulk from hardware suppliers. And make sure you get a quality set of pliers because those little buggers are hard to pry apart. Here are the Pure-Tech clips on my 10T:

[fredswain]

Since those are standard supply parts not necessarily related to rc, what size are they? It would be cheaper to just buy them in bulk but I'd like to avoid buying an assorted pack just to get a few useful ones.

[jwscab]

1/8" or 3mm. its tough to find that particular style through most typical hardware online stores. mcmaster carries versions for 1/8" and 3mm, and it looks to me like the 3mm ones would fit better on the 1/8" hinge pin E-clip grooves, but they are not shaped the same, the release 'holes' are just cutouts, not complete holes.

[fredswain]

There actually was one bit of good news last night. I had just rebuilt the shocks with x-ring seals from McMaster-Carr in place of the standard o-rings and used very liberal amounts of green slime. They don't leak!

[Charlie don't surf]

Maybe that's why you are having trouble with the car- you put oil in these shocks

[Lowgear]

If you want to limit suspension up travel to keep the shocks or pan from bottoming out either stack some O-rings on the shafts or use fuel tubing.

If the problem you're experiencing is the a-arms drooping too far and pulling the bottom plastic mounts off the shock shafts than thats another story. I've never seen or experienced that before but I see how it could happen. For the front anyway you can make an aluminum rectangle piece that bolts to the nose plate and extends out under the a-arms a tad thus limiting their down travel. You might be able to do something similar with the back as well.